Waves Abbey Road Reverb Plates

I take a look at the modelled EMT 140 reverb plates from Waves. The original are found in the world famous Abbey Road studios in London.

This is an overview of the Waves version of the EMT 140: The Abbey Road Reverb Plates plugin.

Jump to:

• Introduction to Abbey Road Reverb Plates
• Getting Started
• Notable Features of the Abbey Road Reverb Plates
• Presets Available
• Alternatives Available
• Review Summary
• Where To Buy Abbey Road Reverb Plates

Introduction to Abbey Road Reverb Plates

Waves have recreated a version of the reverb plates found in the world famous Abbey Road Studios. This plugin comes in a few options. You can buy it stand alone or as part of the Abbey Road collection.

Getting Started

The install is done as a license addition to Waves central. So once my DAW is loaded and scanned, the plugin is available to use. Once loaded into a mix, the reverb can be added as an FX on the track, or via the mix buss for dialling in gradually.

Be aware - During my review I found Abbey Road Reverb Plates to be quite CPU intensive. Using on more than two tracks I started to run into crackling and sound glitches.

Notable Features of the Abbey Road Reverb Plates

• Models of four original EMT 140 reverb plates
• The original plates were used from bands like The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

The four modelled EMT 140 plates each offer a distinct character of tone. These range from a bright and wide to dark and phat. The plugin lets you adjust variables such as decay, drive, EQ, and damping to shape your sound.

The Big ABCD dial allows selection of the various plates, letting you find the exact reverb ambience that you need. You can also choose from 11 different damper positions, giving you different reverb decay times ranging anywhere from 1 to 5.4 seconds, depending on the selected plate. To be clear - the plates are the heart and soul of the plugin and is what gives it the special something compared to any other reverb.

Presets Available

Looking at the built in presets for the reverb plates, there are lots of options that are packaged in with the plugins. These make use of the 4 EMY plate configs that are available in the plugin.

While playing around with the plugin presets, I found the sounds matched and worked well with their recommendations and preset configs. However by way of experimentation, I took a chance on mixing it up a bit:

• Used the snare settings on a pad. Added some width to the pad
• Used the keys setting on a vocal chain - This made the mids of the vocals pop a bit more.

You get the idea. I guess the point I'm making is not to restrict yourself with the settings they suggest.

Alternatives Available

There are plenty of products which do reverb, but this adds a little something more in my opinion. Arturia do the Rev Plate-140 which is a contender for accuracy and a viable alternative.