UA Unveils UAD-2 PCIe DSP Accelerator Cards & Revamped v5.0 Powered Plug-In Software

Universal Audio today announced the UAD-2 Powered Plug-Ins & PCIe DSP Accelerator Card for DAWs. The UAD-2 is the successor to the revolutionary, award-winning UAD-1 Powered Plug-Ins & DSP Card Platform. UAD-2 offers scalable DSP power via 3 different types of cards (Solo, Duo or Quad) which can be mixed or matched in any combination up to 4 cards. Each UAD-2 is powered by the same Analog Devices® 21369 SHARC® floating-point DSP in single and multi-chip configurations. UAD-2 offers 2.5X (Solo), 5x (Duo) and 10X (Quad) the power of UAD-1. The UAD-2 is designed and manufactured in the USA, is now shipping and immediately available at UA dealers worldwide in 9 different hardware/software bundles ranging in street price from US$499 (UAD-2 SOLO) to US$1999 (UAD-2 Nevana 128).

"The UAD-2 is set to shake up the audio industry even more radically than UAD-1 did." said Mike Barnes, VP of Marketing for Universal Audio. "We listened hard to the power, feature and plug-in requests from our loyal UAD-1 user base. Then we designed the new potent UAD-2 DSP platform for DAWs to be "the one" that delivers all the sound and channel counts of large-format analog consoles plus all the authentic tone of classic outboard FX inside the box. You can Track, Mix and Master to the next power."

At the heart of every UAD-2 DSP Card & Powered Plug-Ins package is the revolutionary UAD-2 PCIe DSP card. With its potent Analog Devices SHARC® 21369 floating-point processor(s), the UAD-2 Solo/Duo/or Quad can track, mix and master to the next power at sample rates from 44.1 to 192kHz. The UA Powered Plug-Ins Collection brings the most sonically revered processors form the past 50 years of audio to your computer including vintage equalizers and compressors, superior precision mastering tools, lush reverbs and officially licensed classic hardware emulations from Neve®, Roland®, SPL® and more. "What makes UAD-2 truly unique is that it not only sounds stellar due to our proprietary UAi modeling technology but it's deliberately priced to be accessible to all types of studio's from bedroom, to project to full pro facility." added Bill Putnam Junior, UA's CEO & Founder. "From the basic UAD-2 Solo/Duo/Quad to the Flexi (make your own bundle) and Nevana 32/64/128 (exclusive Neve® console bundles), the UAD-2 is one of those rare products which brings UA's superior sonic quality and legacy of professional recording know-how within the reach of everyone."

"The icing on the cake is all our existing UAD plug-in partners including Neve, Roland, SPL, Valley People and Empirical Labs are not only ready to get onboard UAD-2, but will be joined by new partners: Harrison, Moog, and Little Labs. " enthused Matt Ward, President of Universal Audio. " These partnerships have helped us to create the most authentic plug-in emulations on the market and now those plugs run on the platform with the most power all in a package that's within the price range of a small project studio."

KEY FEATURES:

• 2.5X (Solo), 5X (Duo), 10X (Quad) the power of UAD-1 on a single PCI Express card
• VST and AU support, cross platform Mac OS X Leopard/Tiger, Win XP/Vista
• (NOTE: RTAS support to follow in a future 5.x release)
• Easily Expandable DSP - Use up to 4 UAD-1 & 4 UAD-2 cards in one system
• LiveTrack™(low-latency track/monitor mode)L.O.D.E™ (Live Optimizing DSP Engine)
• SessionMap™ (bi-directional UAD-1<>UAD-2 session compatibility & DSP manager)

• "What makes UAD-2 truly unique is that it not only sounds stellar due to our proprietary UAi modeling technology but it's deliberately priced to be accessible to all types of studio's from bedroom, to project to full pro facility." added Bill Putnam Junior, UA's CEO & Founder. "From the basic UAD-2 Solo/Duo/Quad to the Flexi (make your own bundle) and Nevana 32/64/128 (exclusive Neve® console bundles), the UAD-2 is one of those rare products which brings UA's superior sonic quality and legacy of professional recording know-how within the reach of everyone."