Universal Audio UAD DSP News: Have you been thinking about getting a UAD DSP solution for your DAW, or maybe a second, third, or fourth? Well, now is the time! Until June 30th 2008, if you purchase and register a new UAD-1, UAD-1e, or Xpander from Digital Village (online, in-store or via telephone mail-order) your my.uaudio.com account will be awarded with a UAD$150 Coupon, good for any Powered Plug-In in the UA Web Store.
Even better, there is no limit to the number of UAD products you can buy, and UAD$150 Coupons you can earn. Promotion and coupons expire June 30th, 2008.
Universal Audio UAD DSP New Plug-Ins
Universal Audio have announced two new plug-ins for their UAD DSP plug-in processing platform. The first is an emulation of the classic Dbx 160 VCA compressor/limiter, which was first released in 1971.
The VCA VU — the official name of the plug-in — has Threshold and Ratio controls, the latter of which is simply marked ‘compression’ on the GUI, just like the legending on the hardware version. There’s also an output gain control and source selector for the prominent VU meter. A pair of LEDs give visual feedback as to whether the input signal is above or below the threshold, and the plug-in can be bypassed by switching the virtual power button on and off.
The second new plug-in from Universal Audio for the UAD DSP platform is the Precision Enhancer kHz, which joins a handful of other software processors in the Precision range. Universal Audio say that the plug-in is “designed to bring dull or poorly recorded tracks to life”, using equalisation and dynamic-range expansion techniques.
It has five modes of operation, each of which orders the plug-in’s processes differently. The first two modes offer parallel filtering with a wet/dry mix, whereas the remaining three insert an upwards expander in the filtered signal path, between the filter and the wet/dry summing circuit.
Both new plug-ins are be included (on a trial basis) with the v4.10 of the Universal Audio UAD DSP software, which is compatible with any UAD card, and is required before the new plug-ins can be used.
About the Universal Audio UAD DSP Card
At the heart of every UAD DSP Card & Powered Plug-Ins package is the revolutionary UAD DSP card. Because of its high resolution, floating-point processing, ultra high-speed memory and hardware dithering, the UAD delivers outstanding high-headroom sound quality at sample rates from 32 to 192khz.
Unlike other DSP cards, the UAD uses a single, unpartitioned vector processor, allowing for larger and more sophisticated plug-in algorithms offering a new level of power and complexity not found with host-based plug-ins. By greatly reducing the burden on the computer's CPU, the host application can now deliver more tracks, automation and native effects.
UAD Platform Partners / Plug-Ins
Universal Audio have announced new plug-in partners and forthcoming additions to the UAD DSP Platform for Mac and PC. Valley People (US), Sound Performance Lab (Germany) and Empirical Labs (US) join Roland (Japan) and Neve (UK) as the latest companies to sign licensing deals with UA to develop future plug-ins for the popular DSP platform which features the leading plug-in analogue hardware emulations in the industry.
- Empirical Labs: Forthcoming Fatso UAD plug-in mid-late 2008
- Neve(UK): 1073, 1081, 33609, 88RS, future plug-ins TBA
- Roland: RE-201 Space Echo, Dimension D, CE-1, future plug-ins TBA
- Sound Performance Lab: Transient Designer, future plug-ins TBA
- Valley People (US) - future plug-ins TBA
“I think our users will be elated by the latest partner additions to our portfolio of premium quality plug-ins. The UAD DSP platform has successfully established itself not only as a secure platform to do plug-in business for our partners, but also the best-sounding platform for hardware emulations in the business at any price.” said Matt Ward, President of Universal Audio.
“UA has been listening loud and clear to our thousands of loyal users and we are committed to evolving the UAD product family, delivering the best value DSP platform and broadening our select plug-in suite so that the UAD continues to set the benchmark as the best in-the-box mixing and mastering solution available for AU/VST/RTAS DAW users.” added Mike Barnes, VP Marketing for Universal Audio.