Abbey Road Studios talk about CEDAR Cambridge
23 February 2023
Our long-time friends and colleagues Andy Walter and Simon Gibson have recently spoken about their work in the world-famous Room 13 at Abbey Road Studios, discussing the equipment that allows them to achieve the remarkable results that they so often do. Occupying a large section of their article, their CEDAR Cambridge system comes in for particular praise.
Abbey Road's association with CEDAR goes back to 1988, even before CEDAR Audio was formally established. A research prototype of the early non-real-time algorithms was provided to the studios by Cambridge University for 'real-world' tests, and EMI even released a series of CDs using this. This prototype was replaced by a CEDAR Production System in 1991 before being upgraded to CEDAR for Windows in 1997 and then to CEDAR Cambridge following its release in 2003. Today, Abbey Road is using the latest CEDAR Cambridge v13 system to superb effect.
Andy picks up the story in the article, "Originally a research project for Cambridge University, they developed this system that could be used to take out clicks and crackles on records and, because we were doing a lot of record transfers at the time, we were interested in that. So Abbey Road bought the system and, lo and behold, I was the engineer that sat down with it and started using it in the first few years. No one else at that time had this technology and it was incredible."
"The way it would work is, I would transfer lots of records during the day and load them into the computer. You would put in some fairly arbitrary numbers and things, and there was a button that said 'cook' and you press it and leave it overnight to process. It was quite labour-intensive and took a long time but, you know, the company started getting better and better with endless updates all the time. I was putting a lot of input into it and saying, you know, you need to change this and do that, we need to have faders etc.'"
"Now, with v13 you can run a transfer straight through and, with only about a sixteenth of a second delay, it removes clicks, vinyl crackle and any underlying noise without damaging the music. I was doing it yesterday with an INXS interview that was on vinyl - you wouldn't know it came from vinyl now! It's like restoring an old oil painting where you take all the dust and grime off and you're left with all these colours you never knew were there."
For further information:
CEDAR Audio Limited, 20 Home End, Fulbourn, Cambridge, CB21 5BS, United Kingdom.
t: +44 1223 881771 • e:
info@cedaraudio.com