UAD Studio Edition

I've always been sceptic about kind of simulation. After 15 days demo period, i think this plugin is amazing. Goooooooooood job.!!!

I took the plunge and bought this even though I cringed at the price. I'm hoping that when the price does finally drop for a sale that UA shows some love with a special coupon of some sort. But anyway...

I'm really pleased with the results on this thing so far. It's pretty easy to use and being able to set different tape speeds and tape types for different channels is great. Drums seem to benefit the most with kicks and snares fattening up and pounding extra hard and cymbals smoothing out very nicely. I tried this with the Neve channel strip on each channel and the cumulative effect is quite nice.

It is a bit of a resource hog and with the channel strips it quickly started to tax my UAD-2 Duo card so now I'm looking to upgrade to the Quad.

The first project I used this on, the client was very happy with the results and noticed a difference from previous projects I've done for him so I guess the investment was worth the money.

Overall, I'm pleased with the purchase.

I just used this inline on a big midi project going to PT9. Recorded all tracks thru this plug strait to disk to save using it in the mix later. I would have to say it is amazing. But be careful as it can mess with timing on things if you make small adjustments on individual tracks to it. I sold my old Tascam deck for this and so glad I did!

Simply gives an incredibly warm and rich tape sound to any source material, stunning!!!

I have to agree with the last reviewer, that it should be aimed more at the 250 bucks level...
I will not be buying until some sort of offer is on it :-(

Well done UAD.

As an EX owner of the Telefunken-M-15-A I can say this product is not bad by any means.

I was mixing a whole song with it and it was fascinating how it can round of transients and saves you from using extra compression in the mix.

The user manual lacks description in how to use the hidden EQ,Bias etc. controls traditionally right.
There is a Generation that never had the chance to work with such a Tape-Machine.
For this reason it would be great to get more context-information how these hidden knobs affected the output.

At this point I don't care if it sounds like a real tape machine.
At least it emulates well the Tape-Kompression and alone that is great!!

I measured the plug in - watching out for inharmonic-distortions...nothing bad to see.
Other UAD plugs still suffer from inharmonic-distortions - missing dithering in the signal-path?

I give it only 3/5 points because I think it is too expensive for a plug-in.
For some more money you can get a decent 1/4" real HW tape recorder and you will have lot of fun with it.

The price point in my opinion is 250$.
350$ will make this wonderful plug in for a lot off younger-folks unreachable-

I skipped Massive-Passive and Fatso because of the high price.
It looks like that I will skip this one as well even if I like it.

Development: 5 POINTS
Price-Tag: 1 POINT

I love to smash things with it!! like drums and all the percussion sound. It's give the track more air and movement in the mix. Also Great for parallel compression.
It's my magic tool!!

Folks! Whatta delicious surprice! This one is the definate winner compared to LA2 and 3. I replace almost all of my old projects where I used LA2 or 3 and the sound always get's more intense and jump out of the mix in a very musical way. Amazing for vocals and .... yeah, everything! Can't live without it! A MUST BUY!

without a doubt the best compressor for dance music hands down. Turns a flabby kik into a nail thumper, a sloppy stab into an int-your-face dancefloor corker. damn UA this is magic !! nothing else like it in the vs/au plugin world!

Der absolute Oberhammer in sachen summenkompression auf Drum-Bussen !!!
keine Produktion mehr ohne dieses ding. Klasse Arbeit. Einsame spitze. I love it !!!

Amazing tide sound, nice VU meter and not complicated.

It's wonderful on a fingered bass, if you want a more lively sound.

it was the first uad plug i used, and yeah, instantly was blown by its simple power. its much rougher than the la2a - but not in a digital way.

Fantastic ! My go-to Fingered Electric Bass compressor. Simply great! Thank you UA :)

Just got my LA-3A today... WOW...I own the LA-2A, 1176 and the Fairchild, and HANDS DOWN this is THE Compressor for Vocals.....The faster attack, and better midrange cuts better than the LA2A which was my go to Vocal compressor before...

Nice JOB!!!

Great Great Great. This VCU give so much KAWUUUMM to my Songs. I love this Tool. With the Fairchild my absolute favourite Compressor.
This is great Tennis.

I love how this plug adds that analog tone to my tracks...thats my favorite part about it. Thanks UA

This is just great! Perfct on drum-buss and electronic kickdrums! CPU-friendly and good sounding - go ahead with this pilosophy UAD!

The Neve will give you a thick sound and a lot of head room. But this here is some thing else. Out of all the UAD compressors. This one really does make a crappie recording come to life in a totally different way.

At first I wasn't impressed by VCA VU at all. The enlightenment came when I tried to use it in electronic music as track compressor. This plugin give my kick drum "full", "solid" sound, and perfectly deals with complex synths section.
Very nice stuff, if you know where to use it.

The new dbx VCA VU is just awesome, its a very Quick for poorly recorded Tracks, that is, if the levels are varying too much, to say the least.

Even the presets are very well designed if you are unsure, and very self explanatory.

The dbx VU Compressor/limiter plug-in dose make you smile.

Thanks UAD for a great release.