Yes, It’s here, the first publicly available
thunderbolt 3 equipped audio interface.
Welcome the baby of the Universal Audio
kingdom, The Arrow.
If you, like me in my geekdom, frequently troll
the world of ProAudio forums, you will have
seen several arguments about how pro audio
interfaces do not actually need bandwidth
in excess of what is available from USB
2. While this may be true, thunderbolt 3
is a whole new paradigm because of one
primary reason - it’s capability to deliver
power.
UNIV ERSA L AUD I O
THE AR ROW
Universal Audio’s technology has resulted in arguably
the most versatile audio interfaces on the market today.
Their revolutionary unison technology preamp modelling
enables you to emulate the sound of legendary analog gear
with incredible accuracy. The Unison plug-in actually
adjusts the preamp circuit itself, including parameters
such as impedance, analog gain structure, and much more.
When you adjust the Arrow's preamp gain knob and physical
controls, the plug-in adjusts the preamp's behavior to match
the target preamp. So you're not simply filtering your audio
to approximate the character of a famous preamp — your
microphone is now interacting with the Arrow's input the
same way it would behave with the "modelled" preamplifier.
But this technology requires a massive amount of power,
which has never before been deliverable over bus-power, so
even their portable desktop interface, the Apollo Twin, needs
an external power supply.
But with the Arrow, Universal audio opens the door to
explore the phenomenal potential of the thunderbolt 3
format, which is now capable of providing enough power
to build a bus-powered, truly portable interface, that comes
with Unison technology.
A review by
MT Aditya
compression,
EQ
and
reverb.
Stage performers - vocalists
or guitarists - pay attention - this vastly
simplifies your rig. All this at an entry level price
point.
There are some things to be aware of though, before you
purchase one. You do need a thunderbolt 3 equipped
computer, like the 2016-17 Touch bar MacBook Pros or some
of the latest Razer windows laptops. Thunderbolt 3 will not
work when connected to a thunderbolt 2 port of previous
generation MacBook pros. While the thunderbolt 3 format
uses the same connector as USB-C, a generic USB-C cable
is not capable of delivering thunderbolt 3 protocol, an issue
thats caused a lot of confusion in the market, which makes
me wish UA had included a thunderbolt 3 cable in the box.
I cannot contain my excitement for the possibilities this
entails. This means I can be outdoors, in the most amazing
locations, and record music on a console emulation of my
choice, without having to worry about power sources, with
best in class A/D-D/A conversion (by a mile). While UA essentially designed this interface for the entry
level college musician, I truly believe they are going to see
some strong demand from professional sound engineers, like
me, who travel a lot and need to access UA plugins on the go.
The thunderbolt format also means that the Arrow can be
daisy chained, just like all other UA interfaces, so essentially,
this can also function as the monitor controller for your rack
mount UA Apollo interface (for which thunderbolt 3 option
cards are now available, FYI).
The arrow comes in a nice-neat-small form factor, with a
headphone output, a DI-line in, 2 Unison pre-amps, a pair of
monitor outputs, a Solo Core for UA processing and comes
included with the Analog classics plugin bundle . While a
Solo core might not seem like much, it is enough to run the
top of the line Unison enabled API or SSL console emulations,
or a custom channel strip with your choice guitar amp, The Arrow is for me, the coolest portable, future-proofed
interface available on the market today. This is barely the
beginning of the possibilities that thunderbolt 3 enables
though, and I trust that not before long, we will see much
more powerful interfaces from Universal audio, with several
cores of UAD-2 processing available over bus power - the wet
dream of the 21st century sound engineer.
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
41