Abbey Road/Waves REDD Console Channel Strip

[zedd]

Thanks for the explanation.

The REDD is fairly static on both channels, while the VCC due to it's "summing device" (I guess I should have posted the individual channel plot) has a slight shift in the stereo field. This is indicated by blue (L signal) and red (R signal).

So I am supposing that VCC deliberately sums in this particular way in order to achieve that subtle effect created by the phase differences? And wouldn't that be the same result you would expect if you performed the same analysis of 2 channels of a real tube console (like the actual REDD desk)?

I'm interpreting this as Slate Digital going a step further in trying to emulate analog realism. Would you agree?

Whether or not my assumptions are correct I'm glad that I already have VCC because I do agree with the idea of it being ideal to have both plugins to use what sounds best with particular track material.

I'm really interested in doing my own sonic experiments and comparison tests, but it will have to wait until I have enough time to do it properly. That means there'll be no REDD demo for at least a few more weeks...

[Compyfox]

Well in this particular case, the plot from Slate VCC RC Tube is from the summing device.

Read: Stereo, with crosstalk emulation. This introduces the channel shift (red/blue indication). Though that doesn't mean that it's having phase issues, just each channel working independent. I think I'll post plots for an individual RC Tube channel later. Which should ideally show a pink plot.

This is by no means Slate being more realistic - just a different approach.


I also have to check the REDD in Stereo Mode again, to see what's going on. Though I do remember that the CHANNEL 1 and CHANNEL 2 mode (if you setup the stereo plugin to Channel 1 on L and Channel 2 on R) didn't result in any drastic stereo difference.

But I will get back to it.

[zedd]

I just realized that I have a poster of the REDD desk that came with my copy of Recording the Beatles.

Here's a little eye candy for this thread...

[Compyfox]

Try these:
http://www.harrisaudiosystems.com/REDD37Console.html

http://www.dograt.com/2008/04/06/emi-re ... ack-mixer/


To those that don't get the routing of the console:
Left and right of the fader banks are the EQ's for each channel (input), on top of the faders, is the routing matrix for the output. By modern means, it could be considered a "split" mixing console by design, not an inline one.


Here are more closeups ofthe Siemens/Telefunken V72 preamp, the EQ's, the ABBEY ROAD consoles, and some German consoles as well. According to this thread, there is only one .51 still existing, and that's in a private studio in London with no further source.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end ... ouble.html


Want gear pr0n, trust GearSlutz.



EDIT:
Couldn't find that old "Creedence" project, sorry. But I'll try to provide some more plots later today.

[tronholic]

Hello,

Little deviation from the subject at first.
Waves has far superior distribution chain than Abbey Road Plug-ins.
Lots of small, medium and large size distributors all over the world
whereas Abbey Road has only small and selected group of distributors.
Diversity in distribution chain ensures more flexible payment options
as well, from the point of customers that is.Those who cannot use
credit card nor PayPal pretty much still have access to Waves plug-ins,
but it ain't so with the Abbey Road plug-ins.It is wise to think all levels of users coming from various backgrounds in this regard.Waves has also more flexible pricing structure through their distributors and sales, hence the larger potential customer base.Just speculating scenarios and possibilities here.

I guess if the RS124 Compressor would have been distributed by Waves,
sales figures would have been much higher than they were and currently are as
it is a plug-in exclusive to Abbey Road Plug-ins site.
Obviously it won't happen as it is based on Cool Stuff Lab's technology.

Who knows, maybe Waves will actually release Studer J37 model some day.

Back to the REDD console plug-in it self.
One can always chain those modules and create sort of "monster" console
as long as one's beloved "petty-puter" can lift all of them on his shoulders.Heavy lifting!

Thick sound is quite easy to achieve, but one has to be careful with gain structure and that drive knob.Too much drive and ear shattering, nasty aliasing and high harmonics will occur."Do you fancy a decapitation?", it says.
Impressed mi lord, impressed indeed.

Just another speculative thought.If REDD.51 amp model is based on actual measurements from the British Grove, one reason not to mention the owner might be contractual and/or trademark association.

Best wishes,

[Compyfox]

All right, another picture and info dump.


The following plots show a THD+N comparision between the MONO instanes of REDD with a (dunno why in Stereo) channel instance of RC Tube. Additional all stereo instances of the REDD both with CH1 on both channels and CH1 and 2 on a stereo plugin.


Let's start with the a channel instance of VCC RC Tube v1.0:


As you can see, VST Plugin Analyser recognized this plugin as "stereo" rather than mono, so slight changes on a stereo channel are the norm. On mono channels, you don't (or should not) recognize anything. Then again, the differences are so subtle that you can't even notice them on the plot, but only in the noise.



On to the MONO instances of the REDD console again, with drive at -10:

WAVES REDD 17 (mono, 48kHz, drive -10 instead of -6)


WAVES REDD 37 (mono, 48kHz, drive -10 instead of -6)


WAVES REDD 51 (mono, 48kHz, drive -10 instead of -6)



As mentioned earlier, pink readouts mean "L and R signal produce the same output". Since I got plots from mono instances, this is only logical.



Now let's compare it with stereo instances.

First and foremost, the VCC RC Tube BUSS plugin (again v1.0):


This is the plot I posted earlier. Here the readout is correct and should show different signal being applied to both L and R. Keep in mind, the RC TUBE BUSS plugin also introduces strong crosstalk (IIRC, at about -65dB at 1kHz). Something the REDD consoles do not offer.

Also the noise is about 20dB stronger than the REDD. If desired, this can be compensated if you use the "Analog" knob on the REDD plugins and turn it up to -4 or even 0.



Now on to the Stereo instances of the REDD, but with both Channels (CH I and CH II) setup to CH I - again, drive compensated to -10:

WAVES REDD 17 (stereo, 48kHz, drive -10, both CH set to I)


WAVES REDD 37 (stereo, 48kHz, drive -10, both CH set to I)


WAVES REDD 51 (stereo, 48kHz, drive -10, both CH set to I)


As you can see, the stereo instances produce similar output on both L and R. No sight indifferences, no further interaction.



Let's take a closer look at what happens if we change the channels on the stereo instances. The L to CH I and the right to CH II.

WAVES REDD 17 (stereo, 48kHz, drive -10, CH I and II active)


WAVES REDD 37 (stereo, 48kHz, drive -10, CH I and II active)


WAVES REDD 51 (stereo, 48kHz, drive -10, CH I and II active)



This is what WAVES was talking about that each channel does sound different, though barely noticable. On closer inspection of the plots, you can see the L (blue) harmonics shine through the R (red) ones. And even though this module does not offer crosstalk (which can be easily emulated, again: google), you can create some sort of interesting sound shaping on stereo channels (sub groups, FX returns, mixbus) if you route each stereo channel to an independent channel within the plugin.


Compared to RC Tube however, the REDD tube console is still more subtle if we go by plain THD numbers. But eats about twice as much CPU.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

They think that the "60's" and "70's" will keep the cash flowing for them effortless.

Unfortnately ZINO dude and something I can not stand personally is the amount of people (people that mostly just listen to music casually) stuck in the seventies and sixties. Sad bastards sucking up way too much rose tinted nostalgia every bong rip or even worse those whom were not even born/around then but will always insist they were the greatest of times. Just IMO and 2 pence FWIW. It might be a good plug-in but I'm passing on the shit attachted with those glorious times

Dean

edit: nevermind

Ditto.

So this went abruptly from an announcement of a plug-in emulation of an old British console to a...crass music-era-and-those-who-like-it bashing bonanza.

Ooooooo kay....

A.M. Gold what have you got against what I wrote honestly, Where did I "abrubtly change an anonounment of a plug-in emmulation of an old british console (I think you mean't english console there btw but hey I ain't one for nitpicking) to a...crass music-era-and-those-who-like-it bashing bonanza"

If you read what I wrote there is not a single insult crass or otherwise aimed at anybody in particular (Although I do happily admitt it can towards any audiophool whom moaned about the beatles back catalogue being painstakingly remastered only to say the originals are way better for anywhere between 1 to x amount of bullshit reasoning to affirm thier audiophool superiority for example). Alright it might seem a bit harshly phrased but it is just my opinion of this old gear getting dredged up and immortalized as some sort of holy grail for those whom go on grail quests. Backed with a heap of marketing trip...that sadly alot of people buy hook, line and sinker into in absolute belief that inserting an instance on each track will make thier own tracks sound just like the beatles with all that glorius magic yada yada yada. I'd bet anybody that even the so-called 'best band that ever existed and will ever exist' would jump on what we have at our disposal today as audio engineers and not look back at all, They would obviously choose/use whatever their producer and/or engineers recommended instead of sticking with the archaic which I am also certain those whom designed, built and maintained were constantly looking to improve and gladly ditching magic components for stability. OTOT I'm not really at all surprised that Abbey Road dumped the bigger two and went TG from alomst every perspective the TG's are hands down superior. The myth of human progress at its most ripe

Anyway that aside and as I do actually like/use both transistor based and valve based gear for microphone pre amplification plus alot more, Although not comprehensive by any means ome More On The REDD, REDD Components (Including Replacements And/Or Near 1:2 Builds Of) + Pure Pr0n If You Follow Alot Of The
Linkage On The Same Pages. Most unsurpringly, It doesn't/wouldn't cost that much to build your own, Not the EQ section(s) here as the Waves dsp plugins cover that (Sure there is plenty information if you may wish to look into that). Alot of other 'You know you want to' gear including EQ sections if as said the linkage is further rinsed:
Drip Electronics, Drip Family Of PCBs:
Fourseven (REDD47): http://www.dripelectronics.com/index.ph ... &Itemid=33
Fourseven (MICRO): http://www.dripelectronics.com/index.ph ... &Itemid=54
Further Links For The v2 Drip Family Of PCDs REDD Related:
http://www.dripelectronics.com/sitedocs ... manual.pdf
http://www.dripelectronics.com/sitedocs ... manual.pdf
http://www.dripelectronics.com/sitedocs ... ection.pdf
http://www.dripelectronics.com/sitedocs ... 2power.pdf
http://www.dripelectronics.com/sitedocs/47_ver2_bom.pdf
Drip Electronics Use/Stick To The Original & Still Available Sowter Audio Transformers aka EA Sowter Ltd. Utilizing the 9970 Transformer for the Microphone Input stage & 9980 for the Line Output Stage.Here are links to those: http://www.sowter.co.uk/vintage-audio-transformers.php
http://www.sowter.co.uk/schematics/EMI-REDD47.pdf
The already mentioned Revolution Recording Equipment Redd.47 Mic
Preamp, From RecProAudio.com's DIY Pro Audio Section:
http://www.recproaudio.com/diy_pro_audi ... edd_47.htm
Phadrus PHAB Microhpone Preamplifier: http://www.phaedrus-audio.com/phab.htm
Phadrus Audio's London Console, This one is a proper industrial (almost steam punk) looking monster: http://www.phaedrus-audio.com/london.htm
General Bits About the original: http://www.phaedrus-audio.com/pharos.htm

Hope some of you find this useful and/or intresting, All the best. I am not around to crawl under anybodies skin Again Compyfox thanks for the detailed information man, Appreciate it

Dean

[hibidy]

It's called teh interwebz, or "shit happens".

I dunno, for me stuff is simple, it either makes crap sound better or it doesn't. Ymmv

[Dean Aka Nekro]

It's called teh interwebz, or "shit happens".

I dunno, for me stuff is simple, it either makes crap sound better or it doesn't. Ymmv

Well Chris my friend, I can not argue with that at all

Nice one and a big manly bear to ya

Dean

[Compyfox]

Wow... nice link dump there, Dean. Might build my own .47 preamps if I have too much money lying around. If they all come with spareparts ready to build, even better. But I'm not that blown away actually.

Which brings me to my reply.

I gave the REDD another spin. And I'm a bit underwhelmed to be honest. Not with the EQ (though I hate the fact that it's not locked in 1dB steps! But press on the numbers of the EQ, you get at least 2dB steps), but with the saturation in general.

This console does definitely not give you any instant gratification. And yes, I tried for two days in a row to drown stuff in reverb, cut the lowend, print on virtual tape machines (AMPEX in this case, 7 1/2 ips) over and over and over. Current sample material is just too modern. Or I don't know how to pull this off properly.




The song:
"Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have you ever seen (the) rain" (instrumental)

I couldn't find that old "Creedence" recording I did in 2008 for a test in engineering school, so I dug up some sources, mashed together some MIDI's (since I was lazy), played an awfully sloppy part with RealGuitar v3 in Joystick mode and called it a day.

Instruments used:
Kontakt 4's stock organ, Pettinhouse DirectBass 2, Rayzoon Jamstix 3 (customized Bonzo Kit, just Kick Mic, Snare Mic, Ambience Mics), Halion Sonic SE for the piano and Musiclab RealGuitar 3 with a picked steel guitar.



Here is the rough mix MP3 (no limiting, RMS -19dBFS):
http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... r_tape.mp3


The next MP3 is with the REDD in .37 mode, EQ's are all in POP mode, saturation turned down to -10 and noise turned up to -10. The only additional EQ I've used was on the FX channels (2 stereo ones) to roll off the highend, and a LC at 35Hz with 6dB/oct on the master to compensate for the lowend build up due to the tape machines and samples I used. The REDD does not come with a LC filter.

http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... r_tape.mp3



BTW:
I easily maxed out my CPU for this demo mix. Here's a screenshot of the project. ASIO is clearly hitting 98%

Screenshot of Cubase 6 (size 2x1680x1050)



And to those that want to do a blind listening test:
http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... demo_A.mp3
http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... demo_B.mp3


Here are the WAV files in 7zip form (48kHz/24bit, stereo).
http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... _demos.zip


No cheating, no "nulling" (here it would be obvious), just listen - which one of these is with a crosstalk matrix and which one isn't? Though it might be dead obvious. Then again I didn't care actually - just wanted to show that it's working "without" crosstalk as well.



So yeah - there you have it. Enjoy, leave critism if you like.
Mixed on uncalibrated speakers btw. You have been warned.



BTW:
I think personally the REDD 2band EQ is just more usable than the SoundToys Radiator one. The Nomad Factory Altec is somewhere in between if setup to Bass = 100Hz and Treble = 10kHz. But the REDD has a different EQ filter interaction than the ALTEC 9063A

[zedd]

I gave the REDD another spin. And I'm a bit underwhelmed to be honest.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. Interesting results, and not much of a massive improvement in any of the audio demos to be able to say "OMG I have to have the REDD plugin to add magic to my tracks!"

In the first examples, the version with the REDD on it does sound better because there was a bit of a muffled sound which needed to be brightened. REDD EQ did the job, but I imagine that this brightening of the signal could have been achieved with almost any EQ plugin, and probably even more effectively with some.

And to those that want to do a blind listening test:
http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... demo_A.mp3
http://www.studio-compyfox.de/testcorne ... demo_B.mp3

I'm interested in the results of this. I can't tell you which one is supposed to be the one with crosstalk, but after a lot of A/Bing, it was clear that I liked the more open quality of demo B better. Very subtle difference, but it seems to breath better. If I was trying to decide which treatment to use on the final master of the song, I would pick B.

[Compyfox]

I'll keep my eyes on this thread and collect answers, guess I'll reveal it in a couple of days or so.

Why do you think it's "breathing" better? I kind of try to get behind the phenomenon why "crosstalk" is needed/wanted.




Regarding the EQ:

Yes, this could have been done with other EQ's as well. But the REDD one does get there very quick. Especially with percussive material IMO.

I should have maybe done a mix with a similar EQ to get closer to the REDD mix just for A/Bing purposes. But I wanted to show what can be done with samples ran through tape machines (setup to "lofi" on purpose, 7 1/2ips, AMPEX tape machine), some "internal" VSTi tweaking (at least for RealGuitar and Jamstix) and or tweaking of distortion devices (bass and organ) - then going from there.

I guess for this, the demo shows perfectly what the REDD is capable of.


The project preparation took me about a day (around 5 hours of work). I then only added tape machines, compressors and send FX, did a rough mix. That was roughly another hour until I was satisfied.

From then on, I only added the REDD EQ - and about one to one and a half hour later (adding EQ, finding the right balance between instruments, tweaking send levels), I was satisfied with the results.

What you hear (the bounces) is one mix with all REDD instances turned off, and another one with all REDD instances active.


I might need to try this mix with the ALTEC EQ and maybe no saturation plugin other than the used tape machines and the pre-EQ compressors, eventually even VCC RC TUBE (which is about the same age). The additional saturation by the REDD is indeed subtle. However on purpose - I did underdrive the console after all. I can pretty much setup the 9063A like the REDD POP EQ, only the frequency interaction is different. Might be worth a try, don't know if I'm in the mood to do that.


One thing is for certain - I guess I will use my NF ALTEC clone in the future, setup like the REDD pop EQ, for all kinds of percussion work to get that modern "drum" sound. You have to somewhat admit, that especially the kick and snare benefit from the boost around 10kHz. No wonder - this is where the harmonics reside, also the Q of the bell EQ is moderately wide. And taking into consideration that the midrange is reduced in the process while boosting the "treble", we barely need any more EQ.

In this particular case, a two band EQ is(!) more effective. But... so far (and AFAIK) only the ALTEC clones and the REDD pull that kind of interaction off.

[@midnight]

that extra something that gives them the warmth and tonal fingerprint of Sgt. Pepper?

Lol!

All you have to do is slap this plugin on and your music becomes a wall of masterfully arranged flutes, strings, mellotron, piano, and of course, your vocals instantly sound like John Lennons!

[Compyfox]

You forget the slapback delays, chorus and Abbey Road chambers which were abuses for reverbs. I think this adds a lot to the old sound.

Though like I earlier said - without the mics from back in the day, stuff that is mixed today (even if under-edited) just sounds "modern" - this is actually a good thing.

Imagine recordings like "The Beatles" or "Sgt. Pepper" not just refurbished, but actually recorded and mixed with todays gear (however limited to two band EQs, certain "old" delays/reverbs, etc). It would sound somewhat towards the direction as I presented.

At least IMO.

[@midnight]

honestly, i feel like you could make the Sgt. Peppers sound using an ultra modern SSL console and a handful of modern condenser mics...

(if you use the same instruments they used)

somehow people on this forum got the idea the compressor or eq they use is more important than the instrument and instrumentalist itself...