14 l February 2013
www.psneurope.com
technologyreview Waves REDD bundle
Leading plug-in developer Waves transports us to the early 60s with emulations of Abbey Road Studio’s famous REDD valve consoles. Mike Hillier takes a step back in time
DESIGNED BY EMI’s Recording Engineer Development Department (REDD), the REDD.17, REDD.37 and REDD.51 were valve mixing consoles that played a huge part in defining the sound of the late ’50s and ’60s. Most famously, they were used by The Beatles (and everyone else at the time) at Abbey Road. The REDD consoles were eventually replaced by the solid-state TG series desks and very few remain in existence (only four REDD.51 were ever made). The Waves REDD bundle contains two plug-ins, one modelling a channel strip on the REDD.17 console and the other modelling both the REDD.37 and REDD.51 consoles with a knob to switch between them. The REDD.37 and REDD.51 had the same basic design and EQ, but while the older REDD.37 used the same Siemens V72 valve amplifiers as the REDD.17, the REDD.51 used newer, cleaner REDD.47 amps designed in-house. Both can be used as mono or stereo plug-ins with the stereo versions configurable as standard linked stereo, dual mono, or M/S. The layout of the two plug-ins
is largely similar, with the input gain and tone controls on the left, and the output gain, drive and ‘analogue’ control on the right – the analogue control adds noise and hum to the signal. I understand that the original consoles will have had an inherent noise issue, but it’s not something that I’d choose to add to mixes. Other than the ability to choose the amp on the REDD.37/51 the only other major difference between this plug-in and the REDD.17 is the behaviour of the high-shelf EQ. On the REDD.17 the shelf behaves as a simple shelving EQ, whereas on the REDD.37/51 the EQ can be switched from this Classic shelf behaviour to a bell topology when boosting with a fixed frequency of 5kHz, known as the Pop mode. The REDD.37/51 is therefore clearly the more flexible of the two tools, although both are fairly limited. (The two famous, now rather quaint, EQ modes reflect
Where a little more filth is
required, the REDD plug-ins are incredibly handy. On an electric guitar, for instance, even a slight push into the red can make a clean signal stand out, while pushed harder can give you some incredible sounds. We even managed to get some great distorted sounds using nothing but a DI’d Stratocaster and the REDD for saturation. If you really want to recreate the sound of the distorted guitar tone on The Beatles’ Revolution this is certainly a good place to start – Emerick’s original method was to route a DI’d guitar through two REDD preamps in series. One area I at first over-looked
was synths. The REDD.37 is a great means of spicing up an otherwise too clinical virtual synth part, turning even fairly bright generic digital synth sounds into warm, lush useable voices. The harsh digital aliasing disappears and the synth could easily be mistaken for analogue hardware. There are plenty of different ways of achieving this, with guitar amps, but we found the REDD preamp saturation to be a perfect match. As channel strips go the REDD plug-ins are inherently very limited. There is no built-in compression, and the EQ is limited to only two bands, with no control over the frequency. They’re unlikely to be your first choice to shape an instrument in your mix. That so many great recordings were made on these consoles testifies to the skill of the musicians and engineers and the effort that went into getting a great sound coming through the mics, rather than the specific qualities of these consoles. However, the plug-ins do
Top: REDD.17; Below: REDD.37/51
Abbey Road’s heritage as an already established serious ‘classical’ studio which adapted to the rising ‘pop’ phenomena.) On vocals the REDD.37/51
was incredibly subtle. You can drive it quite hard into distortion, but keeping it clean the only obviously noticeable effect was a
roll-off of air frequencies towards the top, and a slight push forward in the low-mids. The limited EQ might be fine in simple low-track count recordings where a more natural approach is needed, but on a bigger mix the vocal will need more than a couple of simple fixed shelves.
capture that special essence of the early valve recording consoles, adding mojo in the form of saturation, a slight low-mid frequency bump and a mild roll-off of the top-end, which could be used to colour certain channels in a mix. Think of the plug-ins as unique saturation effects and not channel strips or EQs and they become useful tools within your plug-in collection. n
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY REDD bundle Price $349 (€257)
Distributed by Sonic Distribution Phone: +44 (0)845 500 2500
www.sonic-distribution.com
TECH SPECS fSupports AU, RTAS, TDM and VST
fTwo plug-ins modelling classic REDD valve consoles
fContinuous High and Low EQ controls
fMono, Stereo, Dual Mono and M/S modes
fTelefunken V72 and REDD.47 amp saturation models
fVariable analogue noise and hum
fSupports AU, RTAS, TDM and VSTformats
PROS fCan be pushed to distort
fUnique coloration
CONS fNot a particularly flexible EQ fNo AAX version yet
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