Waves Audio Abbey Road Vinyl User Guide

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Conten ts'

Welcome!...........................................................................................................................................................................!2

Chapter!1:!Components!....................................................................................................................................................!3!

Chapter!2:!Quick!Start!Guide!.............................................................................................................................................!4!

Chapter!3:!Interface!and!Controls!.....................................................................................................................................!6!

Interface!Panels!.............................................................................................................................................................................................!6!

Controls!.........................................................................................................................................................................................................!8!

Chapter!4:!Vinyl!Record!Production!and!Playback!..........................................................................................................!17!

Creating!the!Record!....................................................................................................................................................................................!17!

Playing!Back!the!Record!..............................................................................................................................................................................!20!

Chapter!5:!Vinyl,!A!Brief!History!......................................................................................................................................!23!

Improvements!in!Vinyl!Sound!.....................................................................................................................................................................!24!

The!Decline!of!Vinyl!.....................................................................................................................................................................................!25!

Vinyl!Revival!................................................................................................................................................................................................!26!

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Welcome

Thank you for choosing Waves! In order to get the most out of your Waves processor, please take the time to read through

this manual. We also suggest that you become familiar with www.waves.com/support. There you will find an extensive answer

base, the latest tech specs, detailed installation guides, new software updates, and current information about licensing and

registration. By signing up with Waves Support, you’ll receive personalized information about your registered products,

reminders when updates are available, and information on your authorization status.

Introduction

For more than 50 years, music meant vinyl records. Vinyl was the format for everyone, from teenagers with portable record

players to critical audiophile listeners. Vinyl records were relatively affordable and easy to store. They could be played on any

turntable, and they sounded great. Vinyl’s purely analogue production and playback processes, and its standardized

frequency and dynamic specifications, yielded a listening experience that’s different—and some argue, more life-like—than

digital processes. Reproduction of sound in this analogue format was in many ways subjective, so there were heated

disagreements over tone arms, styluses, platters, motors, and other minutiae of turntables. At the same time, records were

subject to scratches, dust, warping, and more, so practices about caring for, cleaning, and storing these disks developed into

fetishes. Despite this, people loved their vinyl records because they provided unbeatable sound.

It’s this sound that Waves delivers in the Abbey Road Vinyl plugin. It doesn’t just add pops, clicks, and band limiting. Instead it

dissects the technical elements that gave vinyl its sound and it lets you deliver anything from a very subtle recreation of vinyl

for discerning listeners, to aggressive vinyl artifacts for club settings. While bringing you the attributes that make vinyl what it

is, Abbey Road Vinyl is not bound to the physical limitations of records, such as loudness. You create and control the

personality of vinyl rather than being a slave to it.

At the end of this manual is a description of the technology of the production and playback of the vinyl records. This should

help you understand the physical world that the Vinyl plugin is recreating. There’s also a brief history of vinyl records to help

put things in perspective.

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Chapter 1: Components

Abbey Road Vinyl has four components:

1. Abbey Road Vinyl Mono – Mono to Mono

2. Abbey Road Vinyl Stereo – Stereo to Stereo

3. Abbey Road Vinyl Mono Lite – Mono to Mono

4. Abbey Road Vinyl Stereo Lite – Stereo to Stereo

The mono and stereo Lite components can introduce Noise and Crackles to the selected playback

Generation/Turntable/Cartridge setup, and provide control over their level and the crackle density. Lite components also

include the Slow Down effect controls. They do not include the modelled sonic attributes of the

Generation/Turntable/Cartridge functions, as found in the full components, nor do they enable control over Tone Arm

position or Wow, Flutter, or Phase Distortion.

The Lite components require less CPU resources than the full version.

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Chapter 2: Quick Start Guide

Abbey Road Vinyl emulates the entire vinyl process, from the mastering desk at Abbey Road studios, to the processing

rack and vinyl lathe (resulting in the sound of the Lacquer disk generation), to the press factory (which creates the sound of

the final printed generation). There are layback options with two turntable setups: the high-end turntable that is part of the

Abbey Road lathe or a commonly-used DJ turntable. Three popular cartridges are available.

To get started:

1. Listen to your material with the different setups. Turn the TG Desk on/off. Toggle between the different Generation,

Turntable and Cartridge options, and decide which best compliments your material and does what you want to

accomplish.

2. Adjust the Noise, Crackle and Click levels and Click Density. You may want to go for an exaggerated noisy effect

or not use this effect.

3. Adjust the Wow and Flutter Rate and Depth controls. You can exaggerate these modulation effects or remove them

altogether. Note that the values in this section change from setup to setup to match the sound and behavior of these

setups.

4. Adjust the Phase Distortion controls. Abbey Road Vinyl creates and controls phase distortion by duplicating the

input signal and sending one source through a modulator. The other source is unaffected. When the two signals are

recombined, phase distortion occurs. You can increase or decrease the level, shape, and focus of phase distortion

effect by changing the bandwidth of the modulated signal. The HP/LP filters change the spectrum of the modulated

signal.

Increasing the value of the HP filter, for example, results in a “thinner” signal going to the modulator. The recombined

signal will have less phase distortion at low frequencies. Decreasing HP distortion, conversely, results in more low-

frequency phase distortion.

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Note that the values in this control section vary from setup to setup to match the sound and behavior of these setups.

5. Experiment and adjust the Tone Arm position. As the tone arm moves closer to the center of the disk, the frequency

response changes (less High Frequency boost) and harmonic distortion increases. You can automate this control to

change the sound of your material as the virtual cartridge moves from the outside to the inside of the record.

6. Determine the desired Drive levels. Driving the plugin will result in a more saturated/distorted signal. Adjusting the

Drive level does not impact loudness.

7. Experiment with the Slow Down Mechanism:

• Select the Time Format you wish to use – Time or Bars, synced to your session tempo.

• Double click the Length field to enter the length in time or Bars/Beats of the stopping effect you wish to apply.

You can also drag your mouse or use the keyboard arrows to change the length. If your session includes tempo

changes and you have selected Bars as your time format, the length will adjust accordingly at the tempo change

events.

• Press Stop – This will slow down the playback to a full stop. This effect will take as long as the value you have

set in the Length control.

• Playback is stopped until Play is pressed.

• You may turn on Auto resume control for creative effects. When Auto is activated, playback will resume

immediately at the end of the slow down effect.

• Experiment with automating these controls.

Note: You can stop the record from spinning by clicking the left-hand side of the record.

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Chapter 3: Interface and Controls

Interface Panels

Full Vinyl Component

TG Desk

Generation

Turntable

Cartridge

Input

Input Drive

Wow

Rate / Depth

Flutter

Rate / Depth

Tone Arm

PositionLength Time FormatStop / Play Auto resume

Noise Level

Meters In/Out

Output

Monitor

Selector

Phase Distortion

On/Oﬀ

Phase Distortion

Level

Phase Distortion

HP / LP Modulators

Tone Arm

Position

VU Calibration

Crackle Level

Clicks

Density

Clicks Gain

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Lite Vinyl Component

Generation

Turntable

Cartridge

Noise Level

Output

Crackle Level

Clicks

Density

Clicks Gain

VU CalibrationLength Time Format Stop / PlayAuto resume

Abbey!Road!Vinyl!/!User!Guide!

Controls

Input Level

Determines the level at which signal enters the plugin. Range: -18 to +18 dB Default: 0 dB Reset: 0 dB

Input Drive

This control increases the level going into the plugin, while inversely decreasing the output in order to maintain equal loudness. Higher Drive levels result in increased harmonic distortion. Note: At higher Drive levels the amplitude of the signal may be clipped (depending on your source material), which may result in lower perceived loudness. Range: 0 to 100 Default: 0 Reset: 0

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