Universal Audio today announced the web launch of v4.4 software for the UAD-1 & UAD-1e DSP Card & Powered Plug-Ins system

Version 4.4 includes a 14-day fully functional demo of the second Neve licensed plug-in – the 33609 Bus Compressor. Registered UAD-1 customers may purchase full authorizations of the 33609/33609 SE two plug-in bundle for US$249 from my.uaudio.com

“The Neve 33609 is our most sophisticated plug-in emulation to date and stunningly captures all the subtleties of this classic diode-bridge hardware design.” said Mike Barnes, VP of Marketing for Universal Audio. “Like our 1073 plug-in, we bundle both an exacting no-DSP expense version and a DSP-optimized version (33609SE) for higher instance count scenario’s and also added a unique headroom switch to optimize DAW compression “sensitivity” for use on inserts, groups or the master stereo bus. ”

Key Features:

• Exclusively Neve licensed/UA modeled 33609 bus compressor
• Compression curves and nonlinearities modeled to exacting detail
• Auto-release settings offer program dependent qualities
• “Software-only” controls link and additional 20 dB output gain
• Stereo or mono operation/ SE Version for Higher instance counts

“The completely step-controlled 33609 has its own unique sonic signature created by separate compression and limiter sections, each with their own threshold, recovery and bypass controls.” said Seath Ahrens, UA’s Director of Software. “The compressor section offers five ratio selections and the mono/stereo switch decouples the left and right gain reduction elements and allows us to offer a mono plug-in option with reduced DSP use. But version 4.4 is not only about the 33609, the engineering team has also been working hard on Mac/Intel and X64 driver development. Within days you will see first a Mac/Intel preview release (public beta) which means the UAD-1e can be used on the latest generation of Mac Pro desktops. Win X64 support will follow closely in Q4 2006.”