Universal Audio guitar pedals

TTBZ

Hard to get excited about these when there are already so many good delay/reverb pedals out from Strymon etc! Just going to ignore chorus as it's just the worst no matter how much you pay for it.

Would have rather had a UA "Amp Room" Iridium style pedal with the cab sims and fx from the Ox built in, interchangeable amps and cabs via an app etc. Maybe that's coming at some point - hope so!

Seziertisch

TTBZ said:

Would have rather had a UA "Amp Room" Iridium style pedal with the cab sims and fx from the Ox built in, interchangeable amps and cabs via an app etc. Maybe that's coming at some point - hope so!

They did do a Fender-endorsed software emulation of a Tweed Twin (I think) a few years ago. I haven’t used it but the demos were impressive.

Philtre

Seziertisch said:

The UAD-1 card was released in 2001, predating the TC Powercore by a couple of years.

And I bought one in 2001. It was expensive (£650 for the card and some fx) and OKish. Glad I sold it when I could recoup some of the cost.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/universal-audio-uad1

soma1975

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

Sassafras said:

£355 for a chorus pedal!?!?!
World's gone mad!!!

It does emulations of the CE-1, the MXR Flanger/doubler, Blackface tremolo, Phase 90 and a dynamic tremolo

So does a Line 6 M5.

I own a Helix and the modulation effects, though all usable, vary from pretty good to fairly uninspiring. 

I’d expect the mod effects from UA to be able to go toe to toe with the real things.

So would I for the price of several actual Phase 90s

english_bob

soma1975 said:

Strymons are expensive but absolutely feature laden. Compared to the Walrus Makos they are a joke. 

Compared to the Walrus Makos the UA pedals are a joke? 

soma1975

The Walrus D1 is almost £100 cheaper. 

Philtre

english_bob said:

Compared to the Walrus Makos the UA pedals are a joke? 

Why did the UA pedal cross the road?

To see what all the fuzz was about.

Stuckfast

Seziertisch said:

AFAIK UA were the first company to implement DSP-assisted software emulations of hardware. The UAD-1 card was released in 2001, predating the TC Powercore by a couple of years.

I like UA as a company and I'm sure these pedals will be excellent, but Pro Tools TDM had been around for six or seven years before the UAD-1 came along. In fact the first UA digital products were TDM plug-in emulations of the 1176 and LA2A, but I think there were other developers making hardware emulations before then.

english_bob

soma1975 said:

The Walrus D1 is almost £100 cheaper. 

And sounds really good and does more stuff than the UA equivalent.

That's what I thought you meant, but my brain is ready for the weekend and couldn't quite decide if that was what you said.

Seziertisch

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

Sassafras said:

£355 for a chorus pedal!?!?!
World's gone mad!!!

It does emulations of the CE-1, the MXR Flanger/doubler, Blackface tremolo, Phase 90 and a dynamic tremolo

So does a Line 6 M5.

I own a Helix and the modulation effects, though all usable, vary from pretty good to fairly uninspiring. 

I’d expect the mod effects from UA to be able to go toe to toe with the real things.

So would I for the price of several actual Phase 90s

Sure, you can pick up a Phase 90 for under a hundred quid, but they just include that as extra.

The MXR Flanger/Doubler goes for about 500 quid or more when you can find one for sale,

CE1s are creeping up in price all the time, you’ll struggle to find one for under 300 maybe ever 400 quid.

You have more options when it comes to tremolo emulations, though the better quality ones such as the one in the Strymon Flint are not exactly cheap either, same with dynamic trem, I know Keeley make one and bundle it together with a reverb and charge a couple of hundred quid for it.

mixolyd

Ive listened to all the videos including the demos in their awkward livestream. The spring in the reverb pedal sounds a level above any DSP pedal-based spring I’ve heard - drip, the right eq, liveliness it’s all there.  Plate sounds very good but I need to hear more.

I agree that the feature set (no midi, only one preset, no expression input) is very weak compared to the norm at the price point and that’s a problem but they’ll get away with it because the algorithms simply sound better.

The modulation pedal I’m not so sure of - you could buy three analogue mod pedals (not the same models but comparable) for the same price which would mean you’d effectively have three presets, be able to use them together and have better ergonomics at cost of physical space.

The delay kinda sounds good, it does seem to do the clear yet soft percussive attack I associate with the Echoplex which other pedals don’t seem to be able to cop, but other than that I don’t hear anything special to put it above better featured pedals at the same price point.

If I get back to playing then I may be tempted by the verb at some point, but for the same money I could buy a real Surfy Bear spring reverb and rely on the Acustica Nebula (I picked it up very cheap around Black Friday having kept an eye out for a while) reverbs for in-the-box which I feel are generally superior to UA’s algos anyway.

soma1975

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

Sassafras said:

£355 for a chorus pedal!?!?!
World's gone mad!!!

It does emulations of the CE-1, the MXR Flanger/doubler, Blackface tremolo, Phase 90 and a dynamic tremolo

So does a Line 6 M5.

I own a Helix and the modulation effects, though all usable, vary from pretty good to fairly uninspiring. 

I’d expect the mod effects from UA to be able to go toe to toe with the real things.

So would I for the price of several actual Phase 90s

Sure, you can pick up a Phase 90 for under a hundred quid, but they just include that as extra.

The MXR Flanger/Doubler goes for about 500 quid or more when you can find one for sale,

CE1s are creeping up in price all the time, you’ll struggle to find one for under 300 maybe ever 400 quid.

You have more options when it comes to tremolo emulations, though the better quality ones such as the one in the Strymon Flint are not exactly cheap either, same with dynamic trem, I know Keeley make one and bundle it together with a reverb and charge a couple of hundred quid for it.

It's not a CE1 and it's not a Phase 90. It's some digital models of them. Not the same thing at all. 

End of the day nobody outside the influencer sphere is going to make the case for them being a value proposition. If you like them then cool. If they sound nice then cool. If money isn't a thing to you then cool. They will definitely sell. But not because they are a value proposition. 

Seziertisch

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

Sassafras said:

£355 for a chorus pedal!?!?!
World's gone mad!!!

It does emulations of the CE-1, the MXR Flanger/doubler, Blackface tremolo, Phase 90 and a dynamic tremolo

So does a Line 6 M5.

I own a Helix and the modulation effects, though all usable, vary from pretty good to fairly uninspiring. 

I’d expect the mod effects from UA to be able to go toe to toe with the real things.

So would I for the price of several actual Phase 90s

Sure, you can pick up a Phase 90 for under a hundred quid, but they just include that as extra.

The MXR Flanger/Doubler goes for about 500 quid or more when you can find one for sale,

CE1s are creeping up in price all the time, you’ll struggle to find one for under 300 maybe ever 400 quid.

You have more options when it comes to tremolo emulations, though the better quality ones such as the one in the Strymon Flint are not exactly cheap either, same with dynamic trem, I know Keeley make one and bundle it together with a reverb and charge a couple of hundred quid for it.

It's not a CE1 and it's not a Phase 90. It's some digital models of them. Not the same thing at all. 

End of the day nobody outside the influencer sphere is going to make the case for them being a value proposition. If you like them then cool. If they sound nice then cool. If money isn't a thing to you then cool. They will definitely sell. But not because they are a value proposition. 

In terms of them being digital models and not the same thing as the actual pedals, you could criticise any of the digital emulation pedals by any manufacturer on those grounds. A CE1 will likely be even more valuable in 10 years time, the same is unlikely to be true of any of the Strymon digital pedals or any other digital emulation pedal.

The value proposition of the UA pedals is that they presumably/hopefully sound and behave so much like the real thing that someone who would previously only have settled for the real thing on grounds of sound quality will not have to sacrifice convenience for sound quality.

Ddigger

Seziertisch said:

CE1s are creeping up in price all the time, you’ll struggle to find one for under 300 maybe ever 400 quid.

There is one n Gumtree right now... 

sgosden

Seziertisch said

The value proposition of the UA pedals is that they presumably/hopefully sound and behave so much like the real thing that someone who would previously only have settled for the real thing on grounds of sound quality will not have to sacrifice convenience for sound quality.

Yeah those types are never going to accept a digital pedal as being as good as analogue....

Stuckfast

I wonder if the UA ones will be as noisy as some of the originals...

Seziertisch

sgosden said:

Seziertisch said

The value proposition of the UA pedals is that they presumably/hopefully sound and behave so much like the real thing that someone who would previously only have settled for the real thing on grounds of sound quality will not have to sacrifice convenience for sound quality.

Yeah those types are never going to accept a digital pedal as being as good as analogue....

A mate of mine has a recording studio with some ridiculously desirable guitars and amps. When I first met him 10 years he refused to own even a digital delay pedal on puritanical grounds.

He now owns 4x UA Ox Boxes - he compared them to the real thing (similar cabs and recording chain) and said he was either unable to tell the difference in a blind test or the difference was one of taste rather than quality.

mixolyd

Seziertisch said:

sgosden said:

Yeah those types are never going to accept a digital pedal as being as good as analogue....

A mate of mine has a recording studio with some ridiculously desirable guitars and amps. When I first met him 10 years he refused to own even a digital delay pedal on puritanical grounds.

He now owns 4x UA Ox Boxes - he compared them to the real thing (similar cabs and recording chain) and said he was either unable to tell the difference in a blind test or the difference was one of taste rather than quality.

I think it’s horses for courses: for time-based effects like delay and reverb you have to go digital for certain effects because very few people have the resources for an EMT plate or a mic’d up hall.  The mod stuff is another matter - at best their new pedal can only rival the result produced by a chorus pedal that can be bought for less than 100 quid.

soma1975

Seziertisch said:

said he was either unable to tell the difference in a blind test or the difference was one of taste rather than quality.

So which was it? 

soma1975

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

soma1975 said:

Seziertisch said:

Sassafras said:

£355 for a chorus pedal!?!?!
World's gone mad!!!

It does emulations of the CE-1, the MXR Flanger/doubler, Blackface tremolo, Phase 90 and a dynamic tremolo

So does a Line 6 M5.

I own a Helix and the modulation effects, though all usable, vary from pretty good to fairly uninspiring. 

I’d expect the mod effects from UA to be able to go toe to toe with the real things.

So would I for the price of several actual Phase 90s

Sure, you can pick up a Phase 90 for under a hundred quid, but they just include that as extra.

The MXR Flanger/Doubler goes for about 500 quid or more when you can find one for sale,

CE1s are creeping up in price all the time, you’ll struggle to find one for under 300 maybe ever 400 quid.

You have more options when it comes to tremolo emulations, though the better quality ones such as the one in the Strymon Flint are not exactly cheap either, same with dynamic trem, I know Keeley make one and bundle it together with a reverb and charge a couple of hundred quid for it.

It's not a CE1 and it's not a Phase 90. It's some digital models of them. Not the same thing at all. 

End of the day nobody outside the influencer sphere is going to make the case for them being a value proposition. If you like them then cool. If they sound nice then cool. If money isn't a thing to you then cool. They will definitely sell. But not because they are a value proposition. 

In terms of them being digital models and not the same thing as the actual pedals, you could criticise any of the digital emulation pedals by any manufacturer on those grounds. A CE1 will likely be even more valuable in 10 years time, the same is unlikely to be true of any of the Strymon digital pedals or any other digital emulation pedal.

The value proposition of the UA pedals is that they presumably/hopefully sound and behave so much like the real thing that someone who would previously only have settled for the real thing on grounds of sound quality will not have to sacrifice convenience for sound quality.

Do they have a CE-1's preamp modelled as well then? None of the bumpf says it does, which means it doesn't do that thing most people love a CE-1 for. 

I'm all for good digital pedals. I own a bunch. But let's not start being silly about these suddenly being as good or better than the real thing and being indistinguishable. As an aside a Strymon flint is still holding its value remarkably.