Waves Audio EMI TG12345 Channel Strip User Guide
WAVES/ABBEY ROAD
EMI TG12345
USER GUIDE
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................3
1.1 Welcome .............................................................................................................................................................................................3
1.2 The Original EMI TG12345 Console ...............................................................................................................................................3
1.3 The EMI TG12345 Plugin ..................................................................................................................................................................4
1.4 Concepts and Terminology ..............................................................................................................................................................5
1.5 Components........................................................................................................................................................................................7
CHAPTER 2 – INTERFACE AND CONTROLS .............................................................................8
2.1 Inte rface ..............................................................................................................................................................................................8
2.2 Controls ...............................................................................................................................................................................................9
CHAPTER 3 – THE W AVESYSTEM ............................................................................................ 14
3.1 The WaveSystem Toolbar ............................................................................................................................................................. 14
3.2 Preset Handling............................................................................................................................................................................... 14
3.3 Inte rface Controls........................................................................................................................................................................... 16
3.4 Waves Preferences (Pro Tools DAE only) .................................................................................................................................. 18
Abbey Road Studios and their associated logos are trademark s of EMI (IP) Limited.
Waves/Abbey Road TG12345
User Guide
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Chapter 1 – Introduction
1.1 W el come
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1.2 The Original EMI TG12345 Cons ole
In 1968, the introduct ion of 8-track recording and increasing sonic experimentation by the Beatles
and other groundbreaking artists meant that the capabilities of A bbey Road Studios’ REDD .37 and
REDD .51 consoles were being stretched to the max. This called for a new desk.
The year before, EMI had already laid out ideas for a solid-state mixer to replace the valve REDD
desks . Thr oughout 1967, meetings had taken place between the Abbey Road s t aff and the
engineers at EM I Central Research Laboratories in order to design a comprehensive mixing console
that would be able to handle the needs of the lates t music recordings.
The resulting console, TG12345, was designed to meet the most demanding recording
requirements of its time. I t was substantially bigger than the old REDD desks, with 24 mic inputs
and 8 outputs, 4 echo sends, 2 CUE/foldbacks, and, for the first time ever, a compressor/limiter on
every channel, in addition to EQ. The c om pr es s or was bas ed on the valve Fair c hild and Altec
devices used at Abbey Road during the '60s, but ended up with a completely unique sound all its
own. The desk was also modular in design, with twelve microphone ‘cassettes’, or channel strips,
that could easily be replaced when faulty. Each cassette contained two input channels that could be
used either separately or as a stereo pair.
All in all, the des k had no less than 479 knobs and controls as well as 37 meters. Since it was larger
than other cons oles (a staggering 79. 5’’ in widt h), engineers sitt ing at the center of the desk were
unable to reach all the controls.
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For several months in the summer and fall of 1968, the new desk was placed in the studios’
‘experiment al room ’ for testing. Abbey Road’s engineers r an ‘clone’ sessions to compare TG12345
and REDD, with two sets of mics placed in the room: one going to the REDD .51, the other to the
TG. The results were superb: TG12345 proved to have a cleaner, brighter and punchier sound than
its predecessor, with unprecedented top end sheen and sparkle.
On the weekend of November 23, 1968, TG12345 MK I was ins talled in the c ontr ol room of Abbey
Road’s Studio Two and connected to the 3M 8-track tape machine. It was first used in a recording
session with the Shadows. In mid-1969, the very last Beatles album, Abbey Road, was made on the
TG12345.
The TG12345 went through several revisions during the 1970s. TG12345 MK II replaced the treble
filter with the same presence filter that existed on the main and group cassettes of MK I. The
ergonomics of the dynamics section also underwent changes. MK II I and MK IV added new utility
options, but the sound processors (dynamics and filters) remained unchanged.
1.3 The EMI TG12345 Plugin
The TG12345 plugin is a channel strip with a three-band EQ. Its treble filters deliver a fixed bell filter
at 5K for boost, and a fixed shelf filter at 10K for cut. The bass filters are fixed shelf filters at 50 Hz.
W e have also added a bell filter for presenc e boost/cut, ranging from 500 Hz to 10 kHz. In the
original TG12345 MK I des k, the presenc e filter was part of the group cas s ette. We have added it to
the TG12345 channel strip for a better user experience.
The TG12345 has a Dynamics section with a limiter/compressor (7:1 and 2:1, respectively) that has
a fixed attack time and six options for release time.
The plugin offer s thr ee routing opt ions , allowing users to determine where to place the EQ (Bass +
Treble), Presence, and Dynamics sections within the signal flow:
• EQ>>Dyn>>Pres – EQ first, then Dynamics, then Presence.
• Dyn>>EQ>>Pres – Dynamics first, then EQ, then Presence.
• EQ>>Pres>>Dyn – EQ first, then Presence, then Dynamics.
The default setting is EQ>>Pres>>Dyn. Together, these three options run the gamut of the routing
options offered by the diff erent vers ions (MK I-IV) of the original TG12345 des k.
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The TG12345 has a unique spread control, whic h is an MS m atrix-type process. This control can
decr eas e and incr eas e the level of the sides w ithout t ouc hing the level of the m id.
Waves has also added several features not in the original console: (1) a high-pass filter on the
sidechain that helps preserve low frequencies during compression, (2) a mix control that gives you
control over the balance of the compressed and non-compressed signals, just as in parallel
compression, (3) drive, (4) noise.
1.4 Concepts and Termi nology
VCA
A VC A, o r voltage-controlled amplifier , is an amplif ier that var ies its gain depending on a c ont rol
voltage, such that the input voltage determines the output voltage. The TG12345 includes a VCAbased compressor. However, whereas most VCA-based compressors only attenuate the signal
(voltage in > voltage out) , the TG12345’s c om pres s or als o am plifies it (upwards compression) at
very lo w levels (below 1.5 V).
In the graph above, the Y axis represents the amount of amplification or attenuation in dB, while the
X ax i s r epres ents the input to the VCA in volts ( 0 dBfs = 13.875 V). As the graph s hows , s ignals
below 1.5 V are boosted while signals above 1.5 V are attenuated. The V CA input is triggered by
the feedback signal through the sidec hain.
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Feedback Com pression
The signal ent ering the compressor is sent to the VCA. The output of the VCA is then split: one copy
goes to the output, while the other is fed back to the VCA via a sidechain circuit. See the image
below:
Sidechain High Pass (SC-HP)
As explained in the Feedbac k C om pres s ion s ec tion above, the input signal is fed to back to the
VCA. Gener ally, the m or e ener gy you have in the s idec hain, the m ore com pr es s ion you get; but if
you apply a high-pass filter to remove low energy from the signal, the result is less energy when
low-frequency energy is present, hence less compression. In the case of a bass guitar, for example,
the abundance of low energy entails lots of compression; but if a high-pass filter is applied on the
sidechain, the VCA will identify less energy on the low bass notes than there is in the actual input
signal and will therefore attenuate the signal less, allowing more low frequency.
Sidechain V oltage
The sidechain section of the TG12345 converts the signal from AC to DC, with the VCA controlled
via the DC current. The higher the DC current, the more compression you get. The sidechain
voltage can range from a couple of mV to 15 V. The amount of compression for each volt is
represented in the VCA graph above.
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User Guide
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