Abbey Road Brilliance Pack

[t_d]

just did a bunch of a/b/c/d'ing between these and:

UAD precision
UAD helios
UAD 1073


abbey road smoked them all. a LOT of character, in a good way.. really really sweet. the 10k on the PEQ was nice, but a bit lifeless (which could be OK in some cases)... the 10k on the Helios was harsh in comparision. Abbey Roads sounded very very warm.

might have to bite...

[manthe]

Originally Posted by t_d

just did a bunch of a/b/c/d'ing between these and:

UAD precision
UAD helios
UAD 1073


abbey road smoked them all. a LOT of character, in a good way.. really really sweet. the 10k on the PEQ was nice, but a bit lifeless (which could be OK in some cases)... the 10k on the Helios was harsh in comparision. Abbey Roads sounded very very warm.

might have to bite...

I found the Pultecs quite comparable (actually, I ultimately preferred them after tweaking)...

I thought the Neve stuff was just different in my tests. Not better/worse. For instance, on four different types of snare tracks, the UAD 1073 sounded better on 2. Abbeyroad beat out the Helios on vox, but not on certain guitars (some it did), and never on piano (though they certainly weren't bad at all!). While they beat out the Helios on vox, and rivaled the Pultec, I still liked what the Prec. Enhancer KHZ does better than any of them.

I found it to be very source dependent all together. As such, I might change my mind about buying them if I start to find more sources where the Pultec can't get me comparable results. BTW - Sometimes I had to do simultaneous boost/cut to get the results with the Pultec

I also found (like another poster) that I had to push my outboard EQs a little harder to get comparable boosts.

[t_d]

ahh.. the Pultecs.. yes, forgot to try those...

will do that

(i was the poster about needing to push the hardware more..)

[Izzi]

Hey All,

I'm interested in picking up the Brilliance Pack. Anyone know if it's compatible with Logic Pro 7.2.3

Thanks

[M2E]

Is it possible to pick these up through PayPal As well? Just wanted to know.

Thanx

Marc

[astronmr20]

Originally Posted by izzi

Hey All,

I'm interested in picking up the Brilliance Pack. Anyone know if it's compatible with Logic Pro 7.2.3

Thanks

It's audio units.. no reason it shouldn't be...

[astronmr20]

Originally Posted by t_d

are these SHELF eqs? if not, what's the Q?

My guess is there is no straight answer to that question... it appears to be somewhat program dependent.

This aint no traditional eq (:

[Doc No]

Originally Posted by izzi

Hey All,

I'm interested in picking up the Brilliance Pack. Anyone know if it's compatible with Logic Pro 7.2.3

Thanks

Yes it does!thumbsup

[Chris]

Originally Posted by astronmr20

My guess is there is no straight answer to that question... it appears to be somewhat program dependent.

This aint no traditional eq (:

I think there are graphs in the Beatles book I have at home...

[LateRiser]

I've been testing these in PT HD and notice latency isn't properly compensated here either. When inserted on one of two duplicate tracks, the combined audio of these tracks gets all phasey and muffled. With any other plugin, PT's delay compensation engine works correctly and the audio stays intact.

Hope Abbey Road fix this because sonically, these plugs are stunning! I'm demoing Waves JJP at the same time and so far the Brilliance Pack appears to be a far more useful addition to my arsenal.

In fact they have made me very curious about the Abbey Road Mastering Pack. Did a GS search but didn't find to many user experiences with those - anybody want to chime in?

Originally Posted by Dom & Roland

Feel free to ignore this quote!

My point is it doesn't line up perfectly (with delay compensation on) as i think the plug in reports its latency incorrectly to the host....

I deduced before posting, that it was an abbey road thing as none of my other plug ins do this

As other people have said there are ways round it....

As a quite interesting footnote....The 10k on the box is amazingly close to the top end on my studer 089 mixer 10k i assume since they were probably made around the same time, perhaps studer may even have been inspired by the abbey road design.

[Izzi]

Originally Posted by Doc No

Yes it does!thumbsup

Thanks

[AMIEL]

Originally Posted by LateRiser

Hope Abbey Road fix this because sonically, these plugs are stunning! I'm demoing Waves JJP at the same time and so far the Brilliance Pack appears to be a far more useful addition to my arsenal.

Actually I was interested to know how they compare with the Waves JJP....I will be demoing all those new plug ins soon.

But we tend to get very excited about new Plug ins. I always A/B them and find that differences in reality are not so big or meaningful between some plug ins...I am sure the Abbey Road Plug ins are great..but also are many other great Plug ins...What really push me to buy a Plug ins is a unique characteristic , feature or something you can not get from any other Plug in of the same type.

So what do you guys find about the Abbey Road Brilliance Pack that is really unique and you can not get from any other Plug in??

[macleodgrant]

Originally Posted by AMIEL

What really push me to buy a Plug ins is a unique characteristic , feature or something you can not get from any other Plug in of the same type.

i'm in this camp too!

i do however think that these plugins fit a price point which other's surpass and if the quality is as suggested by other here then i'm in

i'm waiting till i start mixing my next few tracks before demoing these and JJP bundle to evaluate and that will be very soon

[AMIEL]

Originally Posted by macleodgrant

i'm in this camp too!

i do however think that these plugins fit a price point which other's surpass and if the quality is as suggested by other here then i'm in

Well that is really a good point!

But I already have basicaly the best Plug Ins, I guess..at least for me...so every new Plug in pass thru a "Challenge Test" with many others....So next week will demo the Waves JJP and the Abbey road Pack...so in the meantime..just reading and asking the Fellow GS !!

[feck]

Originally Posted by AMIEL

Actually I was interested to know how they compare with the Waves JJP....I will be demoing all those new plug ins soon.

But we tend to get very excited about new Plug ins. I always A/B them and find that differences in reality are not so big or meaningful between some plug ins...I am sure the Abbey Road Plug ins are great..but also are many other great Plug ins...What really push me to buy a Plug ins is a unique characteristic , feature or something you can not get from any other Plug in of the same type.

So what do you guys find about the Abbey Road Brilliance Pack that is really unique and you can not get from any other Plug in??

Well, they are super easy and fast to use, which is not very common. They also seem to have a significant midrange "grainy-ness" which is very pleasing and "vintage" sounding to me. I suppose that with other good eq's you could most likely get pretty close, but I don't think there are many (if any) that sound this good this quickly. For me, that works pretty well.

[kubimusik]

I'm demoing the brilliance pack right now, and am very impressed. Like the Abbey Road compressor plug, they're not right for everything, but they sound amazingly rich when they are. And I agree that their simplicity is a great asset.

They may keep me from having to re-track every other electronic/sample track through my GTQ2 - they inject the same amount of "analog 3D-liveliness" into what you instantiate them on - even when you leave everything at 0...! Softube is really on to something, their Vintage Amp room is to me the first amp sim worth using, and now this. Damn!



Still I'd be curious to hear a bit of a 'head-to-head' impression by someone who's demoing both the JJP EQs and the Brilliance pack, so do share when ready.

[indie]

I have the TG Mastering Eq's, JJP Bundle and am demoing the Brilliance pack. They are all awesome.
Equally great, but obviously all different.

[infopimpster]

Can't wait for "The Tap" to come out with the "Dobley" Plug in...

YouTube - Spinal Tap Love Pump

...that plus this pack of plugins is all you'll need!

Seriously, these sound great... will be buying... in 9 days.

[kubimusik]

Originally Posted by indie

I have the TG Mastering Eq's, JJP Bundle and am demoing the Brilliance pack. They are all awesome.
Equally great, but obviously all different.

Any more details on how you see/hear them as different? i.e. you'll see yourself using each on what? Just curious...

[redroom]

Im loving these at they are so quick to use and sound great

Ive found the 8k to work wonders on real upright piano
The R127 Box is great last on a vocal chain

Im getting these as Im all for speed

[LateRiser]

Originally Posted by AMIEL

But we tend to get very excited about new Plug ins. I always A/B them and find that differences in reality are not so big or meaningful between some plug ins...

Very true.. i'm always suspicious of my own initial excitement as well. I have Waves SSL, API and V and while the former two are daily workhorses, V doesn't see much use anymore. I did demo it at the time before purchasing, A/B-ing it with my existing EQ's. Went back and forth between thinking they had a rather unique texture and thinking they didn't. So I decided to buy them and find out in the long run... with JJP I have similar doubts so I think I'll refrain from buying this time.

Btw, I think most demo periods are ridiculously short. Waves has been setting a bad trend here with their 7 day periods. Most manufacturers would give you 14 days but I'm seeing a lot of 10 day periods pop up as well. When I demo high end outboard my pro audio dealer lets me live with it for a couple of weeks, that way I can really get a sense of how it integrates with my workflow - or not. Why can't plugin manuf's do this, I mean it's not even a physical box?

Enough ranting... back to the plugs. About the Abbey Brilliance: everytime I instantiate them I'm pleasantly surprised. I have plenty of ITB tools to shape low end, but was still on the lookout for something to bring out mids and highs in a pleasing way. JJP MEQ-5 didn't do it at all for me in the mids, sounded harsh. I used the Abbey midrange plugs for stuff like boosting the "knock" of a kick in a dense mix, giving attitude to a snare, presence to gtrs (el and ac), etc. Liked every result I was getting and seemed unable to match this with my existing plugs or with the JJP. Other favourites for this include Waves SSL G-eq and API 550A, and my hardware Chandler Tone Controls. But the Abbeys have a very unique texture - less brittle and more analog than the others. One some sources their smoothness made for a better match than the Tone Controls, which are a bit more ballsy and aggresive. I think it will be nice to put them on a gtr buss for example @+2, early on in a mix, and sort of "mix into" that texture.

The 8k plug is a very special beast as well. As I dialed it in the first time, I seemed to notice a slightly weird, somewhat phasey character to it. But listening with a less analytical ear it did a perfect job of bringing out high end detail in a smooth and natural manner. So I guess the "anomalies" I was hearing is an accurate modelling of the actual phase shift in the original hardware unit and is exactly what makes this baby sing ;-)

Again I tried matching the 8k with other plugs, but they all seemed to extend deeper into the midrange, making things sound more honky. So I tried countereqing pultec-style just below the boost frequency, also tried this with the JJP, but couldn't match the sweet smooth tone of the Abbey.

Again, human senses can be deceptive, so I'm revisiting these daily, with different source material, to see if my conclusions from the previous day still stand. In the case of the Abbey Road Brilliance Pack, so far they do.

[Andreas G]

Great review LateRiser!

Well I must admit I haven't that much eq-plugs in use anymore. Lately I'm well covered with the apeq by apulsoft and the little ValveTone by Tritonedigital. Everything else if needed I do with (Vintage) outboard eqs as I found that on most eq-plugs it's rather the curve-style which is different (this is not so obvious because sometimes there seems to be already a curve layered even without tweaking), others than that they all sound more or less the same to me. That said I don't own an UA card and I'm still to stupid to install the newer waves stuff, their RComp is exellent though and often in use.

I bought the brillance pack simply because quality wise they hold up with my outboard eqs but of course sound different in a very nice way with all the advantages of a plugin.

[cane creek]

A/B ing them against the UA pultec EQ i was getting similar results , so i bought them as i can run as many instances of them as i like and free UAD resources for other tasks....

[t_d]

yes, the UAD pultec was closer than any other plug in i tried...

i will probably NOT buy the abbey roads just yet, and explore the pultec for this use more.. but if i find the UAD resources running out the AR will be a good substitute..

[audiomichael]

Are these exclusively available through the Abbey Road website? Or are they discounted at Sweetwater / GC?

[feck]

Originally Posted by audiomichael

Are these exclusively available through the Abbey Road website? Or are they discounted at Sweetwater / GC?

Direct from Abbey Road and High Profile Audio are the only retailers I know - not available from GC - I checked.

[ProducerBoy]

Originally Posted by audiomichael

Are these exclusively available through the Abbey Road website? Or are they discounted at Sweetwater / GC?

Tony's got the deal. Email him @ high profile. Or you can pay a little more to get 'em from sweetwater.

[jslevin]

WTF are you guys doing, spending all this time worrying about four samples?

I mean, sure, in a pure programming sense, you'd like to know where this comes from, but it is not an issue at all for the actual work.

Awkward phase? Based on a delay of less than one-tenth of 1 ms? This is nonsense. When we're making minor phase adjustments for multiple mics on the same source, we have no way of getting the phase correlated down to 1 ms — let alone down to less than one-tenth of 1 ms.

Of course you'd like for it to be perfect — because it just feels better knowing that — but the difference between four samples and zero is beyond trivial.

JSL

[Dom & Roland]

Originally Posted by jslevin

WTF are you guys doing, spending all this time worrying about four samples?

It is not an issue at all for the actual work.

Awkward phase? This is nonsense.

The difference between four samples and zero is beyond trivial.

JSL

Don't WTF me mush! There is a big difference between 0 and 4 samples in some cases ,it's certainly not trivial .....now be a good lad and go wash ya mouth out with soap.....

[jslevin]

Originally Posted by Dom & Roland

Don't WTF me mush! There is a big difference between 0 and 4 samples in some cases ,it's certainly not trivial .....now be a good lad and go wash ya mouth out with soap.....

A big difference? No, there isn't a big difference, and it is definitely trivial.

To some people, regardless of the science or math, no sample rate can ever be high enough, no latency ever low enough, etc. Those people frankly just don't know what they're talking about.

JSL