Post by andyhowell on Aug 13, 2019 13:12:58 GMT
This plugin is receiving a lot of attention on the net with all kinds of gushing comments made about it. I had a few hours spare this morning and decided to give it a spin and though I'd share my views here.
The idea of the plugin is pretty simple but uses some clever technology. The plugin allows you — through headphones — to hear your mix as if you were sitting in Abbey Road Studio 3. The clever software works differently from a stereo track in headphones. Normally left goes into one ear and right into another. When you listen in the real world you are hearing, say, the left channel through your left ear but you are also getting some of that signal in your right. The plugin replicates this and effectively presents you the eq-ed sound as if you were in Studio 3. The idea is you can then adjust your eq and reverb to the point where it sounds good through the plugin. This is supposed to give you more consistent results across a range of playback material. Sounds logical but at £100 this is not a cheap purpose so I decided to demo it comprehensively. The final thing I should say is that the eq curve of the plugin is matched to headphone presets. Luckily I have a pair of Sennheiser headphones for which there its a pre-set.
In Practice
The plugin does make you adjust both the eq of your mix and review the reverb you are using. The plugin gives you three monitor systems to listen to and each of these gives a noticeably different sound, I'm not sure this is that helpful.
So, I rebalanced four songs and then auditioned them through my hifi, through iTunes and through my Sonos system.
The first thing to say is that these do produce a consistent 'sound' across the mixes or the four songs. However, I'm not sure this produced better versions of the songs than my original files. Indeed, on each system I tended to prefer a file I had processed previously. The Studio 3 mixes did present reverb very differently. Everything sounded a little boxy to me which can be a feature of my mixing space. But listening to the original files on the different systems I didn't hear a problem!
Conclusions
This is an interesting idea but in practice I'm not convinced. A far better solution is to basically know the characteristics of your recording and mixing room!
At £100 I'm not convinced and the demo won't be around long enough to play with it for too long.
I feel a bit sad about this. Some of the Waves Abbey Road plugins are very good — the reverbs for example. Their tape delay is good. And their mastering plugin I find really quick and intuitive. But this seems just hype to me to sell something at really too high a price!
The idea of the plugin is pretty simple but uses some clever technology. The plugin allows you — through headphones — to hear your mix as if you were sitting in Abbey Road Studio 3. The clever software works differently from a stereo track in headphones. Normally left goes into one ear and right into another. When you listen in the real world you are hearing, say, the left channel through your left ear but you are also getting some of that signal in your right. The plugin replicates this and effectively presents you the eq-ed sound as if you were in Studio 3. The idea is you can then adjust your eq and reverb to the point where it sounds good through the plugin. This is supposed to give you more consistent results across a range of playback material. Sounds logical but at £100 this is not a cheap purpose so I decided to demo it comprehensively. The final thing I should say is that the eq curve of the plugin is matched to headphone presets. Luckily I have a pair of Sennheiser headphones for which there its a pre-set.
In Practice
The plugin does make you adjust both the eq of your mix and review the reverb you are using. The plugin gives you three monitor systems to listen to and each of these gives a noticeably different sound, I'm not sure this is that helpful.
So, I rebalanced four songs and then auditioned them through my hifi, through iTunes and through my Sonos system.
The first thing to say is that these do produce a consistent 'sound' across the mixes or the four songs. However, I'm not sure this produced better versions of the songs than my original files. Indeed, on each system I tended to prefer a file I had processed previously. The Studio 3 mixes did present reverb very differently. Everything sounded a little boxy to me which can be a feature of my mixing space. But listening to the original files on the different systems I didn't hear a problem!
Conclusions
This is an interesting idea but in practice I'm not convinced. A far better solution is to basically know the characteristics of your recording and mixing room!
At £100 I'm not convinced and the demo won't be around long enough to play with it for too long.
I feel a bit sad about this. Some of the Waves Abbey Road plugins are very good — the reverbs for example. Their tape delay is good. And their mastering plugin I find really quick and intuitive. But this seems just hype to me to sell something at really too high a price!