Contrary to popular belief, Digidesign ain’t the only game in town when it comes to hardware DSP for effects and instruments. Universal Audio writes us to say that today they’ve updated their UAD-1 DSP system; version 3.9 adds support for Mac OS X Tiger. Users of Logic Pro 7.1 and the upcoming Live 5 will enjoy better support for the UAD-1 on their end, too, thanks to new latency compensation in each of those packages.
There’s a goodie in the new release, too: an emulation of the Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble stompbox, for creating analog-style, wide-stereo effects. The CE-1 was developed by UA in partnership with Roland, the first of three promised stompboxes. For those of you who sing the Song of Roland, I’m sure you’ll crave this. (The update includes a 14-day demo; you’ll have to shell out the US$99 for chorusing after that. If you’re buying a UAD-1 new, there’s a free compressor promotion through the end of June.)
By the way, two things I like about the UAD-1. First, it’s got just one, big vector chip for DSP, saving some of the typical bottlenecks on DSP cards. Second, their slogan is “Analog Ears, Digital Minds,” which seems in keeping with the spirit of CDM. Or . . . wait . . . are we more “Analog Minds, Digital Ears.” Or . . . “Analog Ears, No Mind.” Well, something like that. So, any UAD-1 aficionados out there? Give us a buzz.