Abbey Road Studio 3 User Guide
Abbey Road Studio 3 User Guide Product Overview ................................................................................................................................... 3 Getting Started ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Abbey Road Studio 3 Controls ................................................................................................................ 5 Studio Monitor Select..........
Product Overview Abbey Road Studio 3 is a headphone monitoring tool that enables you to mix within the acoustic space of one of the most famous mix rooms in the world: Abbey Road Studio 3.1 It places you directly in the control room environment, so that you can make mix decisions as though you were sitting in the mix engineer’s chair. You can with confidence judge mix depth, panning, stereo image, balance, and reverb.
Getting Started Abbey Road Studio 3 enables you to use stereo headphones to monitor a multichannel mix as heard in a specific studio control room. It does not change the processing of the mix itself, but rather the environment in which you monitor it. Plugin output is always a binaural stereo headphone signal containing all the mix channels in their virtual positions. Here are the essential steps for setting up Abbey Road Studio 3. Each step is described in detail in later chapters. 1.
Abbey Road Studio 3 Controls Studio Monitor Select When using the stereo component, you can choose between three sets of front loudspeakers. In the surround components, the mid-type speaker is used for front and surround positions. There is no monitor selector. Speaker Type Speaker Options Component Far A big speaker with a club-like feel Stereo Mid A high-definition speaker with a hi-fi sound Stereo and all surround components.
Meters INPUT METERS Each channel in the input signal has a full-scale meter with an infinite-hold clip indicator. Click on the clip indicator to reset it. Each channel has mute and solo buttons at the bottom of the input meter. Range: -infinity to 0 dBFS MONITOR LEVEL AND METERS The binaural stereo headphone output is represented by a full-scale stereo meter with infinite-hold clip indicators. Use the knob below the meter to control the headphone monitor level.
Rotate Studio The Rotate Studio wheel rotates the studio around your position at the mixing desk. What you see and what you hear are defined by your orientation. This is what you experience when using head tracking, except that Rotate Studio is controlled manually. Click the 0º button, or Alt+Click on the Rotate Studio wheel, to reset rotation to its default position. Head Tracking Head Tracking is a valuable tool when mixing in a surround environment.
TRACKING DEVICE MENU Use this drop-down menu to select the device used for head tracking. Abbey Road Studio 3 can track head movement from two sources: Camera and Nx Head Tracker. CAMERA activates computer’s camera for head tracking. If more than one camera is available, choose from the list. NX HEADTRACKER selects the Nx HeadTracker that will be used by Abbey Road Studio 3. Choose one HeadTracker from the list.
When you are not using the Sensor Fusion mode, you can have several instances of the Nx Virtual Mix Room plugin with a different tracking device for each instance. This will enable you to have more than one Nx listeners with individual head tracking for each in the same session. Note that each Nx Virtual Mix Room plugin needs to be routed to a separate headphone output per listener; a simple headphone split will not work for this use case.
UNITS Choose head measurement units: centimeters or inches. CIRCUMFERENCE To find your head circumference, use a measuring tape to measure the longest distance around your head: over the back of the head, around your ears and around your eyebrows. Enter values directly by dragging up or down over the value box. Default: 55 cm / 21.6 in (average adult circumference) Range: 35 cm to 75 cm / 13.8 in to 29.
Head Measurements Presets Head modeling measurements can be saved as user presets. This makes it easy to change between mixers, for several people to participate in the mix, and to move your head tracking measurements from one system to another. Click on the arrow next to the Units panel to open the Head Modeling menu. Use this menu to save and load measurement presets. When you open or enable the plugin, the factory preset is loaded.
Selecting a Headphone EQ Curve Abbey Road Studio 3 lets you monitor your multichannel mix through headphones, with the loudspeakers and the room acoustics of this famous studio. It does not, however, affect the color of the mix. In order to create a headphone mix that reliably translates to other spaces, you may choose to modify the EQ curve of your headphones. If you are familiar with the way your headphone mixes sound elsewhere, turn off Headphone EQ.
The Head Tracking Application Waves Nx is the engine behind Abbey Road Studio 3. Nx creates the Studio 3 space and converts stereo or surround audio channels into a binaural headphone signal. NX HeadTracker is the Nx utility that uses camera and/or Bluetooth Head Tracker information to interpret the mix engineer’s head movements. The Nx application opens or closes automatically when you open or close the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin. If the application closes, head tracking will stop.
FRAME RATE INDICATOR displays the current frame rate. Higher frame rates indicate greater tracking resolution, and therefore greater tracking accuracy. TRACKING DATA value boxes display the continuously refreshed head positions captured by the Camera tracking device. The Camera Tracker can follow motion on these axes: yaw, pitch, roll, x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis. Each type of motion is illustrated in the head diagrams.
Bluetooth Tracker Tab The Bluetooth tracker tab is used to connect Nx HeadTracker devices. DEVICE LIST shows all available Nx Head Tracker devices, and indicates their status (Connected, Disconnected, Connecting, Unavailable). Up to seven Nx Head Tracker devices can be detected and connected simultaneously. CONNECT (check box) – Check or uncheck this box in order to connect or disconnect an Nx Head Tracker device that appears in the device list.
UPDATE initiates a firmware update on the selected Nx Head Tracker device. A message in red text will appear when a firmware update is available. If a firmware update is available, click Update. A dialogue box will open; follow its instructions to complete the update procedure. IDENTIFY causes a light on the selected Nx Head Tracker device to blink. This helps to identify the specific head tracking device when you have more than one connected.
Setting Up the Nx Head Tracker CONNECTING THE NX HEAD TRACKER 1. Mount the Nx Head Tracker on the top of the headphone band, with the logo facing forward. Nx Head Tracker L and R identification should have the same orientation as the L and R on your headphones. Inaccurate positioning of the Nx Head Tracker will result in inaccurate head tracking. 2. Power up the Nx Head Tracker device. Make sure your computer’s Bluetooth is on and that it supports BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).
Appendix A – Inputs/Outputs in the Surround Components 5.1 Surround Component – 6 inputs / 2 outputs Input 1 – Left mix channel Input 2 – Center mix channel Input 3 – Right mix channel Input 4 – Left surround channel Input 5 – Right surround channel Input 6 – Subwoofer speaker channel (post-bass management) Output 1 - Left headphone channel Output 3 – Right headphone channel Outputs 2/4/5/6 – No audio * Note: output channels may vary according to the host’s surround channel configuration 7.
Appendix B – Troubleshooting Guide Problem Head does not move in interface –no tracking 1. 2. 3. 4. Head tracking application is not running 1. Restart head tracking through the plugin. 2. Inactivate/reactivate plugin. Low tracking rate in the head tracking app (<20 fps) (Camera) 1. 2. 3. 4. Low tracking rate in plugin intercafe (<20 fps) (Camera) 1. Check the tracking rate in the head tracking app. 2. Verify audio buffer size is 1024 samples or lower.
Problem 20 Possible Solutions Nx Head Tracker loses connection and doesn’t move smoothly 1. Try using a new battery. 2. Try moving the Nx Head Tracker and the Bluetooth receiver closer together. 3. If you are using a BT-USB dongle on a desktop, connect the dongle on the front panel, or on an extension for better BT reception. Nx Head Tracker is tracking my movements but in wrong directions 1.
Appendix C – Studio 3 Speaker Configurations SPEAKER PLACEMENT Each Abbey Road Studio 3 component credibly recreates Studio 3 loudspeakers placement. The loudspeakers are fixed in position for all formats; only the number of speakers used changes. Stereo Component 5.1 Component 7.1 Component SPEAKER CALIBRATION Each front and surround loudspeaker is calibrated with pink noise at 85 dB SPL at the mixer’s position. The LFE is calibrated with pink noise to 91 dB SPL, measured from the mixer’s position.
