Waves came out with a plugin designed for headphone use that simulates the sound of the room and speakers (3 sets of monitors) in Abbey Road Studio 3, a very famous mix room used on lots of hit records. The technology reminds me of the complex set of impulse responses used in the Universal Audio Ocean Way plugin that simulates Allen Sides’ main tracking room, plus his mics. I use the Ocean Way plugin quite a lot to take some of the “eewwww, that sounds like a sample” stink off sampled drums and piano when the budget doesn’t permit booking a good outside studio. 
I always check mixes on headphones, and there are times I’ll use them to get more detail on reverb tails, etc., but mostly I was curious to see if this works. The problem is that while I’ve worked in a lot of well-known mix rooms in the US and Europe, I haven’t worked in Abbey Road, so I can’t say if this plug sounds like Abbey Road or not.
What it does do is make your headphones sound like speakers in a good room. By that I mean, in a room your right ear still hears a lot of what the left ear hears, and vice-versa, plus a room has reflections. You don’t get this listening to headphones. The ears are totally isolated from each other. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes not.
I tried the plugin two nights ago, and found it disconcerting, and felt I might be hearing too much ‘room’ and not enough speaker, plus the weight of the headphones was a distraction. But then last night, I tried it again with a quickie mix, and found that my ears had somehow become acclimated to it in the interval. I thought it sounded great.
After I was done, I put the quickie mix up to listen on my monitors - my room is acoustically treated, and the speakers are EQ’d for a pretty flat frequency response at the mix position.
The mix on the headphones sounded pretty much like it did in the room. I’d say that was impressive.
The plugin will also use the camera on your computer (if it has one, or it can use an external camera connected to your computer) to track your head movements, and it’s supposedly accurate enough that you can input the measurements of your head for a custom response (I just used the generic ‘average adult’ setting; if I buy the plugin I’ll customize it). The plug has an EQ that smooths out the quirks in a few models of headphones, but not the ones I have. For that I use Sonarworks 4. I don’t quite understand the need for the head tracking feature, but yes, it actually works if you want to use it.
The three sets of monitors are a near-field pair that look to me a little like ATCs; the mid-fields model the B&W 801s, and the soffit-mounts appear to be Quested Q412Ds. All are very high quality, very expensive speakers, and the emulation seems to do them tonal justice, though without an A/B it’s kind of hard to tell for sure.
Could I mix through this plugin? Surprisingly, yes. In fact, when I turned the plugin off, my headphones sounded like headphones again, and I thought, “oh crap, I need this plugin.”
I always check mixes on headphones, and there are times I’ll use them to get more detail on reverb tails, etc., but mostly I was curious to see if this works. The problem is that while I’ve worked in a lot of well-known mix rooms in the US and Europe, I haven’t worked in Abbey Road, so I can’t say if this plug sounds like Abbey Road or not.
What it does do is make your headphones sound like speakers in a good room. By that I mean, in a room your right ear still hears a lot of what the left ear hears, and vice-versa, plus a room has reflections. You don’t get this listening to headphones. The ears are totally isolated from each other. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes not.
I tried the plugin two nights ago, and found it disconcerting, and felt I might be hearing too much ‘room’ and not enough speaker, plus the weight of the headphones was a distraction. But then last night, I tried it again with a quickie mix, and found that my ears had somehow become acclimated to it in the interval. I thought it sounded great.
After I was done, I put the quickie mix up to listen on my monitors - my room is acoustically treated, and the speakers are EQ’d for a pretty flat frequency response at the mix position.
The mix on the headphones sounded pretty much like it did in the room. I’d say that was impressive.
The plugin will also use the camera on your computer (if it has one, or it can use an external camera connected to your computer) to track your head movements, and it’s supposedly accurate enough that you can input the measurements of your head for a custom response (I just used the generic ‘average adult’ setting; if I buy the plugin I’ll customize it). The plug has an EQ that smooths out the quirks in a few models of headphones, but not the ones I have. For that I use Sonarworks 4. I don’t quite understand the need for the head tracking feature, but yes, it actually works if you want to use it.
The three sets of monitors are a near-field pair that look to me a little like ATCs; the mid-fields model the B&W 801s, and the soffit-mounts appear to be Quested Q412Ds. All are very high quality, very expensive speakers, and the emulation seems to do them tonal justice, though without an A/B it’s kind of hard to tell for sure.
Could I mix through this plugin? Surprisingly, yes. In fact, when I turned the plugin off, my headphones sounded like headphones again, and I thought, “oh crap, I need this plugin.”
