Waves and Abbey Road unveil the Abbey Road Studio 3 Plugin

Waves Audio has introduced the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin, created in collaboration with Abbey Road Studios and powered by Waves Nx immersive audio technology.

The Waves Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin brings the acoustics of the legendary Abbey Road Studio 3 Control Room to any set of headphones. With Waves’ Nx technology, the complete acoustic response of Abbey Road Studio 3, described as a ‘perfect music mixing room’, has been captured for immersive use on headphones.

From Radiohead, Amy Winehouse and Kanye West, to contemporary mixes of the Beatles and Pink Floyd, to number-one chart toppers by Frank Ocean, Brockhampton and Florence + the Machine: all were recorded, mixed and perfected at Abbey Road Studio 3. 

The Waves Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin brings the perfect acoustics of the Studio 3 control room into a users headphones in three-dimensional sound, powered by Waves’ Nx technology for immersive 3D audio. The plugin also delivers full 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound, modelled after the studio’s original surround setup.

Mirek Stiles, Head of Audio Products at Abbey Road said: “Abbey Road has historically been very protective of the acoustic properties of its studios for software emulations, and the Studio 3 control room is no exception. After speaking with Yoni Zlotkin (Waves Product Manager) and the Waves team at length over many months, I began to feel more confident these guys had some groundbreaking theories on how such a sensitive task could be realised. Not everything worked first time and we went back to the drawing board on a few occasions.

“Our breakthrough moment was when Giles Martin came into the Studio 3 control room with some Universal Music executives and we did a playback. The positive reaction from all in the room was immediate and confirmed our suspicions we had created something special and unique. This plugin was probably the most challenging yet and I’m extremely grateful to the Abbey Road engineers for their feedback and input, and to the talented, resilient and patient team at Waves Audio. I hope this plugin inspires music creators worldwide to realise their visions with more confidence than ever before.”

Abbey Road Studio 3 features:

  • The acoustics of Abbey Road Studio 3 – in immersive 3D audio over any set of headphones
  • Precision modelling of Abbey Road Studio 3’s stereo and surround soundstage
  • Hear your music the way Pink Floyd, Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, Frank Ocean and Kanye West heard theirs
  • Choose from Studio 3’s three sets of stereo speaker setups: near-field, mid-field, far-field
  • Mix 5.1 and 7.1 surround reliably on your stereo headphones 
  • High-precision head tracking for enhanced realism
  • Personalised head anatomy calibration
  • Headphone EQ calibration for popular headphone models
  • SoundGrid-compatible; for SoundGrid-powered performance, you can offload the plugin’s processing to a SoundGrid server