Universal Audio Introduces Powered Plug-Ins

Universal Audio announced today the development of Powered Plug-Ins, the first offering in the UA Digital product line. Powered Plug-Ins, bundled with the UAD-1 DSP card, bring an unprecedented "Plug-In Experience" to the native DAW user.

Powered Plug-Ins are a family of DSP-intensive plug-ins "powered" by the revolutionary UAD-1 PCI card. The UAD-1 brings ultra-high computational processing to host-based systems - outperforming the DSP hardware engines of today's popular high-end DAWs. The UAD-1 card utilizes a single proprietary high-speed DSP processor. The end result is a quantum leap in performance giving native workstation users the experience of using professional quality plug-ins with multiple instances unencumbered by the limitations of the host processor. "

Host-based workstations provide an excellent and cost-effective editing/mixing platform. But to date, key DSP processes such as reverb, EQ and compressors have been hampered by limited processor cycles" said Paul Rice, Universal Audio President. "Powered Plug-Ins bring the professional, a no-compromise audio experience to the native DAW user at an affordable price. The UAD-1 card contains a single, ultra high speed chip enabling UA engineers to be limited only by their vision and not the technology," he added.

"To illustrate the horsepower of Powered Plug-ins" Rice continued, "a VST user could easily configure a session utilizing 30 EQs, 30 compressors and 6 RealVerb Pro instances running simultaneously. This configuration would leave an excess of more than 30% capacity on the UAD-1 card for additional processing!"

"Native workstations have proven themselves in the marketplace. Now native DAW users will have the capabilities of dedicated hardware systems at a fraction of the price" said Dino Virella, VP Sales & Marketing at Universal Audio. "This is the first product in our new Universal Audio Digital product line. We are excited to have a platform as powerful as the UAD-1 to showcase our DSP technology. The result will set new performance expectations for native workstation users world-wide."

Available in April, 2001 for $995 US list price, the Powered Plug-Ins Pro bundle features Kind of Loud Technologies' highest quality stereo reverb, RealVerb Pro; and includes the UAD-1 DSP card, EQ-1 EQ module, CX-1 compressor module, MD-1 modulated delay module, 1176LN Vintage Compressor, LA-2A Vintage Compressor, and RS-1 Room Simulator. This initial release will support the VST/PC format. Future bundles tailored to the needs of the audio community are planned, as is support for the RTAS (PC and Mac), VST/Mac and MAS formats.