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RS124 Compressor

Dynamics (Compressor / Limiter) Plugin by Abbey Road
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RS124 Compressor has an average user rating of 3.00 from 1 review

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User Reviews by KVR Members for RS124 Compressor

RS124 Compressor

Reviewed By irapotato [all]
November 5th, 2010
Version reviewed: 1.0 on Windows

Abbey Road, take me home.....

To most musicians out there, the name "Abbey Road" instantly brings up the iconic image of the Beatles walking across a crosswalk, the cover of one of the most memorable Beatles albums. The name Abbey Road also applies to Abbey Road Studios, one of the most historic recording studios in music history, where the Beatles did a ton of recording in new and innovative ways.

Most recently, Abbey Road Studios has been creating VST / AU plugin emulations of its' one-of-a-kind mastering equipment, its latest product being a supposedly perfect emulation of three of the flagship valve compressors used since the 60's. Since one-to-one comparisons are impossible, I'll be judging this plugin on sound and ease of use, as well as making a few comparisons to other vintage-style compressor plugins. I used the RS124 on an old laptop with 1GB RAM, 1.7 GHz dual-core processor, running Ableton Live 8.1.3.

The plugin requires iLok activation, which was quick and easy. After activation and installation I opened Live and inserted the plugin on an instance of XLN Audio's "Addictive Drums". The first thing that surprised me was that instead of having three separate VSTs for each compressor (or serial number, as I call them) there was just one VST named "RS124".

I strongly recommend you read the manual before using the plugin, as the GUI somehow manages to be both simple AND confusing at the same time. Very little is intuitive, even if you are accustomed to using compressors. For example, though one of the main features of this plugin is the ability to switch between three different compressor models, it's impossible to know how to do it unless you RTFM. Instead of having a built in menu to make things simple and intuitive, you click on the (tiny) serial number plate on the compressor and select which model to use on a drop-down menu.


ALOT of this plugin simply is - very little is explained in the plugin itself, and, despite its deceptively simple GUI, it requires alot of knowledge of little things. Without thoroughly reading and memorizing the manual it's very hard to know the difference between the three compressor models, and the "superfuse" setting, not found on the original compressors, has an effect I still need to consult the manual on to explain coherently.

However, none of this really matters if the plugin sounds nice, and when care is put into it, the RS124 is a very nice, if not limited, piece of work. They all have a distinctly vintage sound, and once you know how to traverse the GUI it does become simple to use and get great sounds. The release is unchangeable (with the exception of the superfuse, which makes the release time equal to the attack time), and makeup gain is notably absent - there are no options to make the final product louder, only softer, which means that you'll usually need to add a bit of gain after the plugin to make up for the lost volume.

The differences between the three compressor models are slight. The main differences (besides GUI) are the release times: according to the manual, the first and second models have slow releases, making them best for mastering, and the third model has a much faster release, making it better suited for individual track compression.

An interesting feature of the RS124 is the "Hold" setting. The compressor has a very loud "click" when it clamps down on an audio signal. In order to counter this, Abbey Road added "hold" settings to the original compressors. When the recovery time is set to "hold", the compressor never releases - meaning there is no decompression. Between every release setting is a "hold" setting, so that after priming the compressor, you can simply turn the recovery knob one click to the desired recovery setting. Related to this is the "balance" button, which is used to manually trigger a release when the recovery is set to "hold".

Overall, the compressor is great, but it has some issues stemming from one particular fact: though perfect emulations are nice, I'd much rather have an intuitive GUI than a totally perfect emulation. Too much energy was put into having everything EXACTLY THE SAME, and not enough energy was put into making a GUI that was intuitive to the point where anyone could pick it up and use it. It almost seems like the GUI was an afterthought, and it really does hurt the plugin in a major way. Sure, it sounds very very good, but I know that it's possible to make a plugin that both sounds good and is easy to use. I've seen more complicated plugins that sounded great and were easy to use, and there's no reason to put up with it. It sounds good, but its a hassle to use.
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