Abbey Road

Is this the "holy grail" compressor?
https://youtu.be/OSwq8QTs5Jw

Known for its silky-smooth, velvety tone, the RS124 has a fixed attack time that isn't super-fast, allowing even more aggressive threshold settings to deliver pleasing results. It was among the most important pieces of analog gear shaping the sound at Abbey Road and has since become a "holy grail" compressor with almost mythical prestige. In particular, it is said to be responsible for some of the best bass sounds ever captured on tape.

This is one of my favorite plugins on the main output track, even before I send it to the mastering (I don't compress to hard). Things I like:

• customization of the mastering chain.

• Stereo / M S / dual mono processing.

• parallel compression.

• and the sound.

Limited flexibility but very cool sound none the less. Grab it whenever it goes on sale for $29 or less. That's what I did. No regrets. You can never have enough good reverbs, especially on the cheap.

I owned this instrument for quite a while some time ago, but ended up selling for reasons described below. I'm a songwriter guy, so that will reflect on my review.

I'll start with the PROs:

• The dynamics and round-robins are great, this might be my all time favorite kit in terms of feeling "alive" when you play it. At times I had some issues with keeping the dynamics in a certain range, but that can be solved by setting the response curve.
• The sample quality is outstanding, NI and Abbey Road are sure 2 good companies.
• The room mics sound lovely, definitely add to the "alive" feeling, I liked the control over mono and stereo room mics for various applications.

The CONs (for my specific situation):

• Being a song writer, I want my instruments to load within a certain time range, so they are ready when inspiration strikes. Due to the long loading times, I found my self often waiting for the VST to load, so I wouldn't recommend this as a songwriter tool.
• I couldn't manage to make the drums "sit" in the track. I suspect this might be due to the specific sound of the gear and room used @ Abbey Road. Whatever I did with the drums, I never was happy with the result as they wouldn't blend well with the rest of my recording. I never experienced this issue with another drum library, I tried my best, in the end I just became frustrated and sold it.
• Again, this one might be my personal taste, but I couldn't find a basic, generic, bread and butter snare drum that would fit my music. They all sounded kinda fancy, but I couldn't find a basic, ol' pop-rock snare drum, or at least not the kind I was looking for. Again, I never experienced this issue with another drum instrument.
• At the time I owned this product, the cymbals and snare drums couldn't be used between the 2 provided kits. Meaning, if I liked the cymbals in kit 1 and snare in kit 2, there just wasn't a way to use them together. I found this incredibly annoying, knowing the ride I like is there, but couldn't be matched with the kick I liked.
• Routing and working within Kontakt was cumbersome and left me frustrated from time to time.

I don't really think MD is a bad product, the quality is definitely there but I think a potential buyer should take the above mentioned CONs into consideration before buying. Maybe watch a youtube review or at least listen to the samples on NI's page.