Universal Audio Powered Plug-Ins

[Anderton]

Oh, I did forget to mention one thing...the reels can rotate, like with UA's Studer A800 tape recorder plug-in. It drives me crazy watching them go around so I disable the rotation, but it's still cute

[Siggidori]

Clear difference in those samples.

I've been using the ATR plug on my masters recently ... and occasionally in mixes as well. I'm quite fond of it I must say.

Good stuff.

[Anderton]

I'm glad you could hear a difference in the Jazz example. I thought it might be too subtle, but I wanted to get the point across that the ATR could be subtle if needed.

I'm generally NOT a fan of analog tape. I think this is one case where the emulation is better than the original, because you don't have to put up with the limitations of tape, and the positive attributes are emulated extremely well. I decided to review this plug-in more out of a sense of duty ("well it's their latest plug-in, I should probably check it out") but agree with you that "I'm quite fond of it I must say."

[Anderton]

Well I guess even the engineers at UA have to take a break once in a while from doing emulations of things like tape recorders, so they've tackled the venerable MXR Flanger/Doubler. This classic analog delay used BBD (Bucket-Brigade Delay) technology – the same technology used in devices like the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, A/DA Harmony Synthesizer, and the Hyperflanger+Chorus I designed. Common BBD chips were the Reticon SAD-1024 and SAD-4096, and Panasonic/Matsu{censored}a's MN3001 and MN3005.

These delays had a distinctive, grainy, metallic sort of sound, although it seems UA has mercifully chosen not to reproduce the really nasty noise you got at longer delays. As a result, you'll hear the novel, distinctive sounds this device could produce, but without the artifacts that I couldn't imagine wanting to have incorporated in a digital emulation. The “tone” is preserved, which is by far the most important element.

If you've worked with flangers before, you won't find many surprises – there are controls for delay, LFO speed and width, feedback, wet/dry, phase invert, and the like. So, I thought the most useful way to show off the unit would be to create a video that takes you through the controls. A number appears in the upper right when the following events occur. (In case you wondered, the sound source is a looped power chord from my Technoid Guitars sample library originally marketed by Steinberg/Wizoo.)

1 This shows the range of moving the manual delay control.

2 The LFO width control gets turned up to initiate automatic sweeping.

3 The Speed control changes from the slowest to fastest speed, then returns to the approximate mid-position.

4 Clicking on the Rate LEDs resets the LFO. This is a feature that wasn't available with the original Flanger/Doubler. I do this later when the Regeneration is higher, which makes it more noticeable.

5 Time to kick up the Regeneration.

6 Now you can hear that the LFO reset is more obvious with regeneration.

7 The Invert button changes the tonality by flipping the polarity, presumably of the feedback path.

8 Dual mode works when you're sweeping the signal with the LFO. It throws the LFO out of phase for the left and right channels.

9 The sound goes to Delayed sound only (no dry signal).

 

 

[neilwilkes]

 

Originally Posted by Phil O'Keefe

That's GREAT news! My interest level just doubled.

 

But what about those of us who do not use ProTools?

Any chance of getting us sorted out with categorization & the loss of the pointless (and space wasting) "UAD" prefix on every plugin?

@Craig.

Great reviews.

I own all these (except the MRX & the VOG, Brainworx, both SPL & the Moog) and am still learning stuff.

Reading the perspective of someone who has - as you call it so well "the sound burned into his brain" - is giving me a whole new outlook on things.

Please keep up the excellent work

[neilwilkes]

 

Originally Posted by Anderton

I’ll let you in on a little secret: The DM-1 Delay Modulator is a wonderful processor with some serious personality. It can do flanging, chorusing, stereo delay up to 300 ms per channel, ensemble effects, resonators, rotating speaker effects, and really strange sounds that are more for sound design than anything else. I love it.

I particularly like two features that everyone else seems to leave out of their modulation effects. First, the Recirculation control has center = 0; clockwise gives positive feedback, and counter-clockwise gives negative. Second, the Wet/Dry mix control works similarly in that you can mix the wet signal in-phase or out of phase. This is crucial for flanging sounds, as you can get excellent positive and negative flanging.

The chorusing can have a sort of syrupy, thick vibe. The Recirculation control works in conjunction with a Damping control so you can do things like pull the damping way down, and add strange ambiences to kick drums. Each channel also has a pan control, so you can bring the output more toward center, or reverse channels if you want.

The sync option affectcs both the left and right delay times (although they can be adjusted independently) as well as the LFO rate. The LFO waveform can be sine or triangle, and because the LFO drives each channel independently, there’s a phase angle choice of 0, 90, or 180 degrees.

The presets are okay, but this processor really comes into its own when you start messing around with it. For example, I loaded a distorted guitar power chord and sent it to two send buses. One went through a DM-1 set for flanging, with the LFOs offset by 90 degrees. The other send went through a DM-1 set for dual delay, with about a 1ms delay per channel. Both were set for wet sound only so I could get through zero-flanging and the top of the flanger passed through the straight line’s delay and canceled--the settings are shown in the picture. Listen to this in stereo! Headphones are highly recommended.

 

I agree totally, Craig. This is one under rated delay plugin.

A lot of people also seem to forget there is a second delay plugin there as standard too - the DM-1L with a much longer delay time possible.

The DM-1 has a range of up to 300ms in delay mode, or 125ms in chorus or flange mode, whereas the DM-1L goes up to 2400ms per channel.

It's totally excellent for everything - you can also get pretty close to the "Lennon Slap" effect obtained originally on the MRX Flanger/Doubler too

[Bookumdano2]

Spose they'll do the blue MXR digital delay at some point.

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by neilwilkes

I agree totally, Craig. This is one under rated delay plugin.

A lot of people also seem to forget there is a second delay plugin there as standard too - the DM-1L with a much longer delay time possible.

The DM-1 has a range of up to 300ms in delay mode, or 125ms in chorus or flange mode, whereas the DM-1L goes up to 2400ms per channel.

It's totally excellent for everything - you can also get pretty close to the "Lennon Slap" effect obtained originally on the MRX Flanger/Doubler too.

 

Thanks for bringing that up, excellent point. I do think people tend not to give the "out of the box" plug-ins as much props because they're free, so they assume they can't be as good as the "optional at extra cost" plugs. But just because they don't have a sexy graphic interface doesn't diminish the sounds you can get with them! After all, they were included to give people an incentive to buy the hardware, and definitely are useful audio tools.

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by neilwilkes

But what about those of us who do not use ProTools?

Any chance of getting us sorted out with categorization & the loss of the pointless (and space wasting) "UAD" prefix on every plugin?

 

I'm not sure which DAW you're using, but with Sonar, I use the Plug-In Manager to categorize plug-ins and it also allows for re-naming.

 

@Craig.

Great reviews.

I own all these (except the MRX & the VOG, Brainworx, both SPL & the Moog) and am still learning stuff.

Reading the perspective of someone who has - as you call it so well "the sound burned into his brain" - is giving me a whole new outlook on things.

Please keep up the excellent work

 

Thanks very much for the compliments! I have the plug-ins you mention, and hope to check them out soon.

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by Bookumdano2

Spose they'll do the blue MXR digital delay at some point.

 

I hope they do the MXR Pitch Transposer! That was one gnarley effect

As to delay...the Doubler part of the Flanger/Doubler is coming up next.

[Anderton]

Now let's take a look at the Doubler part of the Flanger/Doubler. This is basically a short delay with mix, regeneration, and LFO. As with the previous video, numbers appear in the video's upper right that correlate with the descriptions below of what's happening onscreen.

1 In this part of the video, the signal goes from dry to processed. I left the balance at 50% wet, 50% dry.

2 Here the delay time goes from maximum delay to minimum.

3 Turning up Regeneration gives that “analog delay” resonance sound.

4 With Regeneration up, you can really hear the effect is has as the delay goes from minimum to maximum delay.

5 The LFO works in Doubler mode as well, and like the Flanger, when active it overrides the manual delay setting.

6 Flipping the Invert switch doesn't have much of an effect as the delay isn't short enough to cause significant cancellation.

7 Might as well fade out on minimum delay and maximum regeneration...fun stuff

 

[grooveminister]

Hi,

I´ve just discovered this thread and like the discussion that´s going on here - so first of all I want so say hi to all of you!

For those of you who havent discovered it yet, I want to add my sound-example of UAD´s Ampex emulation that I´ve done some days after the release of the plugin.

Please keep in mind that zapping through presets (only few of them customized) does not produce optimal results, actually only the first setting was matched to the mix & mastering.

So this is to show off in what directions this emulation can take your mixes - of course you wouln´t use the manually calibrated artists presets when you´ve already setup your mastering-EQ perfectly to your liking.

After uploading the video to You-Tube I´ve discovered Stephen Smiths ultralinear-presets that work best on finished mixes with final mastering EQ settings.

But if you are just in the process of getting there, the creatively calibrated artists-presets might help a lot e.g. allowing you to use less EQ on the 2bus.

Best wishes, Andreas

 

 

[BlindGuyEars]

That drum example brought to mind the second half of Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage.

Check out the song "Outside Now". Could you duplicate what's happening to the snare with the UAD plug-ins do you think? To me, that sounds like delay and flanging combined, with the times varying ... I guess they would have had to adjust the rate of both by hand back then?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uOB6m8c8WI

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by grooveminister

Hi,

I´ve just discovered this thread and like the discussion that´s going on here - so first of all I want so say hi to all of you!

 

Andreas - and a big hello back at you! Thanks for adding the demo, it adds another dimension to the review. Stop back when you can, and thanks again.

[Anderton]

UA sent around a letter to their user base tonight, thanking their users for their support and all that good stuff..but here's the best part:

"Looking forward, one increasingly common request is for UAD plug-ins to become fully 64-bit compliant. Rest assured, the UAD plug-in transition to 64-bit architecture will be completed in 2012.

"This 64-bit compatibility will come at no cost to our users. You have chosen to support us, and we will support you as audio processing standards evolve."

Granted, "completed" in 2012 seems like this may be a lengthy process, probably trickling out plug-ins in batches as they become available, but I like the "no cost to our users" part. Re-designing plugs for 64-bits is not trivial, so they're basically putting some serious bucks into the effort and not asking for anything in return.

[Anderton]

And now that I think about it...hmm...they're working pretty closely with Avid these days. I wonder if this means Pro Tools will be doing the 64-bit shuffle before too terribly long, and UA wants to make sure they're ready.

[musicismycore]

I think I have found the my favorite forum for music production. Thanks Craig for the very informative post about UA

[jorhay1]

Craig,

Please spotlight the emt-250.

REALLY interested to hear your thoughts, thanks!

[Anderton]

 

Originally Posted by jorhay1

Craig,

Please spotlight the emt-250.

REALLY interested to hear your thoughts, thanks!

 

We've had some other requests for that one, so...duly noted. I have a temporary problem in that my music computer went down, so I'm using an old Frankenputer to tide me over that doesn't have any PCIe slots (yes, it's that old). Although I could use the Satellite with my Mac, the Mac isn't set up for doing videos so while I could do audio examples, it seems the videos are a hit and I'd rather do that.

I should be up and running early next week, once I get everything re-installed. Speaking of which - the UA plugs are some of the easiest to deal with in terms of a dead computer, you just download the software, re-authorize, and you're back to work. No hunting for serial numbers, authorizing hard drives, etc.

[jorhay1]

^^^^^

cool.

Take your time, looking forward to it.

I'm working at henson's with a real one so I have the sound really stuck in my head.

Thanks!

[blueshoes22]

That's some nice drumming man. I enjoyed that, you've got your kit set up nice, and a nice way to show off the tape plug in too - really got a great idea of what it is capable of. Thanks!

[grooveminister]

Thanks Craig & blueshoes22!

@BlindGuyEars: I didn´t try to duplicate Zappa´s "Joe´s Garage" FX with UA Plugs yet - but I guess it would easily be done.

When I first got the album, I then tried replicating the FX on my Korg SRV-3000 and it sounded very similar.

@jorhay1: I own the UAD Lex 224 and the UAD EMT 250 and the latter one is the most amazing discovery for me.

First of all I got my UAD-2 Satellite QUAD because of the august promo - it was bundled with the Studer, Massive Passive and the EMT 250 then.

I abolutely wanted the A800 and the Manley - but only knew of EMT´s plate reverbs - so my expectations were low on that "freeby" especially because of the few controls.

In the mean time I have used it on some mixes and I have to say it has an incredible quality and to me the most robust glue with the instruments in the mix.

I haven´t been able to compare it with the original unit - but the fact that UA hat licensed and implemented the original algorithm (as with the 224) convinces me that they sound the same.

The only potential difference is the modeling of the analog sections - but I don´t care too much because I want to benefit of the possibility to use them both with the modeling of their analog sections off.

To be able to use these machines with digital IN/OUTs was not possible with the original units (AFAIK) and is a major advantage to me.

Best wishes,

Andreas

Here´s my UAD MXR Flanger-Doubler sound example:

 

 

[Anderton]

My new PC Audio Labs computer was shipped to me today!! And I just realized that one of the GREAT things about UA plugs is all I need to do is insert the board, run the latest software, and I'm back in business with these effing great plugs.

[Anderton]

Before I get back to the plug-ins, thought you might like a preview of what Universal Audio is up to now...

 

 

[jorhay1]

Neato! I want one.

Can you expand the UA processors (either the duo or quad) beyond what comes in the Apollo by adding an additional UA card or firewire Accelerator?