Recording - April 2015 - 29
tracks were mixed together; in blind comparisons it was often a case of "did I really hear that?". All in all, this is some of the
closest modeling I have heard from UA to
date, maybe even better than the Massive
Passive Plug-in (reviewed February 2015)
which is a personal favorite.
What impressed me most on the mic
pre side was how similarly the two units
react to input sources, both functionally
and sonically. The new Neve 1073 plugin really shows off how successful the
Unison impedance matching is in a big,
big way, especially on dynamic and ribbon mics. The one difference that surprised me here was that with a Shure
SM7 on vocals, I did notice that the
Apollo Twin-1073 actually exhibited a bit
more headroom before driving the input
compared to the hardware.
Side by side: the EQ
To my ears the biggest difference
between the two units was in the EQ section (confirmed by UA, who note that the
modeled 1073 and 1073N do sound
slightly different), but more in settings
over tone. In some instances, most noticeably the low end, when setting the controls equally it was a tad sonically off in
terms of weight. The plug-in took a tiny bit
of forward nudging of the little round dots
before the tone was evenly matched.
So sonically they were really close, but
the calibration was gently skewed
between the plug-in and the Neve hardware I was borrowing. Not a big deal,
really-in an actual mix I am not concerned with matching hardware settings,
I just turn an EQ dial until it sounds right!
Old vs. new software
I was expecting the new 1073 plug-in to
essentially make the Legacy version obsolete. While the new version definitely wins
in the "hey, it sounds like analog" department, I was impressed with how well the
EQ points and characteristics matched up
between new and Legacy. The Legacy
lacks the nonlinear harmonics and subtle
distortions of the new, but in a full mix I was
content using the older version alongside
the new one when I ran out of DSP.
And speaking of running out of DSP,
my only real disappointment with the new
1073 is how ravenous it is-it takes up
40% of a UAD-2 SHARC processor chip
in mono and 68% in stereo, with some
savings if you disable the EQ (the preamp
keeps the lowcut filter anyway). On an
Apollo Twin DUO you can get 4
instances in mono or 2 in stereo; a rack
Apollo QUAD would double those numbers. I am disappointed only because this
plug-in sounds so amazing and I selfishly
want more. If you compare it to the
Legacy version, which can run 20
mono/12 stereo instances per SHARC, it
highlights how intricate and detailed the
modeling is on the new version.
Wrap up
I use the Apollo Twin/1073 plug-in combo
for tracking vocals, acoustic guitar, and
voiceovers in my edit suite at my day job as
a tech director. I have also found said combo
invaluable for remote tracking outside of the
studio; I feel no need to risk my hardware preamps on the road any more.
It seems almost anticlimactic to say it, but
Universal Audio has done it again. When
you consider that UA has taken the world's
most famous microphone channel head
on, and created a tracking-friendly version
that comes frighteningly close to the original at a fraction of the cost (even throwing
in an Apollo Twin), then the accolades are
fully deserved!
Price: $299
More from: Universal Audio,
www.uaudio.com
Paul Vnuk Jr. (paul@recordingmag.com)
would like to thank Dave Malekpour and
the staff of Professional Audio Design
(www.proaudiodesign.com) for their loan
of a Neve 1073N for this review.
http://www.uaudio.com
http://www.proaudiodesign.com
http://www.cras.edu
http://www.cras.edu
http://www.audiorecordingschool.com/consumer.html
Recording - April 2015
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2015
Recording - April 2015 - Cover1
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Recording - April 2015 - Cover3
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