Put the words ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘strings’ together and all kinds of sonic images come to mind. Think The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, or all those classic movie scores that were recorded at the grand old studios.
Now Spitfire Audio is attempting to bottle this magic with Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings, a new instrument that features recordings of five world-class players doing their thing.
Studio Two, of course, is legendary, and to ensure that its sound was accurately captured, Spitfire called in Grammy-Award-winning engineer Sam Okell to create both Vintage and Modern mixes.
The Vintage mixes are designed to recreate what you might think of as the ‘classic’ Studio Two sound, and were recorded using the vintage REDD desk and parallel compression from the EMI/Abbey Road RS124, passed through the much-loved J37 tape machine.
There are also features that are designed to ease the process of creating convincing string sections. The Arranger, for example, enables you to control the instrument ranges within the string band, and there’s an all-new ‘legatos’ programming feature.
Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings is available in two formats: Core and Professional. The former gives you one vintage and one modern mix, while the latter provides two of each, plus eight mic positioning options so you can customise your sound still further. There are more articulations and legato techniques here, too. Both versions also give you access to the Studio Two Echo Chamber.
Find out more on the Spitfire Audio website. Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings is available now priced at $229/£199/€229 (Core) and $399/£349/€399 (Pro). This is an introductory offer, with prices set to rise to $299/£249/€299 (Core) and $499/£449/€499 (Pro) in January.
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