Introducing Verve Analog Machines From Universal Audio
Universal Audio’s newest software, Verve Analog Machines, offers 10 tone machines to instantly add color and character to your recordings.
More Ways To Save With Universal Audio
Universal Audio is kicking off 2024 with a bang by running some exciting new promotions. With massive savings across Universal Audio’s products, there’s no better time to save than now!
Let’s take a look at these current offerings.
proFILES | Ehren Ebbage
With several years of experience collaborating with Westlake Pro, Ehren Ebbage has earned recognition as an award-winning songwriter, producer, and composer. Formerly a member of Justin King and the Apologies on Epic Records, Ehren has curated a diverse portfolio that extends into television, film, and music. We interviewed Ehren Ebbage to delve into his creative process and uncover how he managed to produce a successful record in the midst of an unpredictable environment.
Trade Up With $500 Off An Apollo X!
With Westlake Pro’s exclusive Trade-Up promotion, you can transform your old gear into a discount of up to $500 on a brand new Apollo X Heritage Edition recording interface.
Simply bring in your old recording interface to Westlake Pro, and you’re immediately eligible for a significant discount on your purchase of a new Apollo interface. It’s the perfect way to level up your music production without breaking the bank!
Universal Audio Welcomes New Plugins To The Native Family
Universal Audio released two brand-new UAD plugins available natively from day one! Enjoy the sounds of the Capitol Mastering Compressor and the Electra 88 Vintage Keyboard Studio without requiring any UA hardware. Whether you’re an artist, engineer, or producer, these plugins will make excellent additions to your musical toolkit.
New UAD Bundles and Select Plug-Ins Now Available Natively
Now, the authentic analog sound of UAD plug-ins is available natively for Mac and Windows — no UA hardware required. Owners of Apollo interfaces can use included Apollo Realtime versions for recording with near-zero latency.
Get The Ultimate Mic Locker With UA’s Sphere
Universal Audio has just released two exciting new additions to its microphone line, making it so that capturing breathtaking performances are achievable at any price point. Whether you’re a hobbyist, a musician, or a seasoned studio professional – UA’s Sphere LX Modeling Microphone and Sphere DLX Modeling Microphone will give you authentically analog emulations of dozens of legendary microphones, at a fraction of the cost.
Let’s take a look at what these new microphones have to offer.
Looking Back At 2022
A lot has happened in the last year, and we have you – our readers – to thank for it. We’ve sat down with professionals in pro audio, received insightful wisdom from the best in the biz, discovered new workflows, built studios made from dreams, and explored cutting-edge tools from top brands.
Let’s take a look back at some exceptional highlights of 2022.
Universal Audio Unveils New Volt Interfaces & Plugin Bundle
From the creators of the game-changing Apollo interface, Universal Audio will be releasing two new Volt interfaces to bring professional fidelity to your at-home or mobile recording sessions. The UA Volt is the perfect interface for creative collaborators who want to easily record their projects with studio-quality sound. Plug right into your Mac, PC, iPad, or iPhone, and you’re ready to capture your inspiration.
UA’s 1176: A Complete Guide
The Universal Audio 1176 Compressor/Limiter is one of the most revered time-tested pieces of recording gear in history. Introduced in 1968 by Bill Putnam Sr. of United Recording fame, it has become a mainstay in nearly every studio today. Known for its smooth character and, at times, inaudible compression, the 1176 of the modern era has maintained the reputation that its predecessors created over five decades ago.
The 7 Best UAD Plugins For Vocals
When it comes to recording and mixing vocals, there’s no room for error. Messing up your lead vocal is the fastest way to turn off a listener. We all instinctively know what the human voice should sound like, so it’s that much easier to know when something is amiss. Whether it’s compression, equalization, or time-based effects, you always want to ensure you have the right tools.
The 15 Best Plugins From Universal Audio
If you’re looking for the most realistic and detailed analog emulations, UAD plug-ins are the best in the business. For over 20 years Universal Audio has been painstakingly recreating your favorite analog hardware in the digital realm.
Ditch The Amp With Universal Audio’s New Amp Pedals
New from Universal Audio, built on powerful dual-engine processing and world-class UAD modeling come three new instrument amplifier pedals to grant your every wish. From sweet, rich cleans to growling, grinding distortion, these new pedal offerings will take your tone on a journey far from home.
Simple ADAT Solutions with Focusrite Clarett +
Have you ever noticed the optical ports on the back of your unit labeled ADAT? These inputs and outputs are the keys to unlocking more of the I/O that’s at your fingertips and expanding your setup without the need to spend loads more cash. Today we’re going to take a look at the options you might already have when it comes to the ADAT capabilities of your interface.
UA Drops New Microphones
Universal Audio unveiled that they’ll be adding microphones to their line of professional audio equipment. Two of these offers are rebranded classic microphones that UA has acquired, the legendary Bock Audio and Townsend Labs. Additionally, Universal Audio has two proprietary microphones designed for the home studio market.
2021: The Year In Gear
2021 put everyone through their paces, but the audio industry has grown to adapt and overcome any challenges that might come between the audio community and the high quality sounds we crave. These obstacles brought new solutions that would change the way audio works for now and for the future.
Introducing Volt: Universal Audio’s New Recording Interfaces
Universal Audio has released an all new line of recording interfaces – introducing Volt, with classic analog tone shaping. UA’s Volt line includes 5 new recording interfaces featuring UA’s best-in-class audio quality to create professional-sounding music productions, livestreams and podcasts.
Introducing API Vision Console Emulation for LUNA
The API Vision Console Emulation Bundle turns LUNA into a full API console. Track in real time through API preamp and channel modules, then mix with API’s illustrious analog summing and bus compression — seamlessly switching between low-latency tracking using Apollo DSP, and high-powered native mixing within LUNA.
New UAFX | Classic UAD Sounds At Your Feet
Universal Audio has just announced their new UAFX stereo effects pedals. Using the power of the UAD-2 platform, these three pedals put classic analog sound right at your feet.
Apollo Heritage Edition joins the UA Family
The new Apollo Heritage Editions deliver a premium software suite of 5 or 10 award-winning UAD plug‑in titles including the full Collections from Teletronix, Fairchild, Pultec, Helios, and UA — conveniently packaged at significant savings for customers.
Demo a FULLY LOADED UAD-2 Satellite in YOUR STUDIO Today!
Experience 50+ Years of Sonic Innovation True Classics For the better part of the last 50 years, Universal Audio has pioneered some of the most important advances in recording technology, producing the first modern recording console along with two of the most popular compressors of all time – the LA-2A and 1176. Through that time, […]
Explore the NEW Universal Audio Apollo X Series at Westlake Pro!
Apollo X Universal Audio has just announced the Apollo X series, the latest in their line of groundbreaking interfaces! The sleek, Thunderbolt 3 design fuses elite, class-leading conversion with the new HEXA Core processors, which offer 50% more DSP than previous Apollos. This allows recording of multiple tracks through UAD’s award-winning plugins with near-zero latency, […]
The Closest You Can Get to Analog Recording Without Winding Tape
The Closest You Can Get to Analog Recording Without Winding Tape
If you made it to NAMM 2018, you probably saw Universal Audio’s Analog vs Digital shootout. Audiophiles donned a pair of headphones and pressed a button to listen to an analog compressor or EQ unit, then another button to hear the UAD-2 digital emulation of them with the same settings and source audio. Then you’d press a third “mystery button” and guess which one you were hearing. Each person would hear four different pieces of equipment and their digital counterparts and write down four “mystery button” guesses.
I went through each one and listened carefully before writing down my best guess. I was surprised to find that most of them completely stumped me. I’d listen to all three buttons again. And again—am I hearing an original piece of analog equipment or an imposter?
It turns out I wasn’t the only one feeling a little less confident with my ears than usual. A Universal Audio rep kept a going tally of responses vs. correct answers from the scorecards and the ratio of those told me that, for all intents and purposes, we listeners were practically screaming “WE HAVE NO IDEA!” as we filled out the scorecards.
Now if UA had set up a booth in the mall, I wouldn’t have been as surprised by that result. But there we were, in the biggest pro audio event in the country! Practically everyone in attendance was an audio professional in some capacity. And most of us were stumped. Audio engineers are not typically humble or shy about their opinions of audio quality.
To put it into perspective, this would be like putting a bunch of car guys in a room with a genuine, all-original 1969 Camaro SS and some kind of newly-manufactured clone that costs less than 1/10th of the price. Most would scoff that you’d even think they wouldn’t be able to spot the real thing! But then when you ask them to tell you which is which, some head-scratching begins and there are quite a few wounded egos.
It was quite a clever and convincing hands-on demonstration—and one that worked beautifully. I ordered a Universal Audio Apollo 8p the next week!
Once I sat down with my newly-acquired piece of UA hardware, was blown away all over again when I tried out some of the Unison preamp emulations. Using the same ingenuity that created the UAD-2 signal processing plugins, Universal Audio’s Unison technology manipulates the gain structure, harmonics, and characteristics of the preamps in the actual hardware to emulate vintage microphone preamps with stunning accuracy.
Controllable within the UAD Console, you can set up a Neve 1073, Bill Putnam’s 610A, or a number of other iconic vintage mic preamps, and capture the harmonic qualities that propelled their names into the audio history books. Heck, throw one on each track of your stereo guitar, or different ones for each signal of your drum tracks! Just like any other UAD-2 plugins, you quickly realize the expanded capabilities of your rig when all of the processing power is handled within the interface or other external DSP processor rather than bogging down your computer.
I thought of all these possibilities, and suddenly dropped or reprioritized thousands of dollars on my “must-have” list of studio hardware.
Maybe you’ve already known about all of this for a while, but the barrier-to-entry has remained just outside of reach for your ever-growing audio career.
Well, as they say—the times, they are changing.
With the release of the Universal Audio Arrow, entry into the world of UAD-2 plugins is more affordable than ever.
At just $499, you can get an Arrow interface and 14 incredible UAD-2 plugins!
The Arrow is UA’s newest interface, designed for musicians and engineers on the go, home studios or anywhere you need top-quality audio recordings. It uses the same Unison preamps as its big brother Apollo and features an ultra-fast Thunderbolt 3 connection to your computer. (Note that it requires native Thunderbolt 3 connections, so adapters won’t do the trick).
For 14 UAD-2 plugins—nevermind the Unison preamps and legendary Universal Audio AD/DA conversion in the hardware—well this is a deal that just can’t be beaten
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You Get Even More UAD-2 Plugins When You Bundle
With each purchase of an Apollo Thunderbolt Interface, Arrow Thunderbolt Interface, or Satellite DSP Processor, you can bundle more UAD-2 plugins at the time of purchase and choose which ones you want later on.
With a new Universal Audio user account, you’ll get a 14-day demo of each and every UAD-2 plugin in their entire collection. Since you have 45 days to choose which plugins you want to grab in your bundle, you’ll have plenty of time to try out a bunch of them and find the ones that work best in your own DAW setup.
It can get a little overwhelming (there are tons of awesome plugins in their library!), so we recommend trying them out in groups rather than unlocking 14-day demos for all of them at once.
Below are the UAD-2 plugin bundles that are available for purchase with any Apollo Thunderbolt Interface, Arrow Thunderbolt Interface, or Satellite DSP Processor. Remember, these additional plugins are on top of the plugin bundles that are already included!