KAUSTHUB RAVI & SIVANESH NATARAJAN
A MUCH NEEDED CHANGE
ART PRO VLA 2
Hardware Compressor
Plugins have been getting better in recent times and make
you really question the need for hardware units. In recent
times, there have also been some affordable hardware units in
an attempt to make it more accessible to the masses. The ART
Pro VLA II compressor is a very good example. It is a Vactrol
based optical compressor. output level, attack, and release. The light up switches for VU
meter sources and the LED gain reduction meter might seem
gimmicky and take away from a vintage hardware unit image
but they do serve their purpose pretty well. The compressor
can be unlinked to act as two mono compressors and in stereo
mode, the same gain reduction is applied to both channels.
Why would you want one of these when you have dozens of
up-to-date emulations in the box? For starters, it's an excellent
way for beginner producers and mix engineers to get into the
analog world. In initial tests, the compressor performed extremely well on
bass - creating a nice tight sound that sat well on the track. It
also performed quite well on vocals and had the transparent
smooth compression characteristics of hardware units, the
soft knee really adding to this character.
It sounds quite natural and transparent and shows more
character when pushed quite hard. The warmth comes from
the 12AT7 vacuum tube used in the clean transformer-less
signal path.
The construction of the unit looks pretty solid. It has a 2U
chassis and two handsome VU meters up front, along with
standard looking knobs for threshold, ratio, input level,
In conclusion, this is an excellent place to start with as far
as hardware compression goes. It could’ve used a mix knob
for some parallel compression options. The transparency,
unless pushed, may be seen as a bit of a downside for someone
looking for a very character-rich hardware compressor. But
for most applications, it works quite well.
UNIVERSAL AUDIO ARROW
Thunderbolt 3 Powered Audio Interface
The 500-600$ range space is fast filling with a lot of interesting
entries in the audio interface department. We saw the recent
release of the Arturia Audiofuse which, at 600$, offered quite
an impressive array of features with some extremely clean
pre amps, a ton of inputs and can neatly fit in the front pocket
of your laptop bag.
UAD has just released their counterpart and the fact that
it’s bus powered is noteworthy as up until now UA’s most
portable interface, the Apollo Twin, required an external
power supply. The UAD Arrow is a thunderbolt interface
with two Unison preamps fed by two XLR inputs at the back
with high class 24/192 converters. While some may prefer
front XLR inputs for accessability, the rear ports give it an
overall cleaner look. There is a single 1/4” Hi-Z guitar input
and a 1/4” headphone jack in the front. We see the familiar
multifunction rotary wheel to adjust the preamp and monitor
levels. Again, like the case of the XLR inputs, it puts form
over convenience. There are buttons for high pass filters,
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phantom power, phase flip, pad and control inputs. The
single Thunderbolt cable for power and connectivity really
completes the simple and minimal experience.
Although the interface offers a decent bit at the price
range, the one that will seal the deal for most people is the
integration of the UAD software/hardware combo. There are
14 UAD-2 Plugins included with the unit and is powered by
a UAD-2 Solo core DSP. This allows for tracking and mixing
through the preamp and guitar amp emulations, which as
we’ve seen before, are quite good.
On paper, the unit sounds like a fantastic buy for the producer
looking for a sleek, elegant and compact interface. The solo
core DSP and the consequential limits of the unit to run
multiple plugin instances along with the lack of more inputs
may end up being the deal breaker for some. But for most
intermediate users, it may be exactly what they’ve been
looking for.