Abbey Road Keyboards

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Abbey Road Keyboards

Abbey Road Keyboards
Reason Refill for Mac & PC
SOS star rating sample 5

Propellerhead have created a number of their own Refills for Reason but their latest addition, Abbey Road Keyboards, is perhaps the most interesting to date. Abbey Road studios are associated with some of the most famous recordings of all time, including countless classic Beatles tracks and film scores such as Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars; artists who have recorded there make a 'who's who' list of rock and pop. In that sense, capturing the essence of some of the keyboard sounds associated with Abbey Road in a sample library has considerable appeal. However, the Propellerhead team have not just created sampled instruments that 'sound like' some of the classic keyboards used in the Abbey Road studios — they have recorded the actual instruments in Abbey Road's Studio 2 and used the original mics, outboard and mixing desks. The whole process is described in the extremely interesting (and beautifully produced) manual. Needless to say, the sampling is detailed and multiple mics were used to given the user full choice over the degree of studio ambience.
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The Refill is supplied on two DVDs: a 16-bit version (just under 2 GB) and a 24-bit version (just over 4 GB). As explained in the documentation, providing you have the disk space, both versions can be stored on your hard disk and the three .rfl files simply swapped to move from the 16-bit version when tracking to the 24-bit versions when mixing.

Only seven basic instruments have been sampled here, but these are seven of the most iconic instruments in the history of recorded music. The 'Mrs Mills' piano is a Steinway upright with a bright sound and a wonderfully subtle 'detuned' sound, while the Challen studio piano has a slightly warmer tone and excellent sustain. The Hammond RT3 with Leslie speaker, a Mannborg Harmonium, Mellotron Model 400, Schiedmayer Celeste and a set of Premier Tubular Bells (not strictly a keyboard, but they do sound excellent) complete the collection.

In each case, not only are different mic combinations provided for NNXT or Combinator (with options including, amongst others, close, bottom, back, top, floor and ambience), but there is also a selection of 'style' patches that are clearly aimed at particular artists or songs. For example, the inspirations for 'Mad On A Lady' (using the Challen piano) or 'Purple Distortion' (using the Hammond) are not difficult to guess. These make excellent use of Reason's Combinator to combine the samples with some suitable processing to create the required sound.

While ARK might be something of a niche product, it is hugely impressive. It has also been beautifully put together. You can undoubtedly get similar sampled keyboard sounds within other libraries, but all the ARK instruments will add huge dollops of character to any recording. If your music really does have to have a very authentic dose of the classic Abbey Road sound, then this is considerably cheaper than booking the studio itself! John Walden
£139 including VAT.
M-Audio +44 (0)1923 204010.
www.maudio.co.uk
www.propellerheads.se