Abbey Road

This is a short documentary look at Chandler Limited of Shell Rock, Iowa.

Chandler specializes in remaking and reintroducing classic recording equipment based on classic EMI and Abbey Road designs that are no longer available or in some cases never were.

Presentation of Propellerhead Software & Abbey Road Studio’s sound library Abbey Road Keyboards for Reason 3.0

via PropellerheadSW

Abbey Road Studios and Propellerhead Software have announced that they have partnered to produce the Abbey Road Keyboards ReFill for Propellerhead Software’s Reason.
Abbey Road Keyboards delivers a hypersampled collection of seven unique instruments, recorded using the original equipment at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

The Abbey Road Keyboards ReFill consists of Reason 3.0 patches with samples of Steinway “Mrs. Mills” piano, Challen studio piano, Hammond RT-3 & Leslie Model 122, Mannborg Harmonium, Mellotron Model 400, Schiedmayer Celeste and Premier Tubular Bells. These keyboards have been at the studios since the early 60’s and were used on some of the most popular tracks of all time—from A Hard Day’s Night to Dark Side Of The Moon as well as numerous film scores such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Aliens, all three Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, to name but a few.

Abbey Road Keyboards was recorded in the famed Studio Two, where The Beatles recorded almost all of their songs. It is a spacious recording room, with a 28′ high ceiling and over 2,280 square feet of space. Its acoustics are meticulously tuned with suspended bass traps, hanging quilted curtains and four 10′ by 20′ acoustically-treated panels that swing out from the walls to temporarily reduce the total room size. Not only was Abbey Road Keyboards sampled using state-of-the-art equipment and tech­niques from this studio, Propellerhead Software consulted with senior Abbey Road engineers to also capture these instruments as they were back in the day, incorporating some of the same vintage micro­phones, preamps, outboard processors and mixing consoles.

All instruments were captured using Propellerhead Software’s Hypersampling method. To capture every aspect of the instruments – from the way they resound in the Studio Two to their unique timbres and characteristics – they were all recorded at multiple velocity levels, from multiple angles, using multiple sets of microphones through the original mics, preamps, consoles and outboard gear at Abbey Road. With all the mic signals available separately in Reason, the Abbey Road Keyboards user can select between vintage sounding combinations of mics and pre-amps or state-of-the-art clean recordings, ready for the user’s own preferred processing.

The Abbey Road Keyboards ReFill will be available from Propellerhead dealers worldwide on June 13 2007. MSRP is EUR €199 / USD $229. Read more…