Waves

The latest in Waves’ ongoing series of
collaborations with Abbey Road Studios is an
emulation of the EMI TG12410 Transfer Console
that’s been a ixture in said facility’s mastering
and mixing suites since the early 70s. Used in
the making of albums by Nirvana, Radiohead,
Pink Floyd (including the seminal Dark Side Of
The Moon) and Ed Sheeran, amongst countless
others, the hardware’s credentials are
unquestionable, and Abbey Road certainly
aren’t going to accept a shoddy emulation, so
Waves must have had their work cut out.
TG Mastering Chain (VST/AU/AAX) actually
consists of six plugins: mono and stereo
versions of the main TG Mastering Chain, Live
versions of both, and mono and stereo versions
of the TG Mastering Bridge – see Meter made.
The Live plugins boast very low latencies,
through the use of lower upsampling rates, and
non-linear phase IIR sidechain ilters in lieu of
the linear phase FIR ilters employed by the
regular plugins that Waves have added to the
original architecture.
Past master
Like the real thing, TG Mastering Chain
comprises a modular series of processors that
are freely arranged in a ‘rack’ and individually
bypassed. All but Output can be independently
switched between regular Stereo, Duo (dual
mono) and Mid-Side processing. In the default
W a v e s
Abbey Road TG
Mastering Chain
$199
Emulating the revered vintage mastering console at the legendary
London studio, can this plugin get your mixes sounding like the greats?
“The EQ and ilters
restrict you to tried-
and-tested settings –
that’s a positive!”
TONE MODULE
A four-band EQ with fixed
band frequencies
EXPANDED VIEW
Enlarge a module for separate
stereo channel access
INPUT MODULE
Adjust the input
level, stereo balance
and phase
LIMITER MODULE
Apply compression up to
2:1 or limiting up to 7:1
TAPE EQ
Four interesting
and occasionally
useful EQ curves
STEREO MODE
Four of modules can
be set to Stereo, Duo
or M/S processing
FILTER MODULE
Apply final sweetening
and low/high attenuation
LIMITER MODE
Model the original compressor
or a modern alternative
SPREADER
Narrow or widen
the final output
OUTPUT
MODULE
Output gain,
peak metering,
monitoring and
the Spreader
MODULE POWER
Turn modules on and off
to create your chain
main view, a single set of controls is presented
for both linked channels, but clicking the
Expanded View switch for a module blows it up
to ill the whole window, granting access to the
Link/Unlink button and separate controls for
Left/Right or Mid/Side. This is a fair enough
solution for keeping the GUI uncluttered, but
you don’t get to choose which of the two
unlinked channels is shown back in the main
view – it’s always Left/Mid.
The ive modules, then, are TG12411 Input,
TG12412 Tone, TG12413 Limiter, TG12414 Filter
and TG12416 Output, the irst and last always at
the start and end of the chain, of course.
Reordering the middle three is done by
dragging them left and right, but slightly
confusingly, the signal low isn’t necessarily
relected in the order of the module selection
switches at the top of the Expanded View, which
remains resolutely Tone, Limiter, Filter. Not a
massive mental hurdle, and that probably is the
96 / COMPUTER MUSIC / February 2019
> reviews / waves abbey road tg mastering chain
CMU265.rev_abbeymaster.indd 96 06/12/2018 10:52