Abbey Road have added to their highly regarded range of analogue-modelling plug-ins with the new RS124 compressor pack. Designed with the assistance of Peter Cobbin, Abbey Road’s Director Of Engineering, the plug-ins model three of the hardware EMI RS124 valve compressors that were custom-built for Abbey Road in 1960, and which are still being used today.
As on the originals, the three models each have a fixed attack time, threshold and ratio (which vary slightly depending on which model you use), with the amount of compression applied being determined by the Input Control, and displayed on the central gain-reduction meter. A stepped rotary switch selects from the six recovery times available (again, the recovery times are different on each model), while an interesting Hold function allows the compressor’s gain reduction to be ‘pre-applied’ (once the appropriate settings have been made), to avoid the transient ‘thump’ that can occur on the first note in a track. After the initial transient has occurred, the compressor’s Recovery control can then be returned to its optimal position. Another use given by Abbey Road Plug-ins for the Hold function is to avoid an unnatural increase in room noise, in the event of the compressor recovering audibly at the end of a song.
Though Abbey Road say that the plug-ins are a faithful recreation of the hardware, they have also added a new feature not available on the originals: SuperFuse mode is activated by clicking on the fuse in the top-right corner of the UI, and this apparently matches the attack and release times of the plug-in for a more obvious, over-compressed sound.
Described by Peter Cobbin as sounding like “pure cream being drizzled slowly into and over a mix”, the RS124 plug-in pack is available in VST, AU, RTAS and TDM formats, for both Mac and PC, priced at $560 for the TDM version and $335 for native versions.
