UNIVERSAL AUDIO UAD-1
Oct 1, 2004 12:00 PM, BY ROBERT HANSON
For those who produce music, hitting the limit of what a CPU can handle is a daily occurrence. So way back when, top-tier professionals demanded some additional processing horsepower; thus, the concept of card-based processing was born. Unfortunately, for a long time, the luxury of off-loading DSP-intensive signal processing to a secondary card was kept squarely in the realm of professional workstations — that is, very expensive workstations. Thankfully, a few pioneering companies woke up to the fact that the rest of the proletariat would like to get in on the action. One of those companies was Universal Audio. Several years ago, the company released the first UAD-1, which included a DSP card and a suite of plug-ins.
The concept was simple enough: Simply drop the DSP card into a PCI slot on an appropriately equipped Mac or PC, install the software and use the new plug-ins in your DAW of choice. It's been a few years since that initial release, and some of the recent changes include the ability to use multiple cards (four max), Mac OS X and Windows XP support and support for third-party VST-to-RTAS wrappers. What's more, the list of available plug-ins has swelled with the addition of Cambridge EQ, DreamVerb and Fairchild 670. The UAD-1 is also available in two different packages: The budget-oriented Project Pak, which includes the DSP card but omits the higher-end offerings like DreamVerb, and the Studio Pak (the focus of this review), which bundles 20 of the 22 available plug-ins.
MOVING AHEAD
I've been a user the UAD-1 since the first generation of the product, and for this review, the company was kind enough to send along a second card to test the multicard support. To begin the testing process, I installed the second card and moved my machine from Mac OS 9.2.2 to Mac OS 10.2.8 with Logic 6.3.3. Overall, the installation was stupidly easy. I downloaded the latest revision of the UAD-1 software from the company's Website (www.my.uaudio.com), entered my password, and it was done.
After restarting the machine, I booted up Logic and loaded a session that I had done in Mac OS 9.2.2. All of the UAD-1 plugs that I had used in the previous OS were accounted for, and everything was running fine. The newer plug-ins, such as Cambridge EQ, require additional authorization, and upon launching each for the first time, users are directed to the support section of the company's Website.
The complete list of included plug-ins with the UAD-1 Studio Pak includes LA-2A Leveling Amplifier, 1176LN and SE Leveling Amplifiers, Pultec EQP-1A Program Equalizer, Cambridge EQ, RealVerb and DreamVerb reverbs, Fairchild 670 compressor, CS-1 Channel Strip and Nigel guitar amp and effect emulator. The components of CS-1 can be auditioned separately, and these elements include DM-1 Delay Modulator, RS-1 Refection Engine and EX-1 EQ & Compressor. And just to keep things consistent, Nigel can also be broken into separate pieces; these include Preflex guitar amp modeler, Gate/Comp, Phasor, Mod Filter, Trem/Fade, Mod Delay and Echo. Because Remix already reviewed the majority of these plug-ins back in April 2002, the focus here will be the newer offerings, namely Cambridge EQ, DreamVerb and Fairchild 670.
NIP/TUCK
Cambridge EQ is the third EQ is the bundle, and it covers what the other two EQs can't. Modeled after the EQ in a similarly named digital console (if you know your British universities, this should be easy), Cambridge enables users to carve out the exact sound that they're looking for. With five parametric or shelving bands, lowpass and highpass filtering (with 17 selectable filter slopes) and a graphical point-and-drag interface, you'll be hard-pressed to find an EQ chore that Cambridge can't handle. The most impressive aspect is its selectable filter slopes, which include basic 6 and 12dB/octave selections, as well as the supersteep Eliptic6 setting, which shears off the signal with a slope that's closer to a band-kill setting than anything else. Each of the five bands also offers three selectable shelving curves.
Cambridge is an excellent mixing tool, as it allows you to use subtractive EQ in an exacting way — a must for unforgiving digital mixes. I found it to be particularly useful in cutting out bleed in multitrack drum performances. Using the Eliptic6 setting in both the high and low bands, I was able to remove much of the cymbal bleed in the kick-drum mic and remove almost all traces of the kick drum in the overheads. This type of surgical precision is especially useful when you're attempting to replace certain sounds in a performance while keeping others.
THE SOUND AFTER THE SOUND
The new DreamVerb will seem familiar to users of RealVerb Pro, which shipped with the earlier UAD-1 packages. With DreamVerb, it is possible to create more than just your own virtual room and mix the wet/dry ratio: You can select from a variety of room shapes (square, rectangle, horseshoe and so on), specify the materials in the room (drapes, marble, brick and more) and determine the thickness of the air (virtual humidity). And to make things even more off-the-wall, you can select two different room shapes and materials and morph between them. For example, it is possible to have a reverb setting based on 75 percent large rectangular room and 25 percent dome, with the interior comprising 32 percent brick and 68 percent carpet, with moist air. From there, you can adjust the early reflections and reverb decay, as well as tweak the resonance with a 5-band EQ. The plug-in also includes basic wet, dry and mute controls.
In use, it almost seemed like a shame to slap DreamVerb on a vocal track and set the wet/dry ratio to a measly 5 percent and call it done. This plug-in screams to be noticed. I found myself not only using it to simulate realistic room tones but also taking it to extremes. As more of a sound-design-oriented tool, DreamVerb is excellent at helping to create ambiences, environments and bed tracks. The flexibly of the plug-in and sheer amount of different sounds that you can create with it almost defies description.
THE VINTAGE SQUASH
Apparently, you can never have enough vintage compression. So joining LA-2A and the two different 1176 versions within the UAD-1 bundle is the new Fairchild 670. Now, any professional studio worth its salt has at least a few LA-2As and 1176s in its racks, but the Fairchild is a different story. The unit is so rare, in fact, that the UAD-1 emulation is actually modeled after a specific unit at Ocean Way Studio — talk about going the extra mile.
Fairchild 670 is a 2-channel compressor/limiter that will work as a basic stereo unit, or it can process stereo audio as lateral and vertical components before returning it to the stereo output. The reason the unit has such legendary status is for both its extremely fast attack time and low distortion. And unlike other compressors that accept stereo material, 670 has a separate compression stage for each channel. The plug-in includes separate controls for each channel, including metering, input gain, threshold, time and output. The unit can also be configured for lateral or vertical processing, as well as linked controls and sidechaining.
The plug-in is really at home processing finished stereo mixes. It will help to impart that clean, processed sound on any mix you run though it, without that artificial sound that comes from many plug-in compressor/limiters. Outside of that, I couldn't help but run some vocals and bass guitar through it, and, of course, it sounded like a dream.
WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?
Upgrading your entire computer is often a painful transition. The UAD-1 easily presents the most cost-effective means of turbocharging your current setup. Overall, if the signal-processing plug-in that you already own doesn't have the sound you're looking for or if you're struggling to get projects completed with a slightly older machine, the UAD-1 is the clear solution. From both a sound and a performance standpoint, Universal Audio has it in the bag.
Product Summary
UNIVERSAL AUDIO
UAD-1 STUDIO PAK > $1,199
Pros: Affordable suite of professional signal-processing tools. Uses separate DSP card.
Cons: None.
Contact: tel. (831) 466-3737; e-mail info@uaudio.com; Web www.uaudio.com
System Requirements
MAC: G3; 256 MB RAM; Mac OS 9.2/10.2/10.3; available PCI slot; Audio Units —, MAS- or VST-compatible host
PC: Pentium III; 256 MB RAM; Windows 2000/ME/XP; available PCI slot; DX- or VST-compatible host
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