Wave's Abby Roads Vinyl

I grabbed the deal on AR Plates, a definite no brainer!
 
Not sure Vinyl is something I actually need, but here is an interesting review.
https://ask.audio/articles/waves-abbey-road-vinyl-review
 

AR Vinyl is a nice plug. Not a have to have, but a good plug no less. The sound it gives is nice and smooth. Lots of choices, options. When I use it I mostly use the MM cartridge and very little added noise. Adds character from that era. As with all Waves it's done well.
 
Best feature is the 'Slow Down' mode. Works great, sounds awesome, and I just love to play with it. Haven't come across a use for it yet though! LOL But I love to hear it!! 

You have the Retro Colour from XLN too Sharke? How the the Vinyls emulations compare? I've been n the fence about the RC20 every time it's in a sale, and getting the Waves Vinyl would edge me further off the fence. But the RC20 looks more flexible, and I'm trying to streamline but purchases and not have lots of similar things.

Kamikaze
You have the Retro Colour from XLN too Sharke? How the the Vinyls emulations compare? I've been n the fence about the RC20 every time it's in a sale, and getting the Waves Vinyl would edge me further off the fence. But the RC20 looks more flexible, and I'm trying to streamline but purchases and not have lots of similar things.

Yeah I have the RC-20 and I love it. Very hard to stop yourself from putting it on every track because it's such a great way to add texture and interest to the sound. RC-20 does a hell of a lot more stuff than Abbey Road Vinyl. I'm not putting Vinyl down because it's a steal at $29 and really does add some niceness (try the DJ cartridge on kicks - fantastic) but there is so much more you can do with RC-20 to shape the sound. The "vinyl" part of RC-20 is limited to the surface noise element, it doesn't add warmth or anything like that. But it also has a whole bunch of other kinds of noise (4 different tape noises, tube noise, studio noise, vinyl noise and more) and the great thing is that you can either "duck" the noise when the audio signal is playing, or you can engage an envelope follower so that the noise kicks in with your signal. This last feature I use all the time for sound shaping. You can for instance ramp the tone of the vinyl crackle right up and set it to follow drum hits so that your drums have this lovely crackley texture on top (or try it with the tape hiss). If you automate this noise to increase over time it's a great technique for drum build-ups and that sort of thing. 
 
The tape wow and flutter is also very good, and you can adjust it to taste and also make it stereo for a very nice stereoizing technique. 
 
Also don't forget that RC-20 has some excellent saturation and distortion. In fact I find myself slapping it on tracks just for the distortion module, sometimes preferring it to Decapitator which I also have (without the huge CPU overhead that Decapitator introduces). 
 
The reverb module is very nice and gritty, kind of cheap sounding but that's the whole point. I often set it to mono and dial a little in with some predelay just to add sustain to a part. 
 
And then there's the Magnetic module which adds more tape goodness, like tape wear and dropouts. The flutter element of this module is very nice and you can get a very cool tremolo effect from it. 
 
Honestly if it was a toss up between Abbey Road Vinyl and RC-20 I would choose RC-20 every time, there's just so much more you can do with it and it's well worth the money. But given that Abbey Road is currently $29 I would frankly bite the bullet and get it as well if you can because it does add a little certain something to the sound that RC-20 won't do. 

Tell me about it. I'm having to physically stop myself from picking up the Abbey Road plate for $29 because I have a quadzillion other reverbs and it's really not life or death, no matter how much my idiot brain is telling me it is. 

The Abbey Road Plates reverbs are definitely worth having.  Even if you have a few other reverbs.  What I found really nice about them is that they have a rather distinctive sound.  More than likely not like any other reverbs you may already have.  They are sublime on vocals for example.  Other reverbs for example which I have such as Reverberate, Waves H Reverb and even Studio One's Open Air, even with all of those loaded up with great plate IR's they still don't sound quite the same as Abbey Road plates. 
 
I am not that impressed with Waves Vinyl either.  I have come from that whole era and even gone through producing LP's for clients and getting them cut and tested etc.  The whole process drove me nuts actually. That process of converting a great stereo mix into the cutting lathe etc and out the other end is basically inferior to anything we have now.  So my vibe is why go backwards and all that.
 
Yes I agree certain stages of Waves Vinyl can add in a certain mojo to a sound for sure but so can many other things too.  For me Waves Omni Channel can do a lot compared to Vinyl.  Vinyl is probably really good for converting a really modern pristine crisp transient mix into the sound of an LP record mix from the late 60's.  I am not particularly interested in doing that.  I produce a lot of electronic music for example and it sounds way better now than ever before.  Listen to Jarre's Oxygen 3 and compare that to Oxygen 1 as an example.  Oxygen 3 just sounds way better to me.  (Oxygen 2 sounds just a little better than Oxygen 1 (he did that on purpose) but still improved, but Oxygen 3 is another story all together. He just pulled out all the stops. He took digital to the max!!)
 
Vinyl is still probably worth $29 though just for a few features here and there. Not the original price though.
 

Get the AR Plates.  You will not regert it.

Other than the Kings Microphones, I love all of the Abbey Road stuff.

Grem

LAGinz25
Other than the Kings Microphones, I love all of the Abbey Road stuff.

Yep

Big, fat +1!

I opted for this in the end especially at the sale price.  Not sure if I would spend the full amount on a plugin like this but yes it is very cool indeed.
 
All the noise and crackle and clicks can be turned off and you an just make use of what certain stages of converting to  vinyl will do to your sounds.  You don't have to run your whole mix though this either.  Think parts of your mix. 
 
The slow down feature is rather excellent and can be used in a number of ways.  Sound design comes to mind especially once the speeds get incredibly slow for example.

sharke
I have found that it's sometimes good at making problematic audio sit in the mix better. For example I have a part now which is a sort of bright plucked instrument of indeterminate origin (was probably from an AAS sound back before I bounced it to audio, can't remember) and it sticks out like a sore thumb with some really harsh qualities. I tried EQ'ing them out but without satisfactory results. Naturally tried a tape sim next, again no dice. And then I slapped the Abbey Road Vinyl on it, went through a few presets, and bingo. Sounds perfect and sits in the mix very nicely. Can't say it's going to work that kind of magic on everything, but it's well worth having in your arsenal of "things to try when EQ doesn't cut it." 

 
One area of a sound like that that may have contributed to it sticking out etc might be in the quality of its transients.  Abbey Road Vinyl may have just taken the edge of them to the extent that it sits in a mix rather better.  Nice use for it.  You may want to also try some form of Transient shaper in a situation like this.  I also have Waves Smack Attack which is rather cool at doing this also.