This was a BAD idea! || Waves Abbey Road Studio3
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2019
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lmao did anyone else get abbey road studio 3 as a commercial for this video?
Yassss!
The programing is real
Yeah
Yep !
yup
This is NOT for make your mixes sound better, this is to give you a different reference if you don't have a perfectly treated room. It is up to you and your experience to take advantage or not.
I agree, also "technically" impulse responses can be simulated, as you can with guitar amps, and doesn't matter if you listen on one set of headphones or monitors.. the difference is noticeable. But... that being said... to mix? well, it's all relative. For a pro that has good equipment and knows what he/she is hearing, anything else will not be a good option, but if someone doesn't have a treated room, doesn't have monitors (or they are bad), or their headphones are subpar, this can give a little better experience at least.
To mix, you have to get accustomed to the sound of your source (speakers/monitors), so if you going to use this plugin, start working with it, and getting to know it, put everything through it... reference tracks included. And do the test after a month or two. Mix with it, and then check if it translates better than your old mixes. If it does?... great! if not?... oh well!
Myself, although I have a set of (cheap but ok) monitors, as I like to work at night, I can't use them so much... so I ended up getting "expensive" headphones which should be great for mixing/mastering (Shure SRH1840). I've got good feedback on my mixes, although they are not perfect, and that has to do with me, and not the equipment ;) But it will have to suffice (the headphones) until I get a place that can be sound-isolated one day.
I just started using this plugin and my mixes translate very well to all playback systems. If you have a great room that you know well, then this is not for you. Most of us mix in crappy small treated rooms that lie to your ears. I can finally hear the low end of my mixes.
Absolutely, been a game changer for me.
Same here...great starting point towards great mixes
+1 It's hard to deny the way it tightens up the low end. It's also really friggen nice to have a reference across the nears/mids/fars and in bypass mode-- my headphones on their own (count 4 distinct references with one headphone setup). Regardless of their accuracy against the "Abbey Road" room, references are references and that's no different than a car stereo, ipad etc etc. I think the setup is both practical and powerful in my tiny home studio space. Finally-- like all gear, its useful if you know how/why you're using it-- there is no audio silver bullet, and anyone looking for that will be jaded upon realizing they probably need to work on developing their ear more than plugin collection.
Me too!
Elder Orange so would you say it’s worth it I have a studio set up in my small kitchen so I could definitely see where it would be helpful to have different references in a professional sounding studio and I have good speakers I use Yamaha hs8s and my mixes sound pretty good for what I’m working with do you think using this plugin will help me clean them up even more and does it translate into other reference points well I.e. car phone computer?? Just curious on your input
Don't agree. Well this is a good reference. For many people, they don't have a good monitor system all the time but the headphone is quite convinient and cheap. The biggest problem for headphone mixing is that good mix in headphones may not translate well on monitors. It has nothing to do with the quality of headphones but the headphones themselves. To be more specific, Using monitors your left ears can hear the sound of the right channel. It's a diffuse playback system, you can hear direct sound, early reflections, reverbs. For headphones your left ear can only hear the sound of left channel. A good mix must be tested in difference playback system such as car testing, monitors, headphones. So with this tech, a talented musician with a laptop and a headphone can produce great music and mixes, not only well on headphone systems but also translate well on monitors. This is the technology I want or many other musicians who travel a lot want. A plugin that can reference your track in great abbey road studio 3 playback systems wherever you are in real world. What is technology for? Making better mix is important. But making the music production process more convinient and cheaper may be more meaningful to some people.
Also, hasn't plugin with crossfade function fixed the problem that you can only hear left channel thru left ear on headphones already?
I get what you are saying in so far, as one of the biggest problems of using headphones is the distance between the sound source and your ears. While you might be able to hear many frequency issues etc. perfectly, many things might not translate at all unto normal listening environments, like homes, clubs, or even your own studio. Because headphones will not let you witness, how your sound is affecting the surroundings of a "normal" sound source, like a pair of monitors.
So this plug is probably trying to insert all the natural "imperfections" and sonic reactions you get, when a sound source is not placed in such proximity of your ears. Things like the sonic "activation" of a room, reverb, early reflections, etc., while trying to eq and filter the sound of your headphones, in order to eliminate it's deficiencies, and then adding some coloring to make it sound like the AR system.
Problem is though, that, as stated in the video, first you will have to have a pair of great headphones, that will cost a considerable amount of money, for the resolution and transient response to be good enough, so that it can in any way try to emulate the sound in a professional studio with a really good sound system.
So given you have those, if this plug-in really takes all the room nodes etc. into consideration, a plug with different emulations of listening environments might be a nice additional feature to double check your mixes quickly in a studio-like situation, when you haven't good the time to really take it on the road and listen to it on various actual systems. But with Abbey Road, we are talking about a highly treated room with super expensive custom built monitors, so even a pair of 2000€ headphones will only be able to give you a moderate approximation of the sonic behavior of your material in the room.
Look at it this way, as a simplistic explanation: if you want to run a realistic emulation of any operation system, or video game console os on another machine, that machine's processing power has to be a lot higher, than required by the os on the original machine, as it is trying to emulate the whole machine, plus processing the programm, or game you actually wanted to use to start with.
So in our case, no EQing, filtering, 3D processing, added reflections, or whatever, can turn your headphones into a super expensive studio listening setup, because the headphone's sonic qualities would have to best these setups own qualities, in order to emulate it properly. For a consumer, it might give you the feeling of being in a room and it might try to "better" the sound, but all only within the limitations of the headphone's given sound possibilities. Transient response can not get quicker and better than what your phones are built for.
And a small speaker inside, or close to your ear (so a headphone) might be able to make you hear lower frequencies etc. but it cannot move the amount of air, or create the vibrations in the room and the listeners body, like a big monitoring system does. etc.
And that is an integral part of what makes it great to mix on those systems. That's physics.
The next problem is, let's say you have invested in a pair of great headphones, in addition to heaving a well treated room with good monitors. If you manage to get an ok approximation of the Abbey Road studio sound on them, it will still sound very different from your own room. And while you will know the quirks of your room and monitors by heart, and can therefore rely on how your mixes will translate unto other environments, you will have to learn from scratch, how this virtual room behaves additionally. It is basically the same as working in an approximation of a studio you normally don't work in.
And if this is only being used to check how a mix translates unto another system, and you can't be a 100% sure still, cause you are actually coloring the sound with a virtual Abbey Road mambo jumbo, that might not be responding the way it should on your headphones, this doesn't make any sense.
@@sergioflores5565 Of course. I'm not saying that this plugin is good enough to replace monitors. If a good monitor playback system is available then there's no necessity to use this plugin. But, it can making the sound check more available and convinient in cirtain occations. The simulation can't be perfect but it's good enough. For example, a Audio technica M50X is cheap with super low distortion as good as the expensive ones. For the frequency response problem, I think this plugin would fix the problem with internal eq. After all this is just a 99$ plugin that allows producers to have something to refer to, you can't be too hard on a small plugin. The plugin won't affect the sound quality because I think no one would be stupid enough to turn the plugin on when printing the mix. Maybe with this plugin there will be a new Avicii or some super talented kid in the dormitory of a university that produce a track as good as fxxk
@@chengzhidai3995 The biggest issue of them all... How do people today listen seriously to music? Through headphones! What it will sound like in a car, from TV speakers, or some mono network speaker, in a club or at a festival should never be the reference. When people mostly listened through the best hifi-system they could afford, well then it might have made sense using speakers in a room as the ultimate reference.
If it was a plugin to master print on the master, it would actually make more sense than it does right now.
As one of several of ways to test a mix, it might make sense, but that specific room, and such a well treated room, is hardly the best way to test how mixes translates.
This plugin is sold on how one would make better mixing choices. Mixing for speakers when most people will listen through headphones, doesn't seem like the best start. Adding compression, reverberation, EQ and could work, if those balances the personal taste of that user, in relation to "mainstream", but that would be a coincidence. Otherwise, it is like adding a nice multi effects rack on the monitoring system, and all that it added will be removed, if not printed.
Frequency correction of headphones, could be useful, but that isn't the main purpose of this software, and it actually further colors the sound, there are other software that attempts to correct the frequencies.
Avicii's talent did not come from sitting in a very expensive, particular studio. Even though he had access to some quite nice ones at the end. But he used headphones a lot. The stereo imaging on his tracks, isn't even made in such a way that hearing them like if with speakers is that important.
Where this plugin would make most sense, is in the listening device that a person uses for listening with headphones, running on top of the music playback software. I'm not sure how one can route audio in iOS, if it would be possible to route Spotify/Apple Music/CZcams (as well as other audio players) through a signal chain with a plugin running... And then they would have to do the iOS version of the plugin.
If I could to that, then I would seriously consider getting an iOS device, and this software (plus other necessary software), just for music playback.
For studiowork, this is mostly a gimmick, at least by how it is marketed.
I totally agree with you, this was in my head all the time
This plug in is actually great. Have used it in compromised locations to mix multiple episodes of a national television show and have also used to mix professional mixes for radio and film. This is not a marketing gimmick it is a seriously good tool. Love the channel by the way, keep up the amazing content. always presented with good humour and intelligence. Just don't always agree.
When will you do a mix with just using snake oil plugins and gear!
Holy shit thats a great idea haha
Just top the master channel with 5 to 10 sausage fatteners and It'll sound great
just crank the good ol ImageLine Soundgoodizer on a channel a bunch of times and bam, youre timbaland
genius..
mind = blown
Taking a moment to add an additional comment here after having used this plugin for a bit, and experiencing mixing both with and without for periods of time. In short, this is easily, easily worth the $99 to me. Does it replace my main/real speakers and room? Of course not, and it's not meant to. What it does is provide another 3 sets of speakers in a different room (via emulation through my headphones) on which to check my mixes. Twice now, I felt lost figuring out the low end to a particular mix I'm working on and this plug-in provided immediate help. The mid-field speakers in particular highlighted the main issue with my mix, and I was able to make a couple quick tweaks and lo and behold, problem solved. I'm finding that if it sounds good in my room on my speakers and also in the three emulated speaker systems, it can be relied upon to translate.I personally wouldn't want to spend all or even most of my time listening to the emulation, but for periodic checks it's fantastic. I would also happily use it in a situation where I'm forced to use headphones.
So, for those of you that actually understand the purpose of this plug-in, big advantages may be had. For those who don't bother to even try to understand and/or just want to make up pseudo-scientific nonsense (impulse responses are manipulated via DSP all the time these days, and we have different drivers/diaphragms all over the place in the recording/playback chain) to justify a truly mystifying take on the whole thing, you're missing out.
By the way, this is the only Waves plug-in I've purchased in ages. I used the demo until the license ran out, then did without for a couple weeks. Really missed being able to check things against the emulated room/speakers, so made the purchase. Again, well worth it, in my opinion. If you're already cranking out mixes that translate well everywhere, then you don't need this. If you're like most of us, this tool may be useful to you.
Yeah, just picked it up for $50 on sale. Definitely worth it as an emulator check and when cranking the room monitors is impossible. Disregarding the head tracking gimmick - this plugin is worth it on special
The head tracking thing is my favorite part. Without it, we're just getting the EQ of the room... which is great, sure, and sometimes I work like that. With the head tracking though, we're literally in the room. In fact, the first time I tried this plugin out with the head tracking, I was convinced that I had actually turned my real speakers on at 3:00 a.m. at high volume. I panicked, threw my headphones off, and reached for the speaker volume control.
One thing I like to do is spin the speaker location around so they're behind me. It really helps create the sense of depth for the "far" speaker emulation.... since I'm actually physically working close to a wall, and there's physically a lot more space behind me. Listening to a mix like this adds a valuable perspective I think. Of course, you can do this without the head tracking device too. But it works great because I just spin my head around and listen facing the speakers, and then just spin back and they're automatically behind me again. You really sense depth this way.
Just bought it.
I usually agree with this guy on most plugins. But unfortunately not this one. This plugin is helpful, at least to me. I don't like Waves as a company and all the insane (boderline fraudulent, yet not technically fraudulent) marketing they do but few of their plugins are actually worth it. Tried it on my headphones and it does give me a better take on mixing. Not sure if it translates that well to actual monitors but on headphones, for now, they are worth the buck.
I might call it excessive marketing, and fake "deals"... but seems like most marketing is all about the deal anyway.... I actually think Waves is great. Especially now with reasonably priced plugins, they're staying competitive. Years ago, with all them crazy prices? No, it just wasn't worth it... because honestly, you can make great music with stock plugins and a bit of carefully chosen saturation if you know what you're doing... and if you, of course, work with great musicians. Waves does have super helpful tech support, which is super important to me.
@@MikeBrayton 100%. It's almost useless without the NX head tracker!
I had a bunch of plugins from Waves, and then they hit me with emails for update fees that were 100s of dollars. At the same time they were selling a bunch of the same plugins for a sale price that was 85% lower than what the updates would cost me. No respect for loyal customers.
Waves plugins still work just fine without the updates. You are not forced to update them.
Matthew Kerkhoff aye bruh just steal their shit to rub it in their faces haha the same shit happended to me. Honestly I have been enjoying my slate bundle more than all of my waves plugins 🤷🏻♂️ and their customer support is amazing compared to Waves.
that's totally right - and it's a convoluted system too. And you really have no guarantee of whether there is any innovation on your "update protected plugins" (some of the old interfaces such as the renaissance stuff could really use larger UI and maybe add some parallel mix knob or M/S processing, and the only one they did was the L2) - and everything stays the same while the chuck out completely "new" plugins that do the same..
Realraven2000 fuck storming area 51 let's all storm Waves HQ and a separate faction can hold Chris Lord Alge for ransom. WE DEMAND CHANGE.
@@realraven2000 then skip the update. You can use the stuff as long as you want. I agree that the WUP plans are often too expensive, but since I'm not forced to pay that, I don't care.
Waves, a company that sells new plugins for less than $50, is now “all about money.” Their prices are literally 1/10th of what they were 15 years ago when you claim they were more about quality than money. I’m not a Waves fanboy, but this rant, especially coming without an A/B mix test, seems to be more about views than quality. I highly doubt that Abbey Road would put their name on it if it was not useful let alone bad or if it failed at trying to do something impossible.
The constant sales are just the initial bait for buying upgrades and upgrade plan. How about buying the plugin for full price (199-250) and getting life time upgrades? NAAAH! Pay 30 for the plugin and 100 every. single. year. after.
100%. In 2009 I paid 350 FRIKIN DOLLARS for their Desser plugin that has been like 40 bucks for the last 5 years 🙄
You’re yelling about the inaccuracy but the real test would be mixing a session using the plugin compared with not using it. Your argument is about a lack of precision but the primary goal was creating a center image, cross-talk differentiation and life-like bass response.
Omg yes brother! One of the reasons I can't stand this guy 🤣
Tyler Rifley Music hahah I watch his vids. His opinions are just that, opinions. But I appreciate his attention to detail. But detail isn’t the goal here. Big picture is the goal with this plug in. Make the details we pick apart on headphones matter less (cuz they truly matter less)
I was going to do this. My idea was to mix the same song using Sonarworks Reference 4 and This waves plugin and let people choose which one sounds better.
Unfortunately the support for headphones from waves is so slim that I don't own any of the supported headphones.
I actually do the first Videos on CZcams using the Sonarworks Studio Reference standard. This means that if you use reference 4 as well then you should hear almost the exact same thing I'm hearing giving people the most transparent listening experience on CZcams ever.
I just started my channel based on this model so I don't have many videos yet but I do atleast one a week so check it out if you're interested. I'm not as fancy as some of these other guys but if true sound is what you seek then you may like what I do.
Gernot Hassknecht I understand the complaint. Different drivers and materials produce the dynamics of frequencies in different ways. It’s impossible to incorporate that but doesn’t make the function of the plugin useless.
Wow, you didnt understand what hes talking about. You still cant change the impulse response, which is such bad for a neutral reference..
Dude: I don't think you understand transfer functions.
Yeah lmao this is such a cringey video
NOW YOU MUST MIX AND MASTER AN EASY PROJECT IN SPEAKERS AND IN HEADPHONES WITH THIS PLUGIN, TO COMPARE AND PROCLAIM THIS PLUGIN SNAKEOIL, without this experiment we can't say anything...
Please do a mix completely with this Plugin and then do the same mix on headphones without the Plugin or on speakers and let the viewers decide wich mix sounds better;)
Yep. Opinions... Eh? We all have one. But at least we can compare 2 mixes
yep. my pet peeve of every sonarworks review
I second that
Yeah that would be super interesting to hear.. a blind mix test
I don't see the point. It is one thing, if the plugin, was designed to correct the frequency response by actually compensating for individual hearing (in relation to the headphones). Or if they managed somehow to actually perfectly simulate the crosstalk of listening to speakers while on headphones. (that could also make for a good mastering plugin, for people that want to distribute music with a headphone adopted mix, and that would make sense today when music is mostly heard on heaphones)
But the effect of a plugin like this, is like putting an EQ and reverb effect in the signal chain, after the DAW but before the sound reaches the ears.
It could impact the mixes in a way so that some people will prefer that mix.
A plugin that is supposed to be like that, and marketed as such could make some sense. If the user knows that, it will color the sound to your personal taste, but leave the mix better suited for others, if they know there is something they can't help themselves from overdoing.
I think the only way to judge this plugin would be to create a mix on headphones and then remix it from scratch on a different day with speakers and compare.
yes great idea !!
I think the idea is that you perfect your mix with the plug-in enabled, using your headphones, because you are in your bedroom with untreated walls, then disable the plug-in for the final audio print.
Correct... the NX instructions state to use one instance on the master buss to sim the desired room during mixing, then disable the plugin during the final stereo bounce.
I have to ask as I have used it and done a brilliant mix down.
You have reviewed this saying it wouldn’t work correct?
Did you personally do a full stem mix down using it and then review your work after? Cos to me you just played the some music then gave your response
Kind of like describe how it feels to drive a sports car without even starting the engine.
Thank you! I think in the same way. It is about the ''soundcolor''. I mix myself with HD800S for Mastering with and without the plugin and it is easier to decide what's wrong with the bass for e.g. when turned on because headphone are not capable of reproducing bass in a room with speaker emulation.
So ... what did the world do before they could pretend to mix down in the world's greatest control room?
@@rt-uh6mt Find a paid studio with relatively good acoustics or spent hundreds on fixing up a room for decent-sounding acoustics which could never live up to a professional studio like ARS3.
b. t.
This really is a void point if you apply this to production in every way.
Why use a VST? Learn guitar
Why get KorgM1 plugin? Buy the real thing
Why play Fifa? Go and play outside in a team.
What’s your point b. t. ? Why work for a living ...build a meth lab instead of a studio...lots of money and success in that...wow we can go all week with this one!!!
Try mixing on it :) the people want to see a comparison
::Fast forwards to end of video to get summation::
::Sees impassioned tirade against Waves in full swing::
::Gets drink::
::Starts video from beginning and reclines::
LMAO
this is a great alternative to meme arrows
nice roleplay nerd
You may not hear the detail because that is what this plugin is pointing out. The point of it is to hear what is lacking in the mix because of the superior environment, treatment and speaker quality. What you may feel is detailed, may not be when held up to that environment, which as far as I can recall has had a world renowned reputation for churning out top quality.
Exactly what I thought. The purpose was NOT to even use it on your mixes but to compare your mix to a world renowned facility. Then ask yourself "what is better about their facility?"
This plugin is for people who are used to mixing in a mix room but for some reason need to mix on headphones. Headphones DO NOT represent the stereo field accurately. This plugin is supposed to fix that when you need to mix on headphones. Its not supposed to make shit sound good. Its supposed to give you an accurate representation of whats there since headphones don't. If you buy nice studio monitors, it means nothing unless your rooms treated. A studio monitors purpose is to give you an accurate representation of whats there sonically. What happens if you need to mix but you're on the road and limited to headphones and laptop? You could make it happen. But you could do a better job if you were mixing based on an accurate representation of what it sounds like in a room. Not trying to beat a dead horse. But i dont think its a marketing stunt for bedroom producers. Wouldn't do much for them. They're not used to nice monitors in a well treated room. This plugin is genius. And if I'm ever mixing on headphones away from my studio, this would be great to have!
Even then most pro studios are now using Sonarworks Reference 4 because their treatment is still never enough.
I use Reference 4 for my headphones and studio monitors and it translates perfectly. And on normal playback systems my mixes sound excellent.
People just NEED to listen to and learn their freaking headphones, if they NEED to mix on laptop and headphones.
Does YOUR room sound the same as Studio 3? Let me tell you something, it doesn't. You won't be able to mix precise with this.
just before I got to watch this video the sponsored ad was for the waves studio 3 plugin hahaha
Didn't Focusrite already try this with the VRM? I still have mine.
Yep.
are you reffering to the Sonar works, from the plugg in collective ? that actually isnt too shabby, It takes your headphones and Flattens them to the parameter of IDEAL soundstage. Ive been fairly impressed by that. Honestly when i saw this abbey roads, i thought immediately 'noble aspiration, but has to be too good to be true. Big fan of Focusrite.
I still use the VRM-box for listening to mixes on my laptop. The strange thing is: Even though it doesn't really sound good it is surprisingly reliable. When I pull out resonances that makes the mix muddy through their VRM it really sounds better afterwards. And I can say I have a liiiiittle bit of experience. After 20 years of mixing. FF VRM works for me.
Yes, I had the Saffire Pro 24 DSP, which was really useful, but there was a lot of comb filtering. I demoed the Abbey Road Studio 3 today and there weren't any similar artefacts. I tried Waves NX before and didn't like it, but this is much better.
To be honest.. I'm my experience, I'm really impressed with the plugin. I'm running through dt1990s via sonar works into studio 3 (with tracking which I think is important to get the right sense of imaging) the detail is maintained and I get a really great sense of the room and speaker placement. Very helpful when I cannot use my monitors. Without tracking the plugin just feels like an effect, but doing the tracking helps you get the right sense of mind of what it's actually doing. First time I tried playing a tune with it on I genuinely thought I forgot to switch the audio from my monitors to my headphones.
What is completely overlooked here is that this plugin enables you to create 5.1 surround mixes. The whole thing even best with head tracking. And without having to install an expensive 5.1 surround system at home. at least pre-production works wonderfully. If you then still have the opportunity to listen to control again in a real 5.1 surround mix studio and make final adjustments, you have a damn powerful tool to pre-produce surround mixes independently from anywhere - for example for film post-production purposes. That alone is priceless and the plugin is a bargain for what it can do.
I don't understand how you can trash talk this plugin without even attempting a mix you literally played 30 seconds of a song and then just went crazy haha
Totally agree with you, do a mix on it and show us the A/B comparison, this is click bait
It's a great plugin and pros who have been in the music business for like 30+ years(whose opinions I trust) have been singing its praises.
It would have been great if you would have mixed part of a song with it that has drums bass instead of just keys. Also, I haven't tried this plugin, but the I've used the waves NX plugin, since I don't have a tuned room, it helped me get a better perspective on my bottom end which jumps around my walls. W the NX plug it pushes the music back as if you are listening in a room at a distance, so you can hear the collective sound of all the instruments. So you are supposed to lose details bcz every day music loves don't listen to music on hi end headphones or studio speakers placed perfectly in the stereo field. I use NX as another means to check my mix. It sounds murky imperfect and helps with ear fatigue when spending much time on headphones.
How does it compare to SoundID Reference for headphone EQ adjustment?
When a sound arrives at the same time to both ears it’s sounds to me like there’s a center image on headphones. I’m not sure what you mean by that.
idk might be a good thing if making music in your headphones is what you do, its the only option for a lot of people
H-Delay and their dbx160 are the only *waves* plugs i still use.
I like their other plugs but don't like to rely on them, mainly due to their upgrade system, - and the fact that i personally find quite a few of their plugs give me ear-fatigue. - like chewing gum, they soon lose their flavour...
Yes! I have a lot of Waves and I still use H-Delay once in awhile. The others I have (PuigChild, CLA-LA, Abbey Road TG, H-everything...) sound great on a single track but a whole mix OD's on them every time.
The plugin is actually good, if you have a weird room it helps doing better decisions. Btw, an IR is meant to be used as part of an equation to add (or subtract) to others linear systems to produce the resulting response. So, yes, you can stimulate pretty much everything. It’s not perfect because in reality response isn’t linear over time, but you can approximate.
A song with vocals and real instruments would have made this video a heck of a lot more useful.
Yeah you would think he wouldn't use a washed out piano instrumental to test a virtual room simulation.
I think this thing has it uses. Not as a mastering tool, but as what is it: A simulation of an old studio room. Lots of folks are working with laptops and in-ears nearly everywhere they go. I guess it's a plugin that could help them to mix better. With headphones the stereo-basis and bass response is your biggest problem and I think this plugin could help those guys. I don't think it is a replacement for good speakers but it IS better then no real speakers in my opinion. - Time will tell, if laptop producers are picking that plugin up and making better mixes or not.
Well, guys, I've downloaded demo of ABS 3 and now I am going to make a different mix of the tune that is already finished
I think you're totally missing the point here. I gave it a try and recorded a brand new song...drums, guitars,vox ...etc... Usually, i would give it a listen in the car after first mix and had to make a few adjustments. This time(using studio 3) i was happy with the mix after first shot....just like what they said: It translates perfectly from system to system.
And i also have a decent setup with a couple of headphones(shure404 and audiotechnica ath-m50), near-field monitors(rokit), far field 2,5kw through my 8kw stage amp(2x10", 4x12",4xhorns and 18" sub) and a decent mid field old school sony amp with nice vintage yamaha speakers) Sounds pretty much the same as their studio 3 emulation. And the one thing i got from it, was: i could compare my room sound to their emulation and have a decent reference. totally worth the money. And on your rant about speaker response: its all about frequency response and even the crapy headphones have a frequency response higher than your ear and better than 24bit 41k.
-yeah, it's not for everyone(obviously /\ ) but i can totally see it being a useful tool for mixing on the go, on a laptop
or for another reference point for your own room. After you're done you just click it off or remove from chain(pretty important step of the process:)
A track wont magically sound better, everywhere, because of the use of a simulation plugin.
Either you have an issue in your monitoring situation that causes you to make the wrong decisions.
Or it was just a coincidence.
Every room, every audio system has its own issues, there is no mix that fits all situations.
If you end up having to fix your mixes after listening in your car. Then you might have issues with the sound in your car, and your specific car might not be the best source of reference for everyone else. Or you have issues with your monitoring system that makes you tweak levels of certain frequency bands, so they cause issues on other systems than your main monitoring system (this could either be because of the frequency response through your monitoring system, or that your personal taste is to mix certain frequencies in a way that your monitoring system can handle, but other systems might not).
If this plugin had emulations of a lot of rooms and a lot of speakers and it was about picking up on issues that others might experience, then that would make sense.
Or if all it did was to introduce the channel crosstalk experience while listening on speakers to ones headphones (then it could also be used as a master FX to make mixes for headphone users).
But it isn't, it is about selling the dream of sitting in a studio space that is very expensive to rent. And unless one is lucky with circumstances in a way that it perfectly compensates for the issues of ones personal monitoring system, it won't make mixes sound better.
@@TheJonHolstein I agree....not for everyone. If you got some scientists to treat your room and tons of money, I'm absolutely sure you don't need it. But for less $$ than a evening out in a bar, another reference point is not bad at all. Anything else for listening to your mixes is way more expensive. And as far as I know after you're done, mixes should sound good on any system....from cheap little transistors on the beach, different cars (including my ex cop car) to kick ass stage sound systems. I am no expert but I've been doin this as a hobby for over 20yrs. From my early teens. And I don't care what kinda "trick$" people use to make it, if it does the trick I like it.
... actually, I think you could make a release for headphones only, with this plugin, it just wouldn't sound the best on speakers. In fact, I'd love a plugin like that on my phone for listening with headphones.
-i am not affiliated with waves in any way, just not a big fan of problem seeking generation. Options in my eyes have always been great...I wouldn't down talk any option ever, coz I'm sure it fits someone 😉.
But what if you do a mix with this plugin to see if there is a centre image with head tracking enabled
First off, I've never purchased anything from Waves so I'm not defending the plugin in any way, it's just that near the end of the video you seem almost irrationally angry about the program which is very strange.
When you started (3:36) you say "It really sounds like I'm in a room" when using the plugin yet later (7:13) you seem very angry and are yelling "I don't see why everybody believes them"?
Maybe you don't understand the purpose of this plugin?
To me it seems the purpose of this plugin is to change what you hear in your headphones to be as if you were listening (mixing) via monitor speakers in a room. If it works, and you said they do (3:36) then it seems you can listen through your headphones and make a mix that should be equal to what you would hear through monitor speakers in a good room. You didn't test that part though.
One you made the mix via the plugin you don't need to continue using the plugin to listen to the music. Just like after you have mixed on real monitor speakers you don't need to only use those speakers to listen to that music.
Not everybody can build or customize their recording area to be great for mixing through speakers and this seems like a cheap tool to give them that sound environment (virtually) in their headphones. Much cheaper than dedicating and renovating a room for better sound.
As you freak out near the end of the video (6:34) you seem to be yelling that software can't change the physical aspects of your headphones. That is true but you don't listen to "headphones", you listen to sound coming through the headphones. A plugin can change that sound.
As an simple example, if headphones raised the 5kHz frequency 2dB you could change the music at 5kHz to be -2dB which sort of balances it out. The idea isn't to change your headphones physically but to change the sound going through them to better represent a real world environment for those who want or need to mix only via headphones.
At 7:40 you again get really mad that the software makers suggest doing your mix using this. You say people are going to release their music into the world where others don't use that plugin and it's going to make their music sound like shit for some reason? Why do you assume everybody is a fucking idiot and not listen to their finished music through regular audio players like via a smart phone, stereo, or their car? If this fucks up people's completed music don't you think they would stop using it?
It almost sounds as if you don't realize that when you mix music you should listen to it through multiple methods. Stereo speakers, smart phone IEMs, even go out in your car to listen to it. You should try to make your mix work well in many environments and it seems this plugin helps people stuck on just headphones simulate a sound coming from real monitor speakers. Sounds like a good option for those who can't mix through real speakers.
Well said!
Looks like you haven't understood something along the way. Also, seems like you are getting strangely defensive...
Looks like you haven't understood something along the way. Also, seems like you are getting strangely defensive...
Yeah this is why I can't take this guy seriously. So much click bait. So much whining. Put up or shut up.
@@DaveyMulholland Mr. Batsu's comment mentions that he is not defending the software but questioning the youtubers rather emotive approach at this review - and being a youtuber with enough following to be of influence, challenges as such should be made! Its totally ok to question something if it doesn't feel right- just like you did!
The “blind fold” had me lol! 😂😂😂
As usual, a fun honest review. I agree with you this plugin can't create the optimal environment to accurately finish a mix on headphones but it does have a place. Those of us with home studios. Especially when you have kids. It can be impossible to mix most times. So I picked up the first NX plugin and would use it to mix on headphones at night when the kids were sleeping. However, I NEVER considered the mix finished. I'd always check my work on monitors and do the final pass then. Often I was pleasantly surprised how decent my work was with the virtual environment. Especially as you get used to it. So in pro studios, I'd give it a big snake oil. But for home studios (which is where I think Waves is focused now, bigger market, cheaper prices) it can give us hobbyists some time back...
Can’t help but notice that he didn’t use head tracking and calibration. Pretty darn amazing in my opinion.
There is a list of specific headphones to use it... Sonarworks headphones I consider a better option and more usefull...
What do you think?
Definitely, I have the studio edition of Reference 4 with the measurement mic and my mixes translate extremely well between my Monitors and Headphones and sound exactly how I want them to on other playback systems.
I actually have the first Videos on CZcams to use the Sonarworks Studio Reference Standard which brings the most transparent listening experience on CZcams ever. I probably shouldn't be telling my secrets to big CZcamsrs because they will jump on this too but being known as the first to do this and have everyone copy me should boost my credibility well above most of theirs.
Just because some of these guys are fortunate and have all this fancy equipment doesn't mean they have the proper ears for mixing and mastering music.
I'm not well off but I focus on what matters and spend my money wisely. I would challenge any of these guys to a mix battle where we mix the same stems and let people choose which one sounds Better.
@@wtssmaller never said I was the first to use it. Lots of people use it. But I am the first to use it the way I do.
@@dynamicaudiomastering6487 - How do you know you're the first? Others may use Sonarworks but aren't on here bragging about being the first to do it. What exactly are you doing that is so new? Explain your process. Otherwise you just sound like someone trying to get their name recognized with a gimmick. You'll earn credibility by producing good mixes and offering good content on your channel.. not by being "known as the first to use sonarworks on their CZcams videos".
BRO i have been commenting the Exact same thing I have sonar works and LOVE it. I use it with my 2016 audio technica ATH M40x's and i get clear centerstage. Great ADVICE!!!!!!!!!!!
Sonarworks aims to try and get your room or headphones as close to flat allowing you to translate better across systems almost the opposite of this plugin which tries to pidgeonhole your monitoring into the sound of one place.
Reviews a mixing tool without mixing through it....solid work
what's the point? You can't change or improve impluse/transient response in headphones... or speakers. His point is that what Waves is purporting the plugin can do is physically impossible to achieve. The plugin is essentially masking all of the signals in your recording. Who in their right mind would want to do that? And on the Stereo/Master Bus? Would fck up everything.
@@waltzguy14151 Ummm, no its not masking anything. If you have good headphones, this plugin does the job. And putting in the master bus is exactly where its meant to go. Of course you dont mix down with in activated.. unless you're stupid.
@@CFox.7 So, you say that after you put it in the master bus and you are using and decide the mix is ok, you have to turn it off when you mixdown ? Well, will not then sound as it did before using the plugin ?
@@codrutcroitoru remember its designed to trick your brain into thinking you are listening in a room - but you have headphones on... so yeah, turn it off before mixdown and it will sound slightly different in your headphones ( even the manual says its VERY important to turn it off before mixdown ). The plugin is essentially a spatial emulator ( like a good room reverb ).. its adding realistic, mixing room reverb to your sound while using headphones. You dont want this reverb on your mix when you mix it down as it wont sound good through normal speakers.
@@CFox.7 Yes. It makes sense now :) Thanks :)
Since so many are working primarily on headphones these days I think tools like these are called for. But to me they are to be used for reference checking, not to be enabled all of the time.
I could say this is a “Monitoring” plugin, not a “Processing” plugin. Yes they do process our output in a some HRTF, binaural or whatever. But this plugin is meant for us to hear better, not changing the way our mix sounds. It’s really useful especially if you don’t have a properly treated room, a good pair of studio monitor, or sub bass. FYI, their “Far” mode (the third monitor switch) is very very usefull if you are struggling with low and sub frequencies. They literally translate those frequencies so that we can mix and adjust properly! Not affiliated with waves or Abbey Road Studios, but definitely recommend this plugin!
I have a completely different experience. I have Sennheiser 800S headphones and Sonarworks. Pretty close to my ideal spot in my corrected room but with the headphones and Sonarworks (for headphones) I still couldn’t get the bass level right and this is reflected in the difference I hear between speakers (Yamaha HS8 and HS8S sub) and headphones. Adding this Waves plugin along with Sonarworks gets me to where I cannot tell the difference between my ideal spot with monitors compared to my headphones with Sonarworks and this new Waves plugin. I don’t care whether it sounds like Abbey Road Studios or not, but with all my stuff it makes for a much better experience than without it. So in this rare case I respectfully disagree. Enjoyed your passion in the video and can’t wait for your next one!
James Gramze My experience too
I got the hs8 and had the exact same experience. I'm running some dt1990s while mixing in some sonarworks into abbey studio 3. With the tracking on it really did make me think I forgot to switch from monitors to headphones when I pressed play in a knee jerk reaction sense. I think they have done a fantastic job. I found the near, mid and far speakers have been very helpful for mixing too, especially for bass..
Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of great gear and STILL you need this plugin to get things right? Seriously???
@@rt-uh6mt Who said anything about need? Its a tool to be used in certain situations and we saw the value in it.
Do you use Sonarworks before Studio 3 or after?
Your rant was very amusing LOL.
But on the serious side, I think you missed the whole point of the technology. Sometimes we are forced to mix OUTSIDE of our own control room. For example, how do you generate a client mix when you're attending Summer NAMM?!
We can't carry Genelecs on the plane and the hotel guests and staff won't let us mix at volume at 2:20pm. So, mostly, we have to use headphones. Try getting a very good mix using headphones with sound being direct injected into each ear. Good luck with judging how well your M/S processing is working and good luck maintaining a good center in a complex automated mix.
The plugin is actually a VERY GOOD IDEA since it solves the center imaging issue of headphones AND it provides THREE sets of "speakers" to audition your mix.
I suggest you mix on headphones, audition that mix on several systems (to check how well your mix transfers) and THEN do the same with this plugin. I believe you will find it helps you get a better mix.
Serious question: wouldn't you just use a ref track anyway to account for changes in environment.
Using Ref tracks is a given. The issue comes down to the anomalies that using only headphones bring.
Stereo imaging can be way off... I'm using Sonarworks Pro now and that seems to help a lot.
But then, what do you do for various speaker sets (when you've taken a taxi or Uber from the airport and don't have your car for listening)? @@mindstuff417
@@sijel Had it been a general plugin, for checking mixes, sure, and AR3 was an add on, like buying patches. But an emulation of that room, only that room, it is severely limited. I would have loved to have it as a plugin on my phone to listen to music trough when using headphones, for that I think it would be great. As a mix checker, sold with the dream of hearing mixes in AR3, it is more marketing than serious at being a useful tool.
Did you use it yet? I've found it VERY useful.@@TheJonHolstein
Been waiting on this one:-) You didn't disappoint. Honest and very entertaining. Keep them coming!!!
Awesome that someone is still willing to give really honest reviews. Waves is an awesome company and maybe this would be the right step but in another direction
Honest reviews about what? He didn't even try mixing on it.
I`m testing this plugin since 5 days and personally really began to love it. I really love making beats at night (and mix them at the same time) and because of my homestudio situation/neighbours I can`t work on monitors after 10 pm. I`m working a lot on my AKG K141mk2 headphones (maybe not the best for producing, rather a good reference headphone) and regularly made such big mistakes with them, especially in the drums and bass/808 area. Often it took me very long, to fix them, change sounds etc. on monitors then the next days, what is pretty frustrating, because I currently don`t have a real studio.
But with this new plugin, it became way more easy, especially my sound selection is way better. I made a complete new beat with mix and master to test this plugin and it personally really fascinates me, especially the 3 different monitor settings. In my opionion waves did a really good job with this, even the "NX", they brought out before, was nice.
Great!! I love this very much! ...always changing the speakers distance to refresh my mind from another point if view. Fantastic plugin
Should I OFF this plugin when I making export ?
@@yats7322yes absolutely, bypass the plugin when exporting
I have spent about 40 hours doing remixes using trial version of this plug in for the entire week, and my conclusion is that it is a helpful ‘tool’ for checking your mixes, although the marketing gimmick is kinda stupid.
What this plug in does is make badly mixed songs sound absolutely horrible to the unbearable level, while good mixes sound decent on any of its near/mid/far options. Ignore the whole thing about ‘being in the control room’, but think of it as a tool that lets you check your mixes in different settings, for reference.
It is a bit of a snake oil marketing ploy, which I don’t like either, but seriously, download the trial version and run your mixes through them. This plug in is not designed to make things sound pleasant, but it provides very good check points, and a mix that sounds decent through this plug in translates very well to other real speakers/headphones/earphones etc.
Thanks for the comment, i really dislike waves and their marketing ploys but i feel like this video wasn't a proper review and completely missed the point.
I sooooooooo agree! I tried the demo and this plugin in fact makes mixing harder!
What do you think about Sonarworks and a crossfeed plugin like Goodhertz CanOpener?
When i saw ad on fb i cracked
I kind of agree with you as they seem to be going down the "emulation" road by packaging a glorified impulse response with this. They would be much better creating a room correction plug-in which allows you then to audition your room in different environments than force-feeding it into a state of the art of mix room.
Dunde bunyaadi, even four years ago room correction plugins abounded. AND - if you spend a certain amount of money on monitors (which is an area I don't believe can be skimped on and yeah, you have to spend some money)...point is expensive monitors have their own room correction capabilities built-in, actual physical controls, I don't mean software corrections The German company that built mine (no need to mention their name) is so high and mighty they say "don't adjust unless you know what you're doing."
If u bounce the file does the plugin change the quality of sound ?
Loved the video!!! Your passion just oozes through the screen! I completely understand and agree with your frustration!
Hey man! Since switching from Pro Tools to Logic I've really been missing the LoFi plugin that Pro Tools comes with and have been unable to find an alternative. I'm referring to the distortion and saturation that the plugin offers. I'd love to see a video where you analyze what it's actually doing using Plugindoctor and all that jazz, to hopefully get one step closer to finding an alternative.
Nembrini Audio Lofi Clipper
@@damienlewis7882 Yeah, that's the closest thing I've been able to find. The distortion sounds very similar, but I'm mostly after the saturation and sadly it doesn't really seem to catch the sound of the LoFi saturation. It still might be useful for similar tasks, so I might buy it in the future and try it out for myself. :)
OK, just to verify..... you did not mix any music at all with the process to compare to a mix done on your speakers? That is all I would be interested in hearing about.
Ya true...this rant is pretty well theoretical...not to defend Waves but at least they did the R&D haha...just saying
John Hynes - Of course they did the R&D. They had to sell it after that and make some money.
Once again.. dude uses the VST's most basic functions in the worst possible manner.
Akin to his Sausage Fattener review... lol this guy..
Zahari Shtonov - so what the hell is this guy trying to sell me? Show me an A-B mix with some research demonstrating how terrible and untrue he claims it to be
@@johnhynesproductionslimite7522 adding, EQ, compression, reverb, and other effects on your monitoring system, might help you do better mixes, and if this has all the right settings for your specific taste, so that the actual track will have compensation for your personal taste in relation to "mainstream", well, then sure it could work.
But you will also miss the added effects then monitoring on other systems, like parts of the track FX set-up is missing.
As one tool to do audition mixes, like having multiple listening environments, it could also be useful. But then a selection of less treated room, would be more useful.
If all it did was correcting frequency response of the headphones, it would be useful, but it further colors the sound.
Speaker listening emulation for headphones can make sense, if what it does is add in the needed crosstalk, but mostly for a rough stereo-image mix, not the end result... But today, when most serious music listening happens trhough headphones, it does seem backward to mix for speakers.
The best use of this plugin would rather be to use it to listen to music through, when using headphones, listening to a mix that was done with speakers in mind.
I agree with you. When I heard about the plugin I was surprised that their product purposely adds reflections and EQ to simulate a room you are not in and you are supposed to take mix decisions under those conditions. I’d prefer to mix in mono! :-)
This plug-in is pointless if you already have a professional studio, but if you live in a shared house and only work on headphones like I do, and it's great to have a different reference - and it has really helped my mixes improve
100% mixing with good monitors is always the way to go case closed!
clive saunders but have u tried it ? Not being an asshole
Provided it doesn't break the bank.
You are rapidly becoming a legend in everyone's lunchtime. Bless
Its dinner time over here, but okay :-)
@@Whiteseastudio I love what you do man, much respect to you.
Honestly, I really watch his videos all the time while I'm at work on my lunch break lmao
This is hilarious I'm literally watching this on lunch 🤣
I bought the plugin and I have not had good results. I thought maybe my material must be really bad but then I listened to some of my favorite RnB songs with this plugin and it made them sound muffled and hollow. I referenced Mary J Blidge and a host of other heavy hitters and the same results; the professional mixes sounded hollow with this plugin. I used HD280 and the MDR 7506 with the headphones modeling and the results were the same. When I mix with out the Abbey Road plugin, my mixes sound better on all sound systems. And, when I reference my favorite RnB songs without the plugin they sound better. It may be me however, I will not be using that plugin anymore. It's going into my plugin grave yard.
Discarding a plugin based on a youtube video is no different than buying one based on a commercial. That said, I have never tried the abbey road studio 3 plugin but I have used waves NX and the NX plugin with my ATH-M50x is standard for my mixing.
@@lespaul2550 I never use the head tracking feature. I always disable it. NX is one plugin that took me time to come around but once I did it became a very useful tool. The only drawback I have found mixing on headphones is that sometimes you'll get it wrong with the sub frequencies. It is a good idea to always check with monitors. I've found a way to judge my lower frequencies using frequency analyzers but I advice to always check with monitors. I've done 5.1 mixes on headphones with NX which translated excellently in the cinema.
This is the first mix I did completely on headphones with NX. I had just been robbed and all my equipments stolen. My quick fix was a laptop NX and ATH-M50x headphones. Let me know if you think the mix has drawbacks from using headphones.
czcams.com/video/wBAMmAAhoQs/video.html
You have given a worthy performance, the frenzy went well! And I have to agree with you 100% this is a side-show to the Abbey Rd series, more of a 'fun thing' than anything else. I gave Sonarworks a trial, room correction did not work well as I didn't have the mic to calibrate with, but the improvement on the HD 650's was noticeable - I just bought a pair of Yamaha HS-5's instead and I'm very pleased I made the correct choice!
I own the waves nx plugin and it has these headphone profiles, too. But the big problem with it and also the plugin in this video is, that there are just a few headphone models supported. They don't support beyerdynamic 770 Pro, which are really widely used. I'm a bit confused to see that they still support so few headphones in this brand new plugin, which is made to use with headphones.
Nice video by the way 😁 greets from Germany
Ive been working with sonar works, and they have about every headphone, and hate to admit this, but yes it creates a damned Good center stage. when i take phones off its IDENTICLE to what is pulsating through mi monitors. focus rite had in their plugg in collective a while back. this has been a useful tool for me, esp when decibals, Neighbors are a factor for some
I think Waves will add more profiles in future. I use Sonarworks after NX for phones not profiled in NX.
You are 1 of the only musicians that's not afraid to let the big companies know when they get something wrong. This proves that you are genuine and that you're not just chasing sponsors. Much respect!
Why can't you get centered image from headphones? Does not matter where the 3rd speaker is, you only have two ears to receive the audio, which should be the same whether you hear it thru headphones or speakers right? Would anyone explain that? Thx. And I am not asking about the physical impact your body feels in front of a subwoofer.
So, I want to point out that you can create an inverse filter response. This is literally how crosstalk reduction is performed on your cellphone and smart home devices. However, properly matching your true HRTF is difficult and will lead to issues ,but it is very close to the best we can get. The main thing limiting an inverse is the slew rate of the headphones compared to the speaker you wan to model. So, he is actually incorrect.
I like this plugin sounds great
perhaps you should try a creating a mix with the plugin?
Used the NX plug back in the day just as another reference point for checking mixes, but I've gotten to the point where my mixes sound good anywhere, regardless of what sound system. Room treatment, skill, and a little bit of Sonarworks.
Can you please review the Bassroom plugin by mastering the mix?
I got this ad while watching.🤣
I gave this plugin a test drive and I couldn't help but think "gimmicky." Can you say, "Snake Oil?" I've spent an enormous amount of time and money working on my own room - and getting used to my environment and speaker systems so I'm wondering why I would want to start remixing in anybody else room - even if it is Abbey Road's Studio 3. Never mind the fact that they only had a few headphone calibrations. Sorry Waves....this one's not for me.
Waves has always been top notch I did demo the Nx - Virtual Mix Room over Headphones plugin and was amazed at what it could do. Because of it I went with the Abbey Roads 3. I can only imagine what it can do using the headsets and actually feeling like your in a mixing room.
I had a bunch of okay plugins from Waves then of course had to update the plugins for more than I even paid for them. I’m totally fine now with companies like Fab Filter. Better tools. Better company policy. Transparent pricing. Don’t come out with new versions every year. Very well supported. Much rather support such a company than the money grabbers that are Waves.
You need to assign the headphones your using in the drop down menu on the right..It's a very cool tool. Warren at Recording like a Pro loves this pluggins..
Not sure if I agree with all of this. If you always want the most detail and accuracy, then why not always mix with headphones? Great headphones are a lot more accurate and detailed than a well treated room with great speakers, and a heck of a lot cheaper.
There's a reason most producers and mixing engineers prefer to mix in a great room instead of headphones, and this plugin aims to make this experience more accessible for people without such a room. Not sure if it's successful at that though, I haven't tried it yet.
The stereo-imaging differs with headphones compared to speakers (due to channels cross-talk when the audio reaches ones ear from speakers and reflection in a room). But today when most people will actually listen on headphones, it would be better to mix with headphones... Or perhaps, rather have the opposite of this plugin, something that attempts to make speakers sound like headphones (impossible though).
There are many reasons why one might not want to wear headphones while mixing.
Comfort. (heat, weight and for some isolating properties that may feel claustrophobic).
Hindrance to move freely (moving around in a room while mixing on speakers, though means that one has to reference the sound all over from the reference point, otherwise there will be balance issues due to proximity issues, an issue that one would not have with headphones as they will sound the same, no matter how much one moves in space)
Talking to mixing partners.
Even greater risk of damaging ones hearing.
And more that I can't think of at this moment.
Didn't have a chance to use this plugin, but probably it will be an interesting thing to listen a track through this plugin when it's completely finished. But agree, it's kinda strange to work through processing of any kind, to turn it off in the last moment, and only then - export.
I brought the CLA NX. I was super suspect but tts really helped me get better at mixing tanslatable low end. I think its more like training wheels I'll end up not needing as I get more confident.
Totally agree. I'm a big waves fan but I'm skipping this one.
He is, of course, 100% correct. Take away the GUI, replace it with generic controls, and no-one would download it as a freebie. Engineering for the Assassin's Creed brigade. A detailed picture of, for example, an 1176 does not make the best interface for a compressor. Most engineers who grew up using them would tell you that no two sound alike (even at the beginning or end of the day!), and would have sold their souls for more control over their parameters. The plug in world would benefit from less nostalgia and more innovation. And I'm ancient! We pushed the available technology to its' limits, and now that the technology has virtually NO limits, no-one seems to know how to use it. Invent me a plug in that listens to me dictating what to do with the mix! "Go back a couple of bars and check out why that one snare hit is sounding over compressed..." "Can we lose some of that nasal thing on the sustained note in the chorus?" That would be a worthy thing to be doing R and D on, rather than paying graphic artists to render rust spots on a Pultec clone!
There is one way I could see myself using this plugin. As a way to listen to music with my headphones on, to emulate the cross-talk, because music is often mixed with speakers in mind... though today, most serious listening is done via headphones and not a hifi-system... And when it was, seldom on near field monitors in a treated room, either, so listening in other ways, may always cause issues.
I could even see my self paying for it. But I would not really care for the UI then. The fact that is was modeled after that specific room would not necessarily be a downside, but I'm sure they could have gotten other perfectly good rooms for a lower rent. It would still depend on the sound being good, and renting an expensive room could be a sign that they were serious about it.
But I would like to be able to use it on the go. So if they launch it for iOS, and it is possible to stream any audio through it (even from streaming software), or they launch it in an external headphone dac. Then I would be highly interested. And as such it would make sense.
On emulated UIs, I would say that it is however at times very beneficial, as unlocking too many option can turn software in to a mess, that is difficult to learn, and then copying the layout of an existing panel does involve a lot less R&D. But it would not have to look like a photocopy of the actual hardware.
He demod it without the head tracking enabled which is retarded. I can assure you, with the bluetooth head tracker, this plugin is scarily effective and invaluable if you're not working in an ideal room or traveling.
I think what Waves did was give you the room (only). Rather than give you an array of tools to mix with they give you only the room and its parameters and tools for this room (frozen in time) so you can mix like this room with given parameters provided. I believe you will have to mix to this room rather than mix to your clients requirement leaving you to ask the client if this is the mix they want - is acceptable or totally off for their music.
I'm having a terribly difficult time mixing on my ATH-M50x's, they are a joy to create sounds with, but after 'producing/mixing as I go' I end up with something that sounds great on the headphones and ultimately terrible out of my speakers and vice versa. So, just by having this calibration to those particular headphones may well be a huge asset for me and get me far closer to the ballpark than what I can currently achieve.
I used to work only in a well tuned studio, but now I mix mostly on headphones in different locations and I can honestly say this plug-in has worked really well for making headphone mixes translate to the real world. Advances in psychoacoustics have enabled many "impossible" things to happen in audio over the past 10 years, and I would put this in that category. I'm a fan of your reviews, but I agree with others who suggest actually doing a mix with this and seeing what you think after that. It's certainly MUCH better than mixing on headphones without any room simulation, and I'd also venture to say you should treat it like every time you go to a new control room... you need to "learn" the room to know what you're getting. The advantage to this is, once you learn the room, you can take it with you anywhere.
I agree. The plug-in is certainly redundant if you have a well treated room, but if not, it can be massively helpful.
Psychoacoustics are based on principles of physics which haven't advanced or declined since the Big Bang.
But I see what you mean.
My problem is that I bought a DIFFERENT Waves Studio emulation and that studio isn't particularly great, LOL.
"...you wanna have the purest signal to your head..." NOPE, I disagree!
As soon as you're mixing with any monitors in any room (which is the usual way of mixing), the purity is gone. Sure, if you're mixing on headphones you've got that direct injection in your ears and your mixes will probably translate well to other headphones. But as soon as you want to translate to non-optimal-listening-environments (that's every room, be it a living room or a car) you have to judge your mixes in a room you know well on speakers you know well. In this point I absolutely agree with you!
Can I mix solely on headphones, be it with or whithout AR Studio 3? No!
Is it a good additional tool for judging mixies in a different environment other than my imperfect home studio? Of course it is!
As an additional tool for auditioning mixes in another room with other speakers, well, then it is very limited. Just a highly treated room, with expensive equipment. Unless you are mixing your music only for people listening in expensive studios, it makes little sense.
Stereo-Speaker-Crosstalk emulation for, could be a great tool, for rough stereo-image mixes with headphones. But that is not all it does. And the rest makes little sense.
Besides, today, most people do serious music listening on headphones, so why the focus on mixing for speakers.
The best use I can think of for this software is as a tool for listening to music through, when on headphones.
After many years and getting better are producing and mixing music, I realized that you only need EQ and compression for most things. Saturation and such are cool when you understand why you actually need it. A lot, and I do mean, a LOT, of plugins are straight-up snake oil. Things worth buying from Waves are their SSL plugins, API plugins, you can do quite a lot with their Q10 EQ, but that is now outdated with Fab Filter Pro Q 3. You can say until you are blue in the face to new guys doing this that all you need to do is learn how to use EQ and compression but still, they fall into the hype trap and buy these plugins. Good review and thanks for your honest opinion!
I'm surprised you guys are so high on Waves Plugins - and I have plenty myself. In terms of fidelity they test in the mediocre range.
In terms of integrity as a company with the aborted licensing scheme they're at the very bottom of the list.
"Many years," are the key words you used! It takes time.
i think it can useful when using headphones on museums when a voice explains the art or what its the use for it?
you do know that this software works best with a few selected headphones right? like the audeze el-8, akg k-702 etc. you might wanna try the headphone EQ setting and use the right headphones before judging and dismissing it as another snake oil. you might they sound better than your cheap earphones in that video
No, he is still right. If it was a headphone correction software, with the only purpose of correcting the Frequency response of a particular set of headphones, then you would be right, but that is not what it is.
This effect, is like adding some kind of multi-fx in the monitoring chain. It is possible that doing so, will make some peoples mixes sound better, because it compensates for a bit of overdoing that particular person does... But then one has to be lucky, in that this plugin performs the right tasks.
isn't that a pity you do a review without using the nx head tracker? what about trying to mix on it with headphones instead of talking about transient responses?
there are a lot of advantages you didn't mention...advantages over mixing on headphones without the plug in. im not comparing that to great speakers in a great acoustic environment- which is something only 5% of your viewers actually might have ...
If you have this on your master bus when you bounce your track, wont it run through the plugin therefore printing the effect of the plugin? or am i missing something?
You are instructed to turn the plug-in off before bouncing down. It is just a reference tool.
I don't know about you but I reference my mixes in many different places all of them probably shity and not ideal. 🤷
I use this plugin with headphones by Orange amplifiers and do comparative listens with Bose and then shit earbuds just to listen for different details. Of course, the better the headphones, the better the mix, but anyone who thinks they are gonna get a killer pro track with ear buds is fooling themselves. This comes in handy when I have to work late into the night for comping and setting my reverbs and delay levels properly. It also comes in handy when my wife needs to sleep and I need to work **smiles**. I have gotten some great midnight mixes out of this, that hold their own on real monitors as well as every other speaker I listen on. I am not the greatest engineer, but this has definitely helped me while I was learning. Its actually not bad and I wish this was around when I had a home apartment studio, where I wasn't really allowed and couldn't really afford to do a proper sound treatment in my living room with dogs barking and neighbors stomping on the ceiling.
Of course, it is never going to compare to the experience of being in Abbey Road studio...it's just designed around it. I have the head tracker too. I say, give it a go mate and just see what it's like start to finish and do a comparative mix. my 2 cents **wink**
The year is 2019 A.C. The Music Production is entirely occupied by Waves.
Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Producers still holds out against the invadors.
As a waves user, I'm just here to watch you rip on waves.
Me too..
Can you attempt a mix with it only?
I demo'd this plugin a lot and I like it mostly. The Far Speaker sounds realistic to me, but I'm also using a Subpac to get the low frequencies, and Sonarworks Reference for the head eq. Plus, I put in my own head and ear measurements. The Near and Mid speakers seem to be missing some kind of ambience on the sides and top. One thing odd I did notice though, if the snare in a song has some good punch, the snare comes out louder than it should on the Far Speakers.
Yeah, you’re too hung up on the wrong things. I’ve been mixing through headphones for a while using Nx technology. I stand by it.
AMEN
I’m a Nashville Producer. I’ve recorded & mixed at Abbey Road, Ocean Way, and BlackBird. All the hate needs to stop. 3 different rooms. All great rooms. Abbey was there first & it’s not all hype research more than you did for this plug in. Really it’s a tool & and a great one if you know what your doing. I did not see anyone in this vid use the NX. So quit being cheep and take your ass to all the studios listed. Oh wait y’all can’t. Never been there and never done it. I stand behind the product. And me I’m not a big fan of plug ins. But this one is special. Hard to wrap your head around without Experiance And I love recording at Abbey Road and will continue to record at Abbey as well as Ocean Way, The Tracking Room & Blackbird. So quick to jump, but missed the whole point & big picture. Seeing a lot of these comments that are twisted. I bet your studio is not top grade or busy. Because reading these comments why would I hire you for recording or mixing or mastering? Much less send you work of my overflow. Noise Floor A/V I’m with you, I stand by it 100%
The mixing plugins for mix engineers who only mix for people using Abbey Road Studio 3 to listen to music :D
There's a lot of Waves plug-ins that I really like and use regularly. This one, on the other hand... There's just no substitute for having a good room with good speakers.
There is Chris. This plug in.
I love how honest and passionate your videos are man!
Honest and passionate? He didn't even try mixing on it and went into full rant mode. That's not honesty. It's bias. If he simply hates Waves for commercial reasons, just say so. That's true honesty.