Universal Audio MAC Spark from $20/month

With a seismic change in plugin policy, one of the world's most renowned audio companies hopes to spark your imagination... without hardware

Speak to any audio professional working within the realms of audio production or music composition, and the chances are they will have used Universal Audio plugins at some point. With an enormous catalog, encompassing vintage and contemporary classics alike, it's possible to emulate the sound of circuitry from the likes of Neve, SSL, and Moog, with utterly alarming accuracy and detail, and all from within the software domain.

UA's audio units

The ethos related to their extensive plugin platform has always been to rely on their appropriately equipped hardware for plugin processing, thus relieving your computer's CPU of the heavy lifting. Once upon a time, this was a sound option, but with the advent of faster computing, the necessity for an external device to take up the slack has seemingly become outmoded. This has undoubtedly influenced UA's decision to re-engineer many of their plugins to a native format, allowing access to all users, regardless what their choice of the audio interface might be.

Getting sparked

The native response is Spark; a subscription-based model, which kicks off with a free 14-day trial, after which time it will cost a mere $20 a month. Given the breadth of UA plugins currently available, it would be almost inconceivable for all of their plugins to migrate to a native format in one go, hence the opening offering feels somewhat limited if compared to the entire catalogue. UA have however made efforts to begin with some of the diehard perennials. For starters, the 1176 and LA-2A compressor collections are both available, along with their Pure Plate and Lexicon 224 Digital Reverbs, and the Galaxy Tape echo, which is a model of the Roland Space Echo. There's a 1073 preamp and EQ from Neve, and API Vision Channel Strip, with tape saturation in the style of the Studer A800.