I’ve been waiting for the near-ubiquitous ExpressCard slot on laptops to see some audio goodness, so one of the more welcome announcements of NAMM is that there’s now finally an ExpressCard-enabled version of the Universal Audio platform. The UAD is a DSP platform for computers, with an emphasis on high-quality, boutique mastering and effects plug-ins, including some recent, familiar emulations of classic Roland and Moog gear. UA’s stuff really does sound great, and host support has been improving (look for the key words “latency compensation” in your host of choice). So it’s about time that laptop users get in on some of the fun the desktop users have had.

The surprise is, the UAD-2 SOLO doesn’t cost that much – $500 includes the card plus the “1176SE Compressor/Limiter, Pultec EQP-1A Equalizer, RealVerb Pro Room Modeler, and CS-1 Channel Strip.” That’s a premium over native plug-ins, but then you have access to other UA plugs later on. In other news, Antares and Manley Labs signed onto UA’s platform, so more stuff is coming.

And by the way, while the forums rip into the choice of DAW, this stuff will work everywhere – even, via RTAS, Pro Tools.

Universal’s stuff isn’t for everyone, but I’m pleased that laptop users are getting something more out of a slot on their machine. (You’ll find ExpressCard on most PCs and the MacBook Pro, as well.) I hope this is the first of more hardware to come.

http://www.uaudio.com/

Mastering – spoiled for choice? This means in mastering choices, you’ve got the UAD, IK’s T-RackS 3 announced at the end of last year, and iZotope’s Ozone 4 announced at NAMM. I’ll be talking to some folks in New York who know something about mastering (i.e., are not me). (One of them is a big Cubase fan, so I expect he’ll also be all over Cubase 5 – and he makes records that make real money, whereas I make records that go nicely with experimental modern dance.)

Each of these products goes a different direction, but the honest truth is almost any DAW will start you out with a pretty great selection of effects tools, and for a small chunk of change, you can add on with something like the UAD, T-RackS, and iZotope. None of this changes your actual skill level or the quality of your ears, but it does help keep your wallet from being the major barrier.

Ever feel music creation apps are too similar? Imagine an alternative universe in which music making software evolved along different lines. In this universe, the “tracker” isn’t some arcane novelty, but the detailed, bottom-up music editing approach that becomes the basis of music construction tools for any genre. Now imagine a breakthrough software release in that alternate universe.

Maybe it’s the Large Hadron Collider, but the release of Renoise 2 means that this is actually our universe: we have a cheap, community driven, unique app that runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. And it’s getting a big update Thursday – almost in time for my birthday (Tuesday).

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you picked the right moment to tune in. Renoise always had potential as a unique tool for music making, and with the shipment of Renoise 2, some very key pieces are falling into place. I’ve just gotten an exclusive look at what’s coming in the final release. Dac Chartrand has shared some details that weren’t previously public.

You heard it here first:

• Renoise 2.0 FINAL launches January 15, 2009, “8 years in the making, 4 months of beta testing.”
• Launch details on January 15 will be at http://www.renoise.com/launch/
• It’ll work with netbooks. Dac tells us: “Renoise can now be resized to fit on small Netbook screens. Here’s an interesting thread where a user reviews Renoise on his new MSI Wind U100:” http://www.renoise.com/board/index.php?showtopic=19175"
• Additional tweaks and bug fixes made it in, including Universal Audio UAD2 DSP support and latency compensation.
• Renoise 2 will support fraction BPMs, like 127.56.
• It’ll have new demo songs. “Two of the songs were selected from submissions by the Renoise community in a competition called "Beta Battle, Round 1 & Round 2". The developers chose their favorites and have included them in the final release of Renoise 2.0. More info here:” http://www.renoise.com/indepth/category/competitions/
• New native DSP effects: RingMod, Scream Filter

Read on for more details, plus tips on making this work with the tools you already use…

Universal Audio’s UAD-1, a sound processing platform built on DSP hardware add-ons for your computer, has gotten a much-anticipated sequel this week. The UAD-1 was always a favorite choice for sound production, delivering tasty analog-emulating sound tools on a PCI card platform. The UAD-2, on PCI-express cards, offer up to “ten times” the processing power of the original — supposedly even the single-processor model delivers a greater-than-twofold performance gain. The DSP hardware is just the platform, though, and Universal’s main push here is its plug-in developers. Sure, these days your CPU is a plenty-powerful sonic number cruncher, so I think it’d be a stretch to say anyone needs DSP cards. But what the platform can mean is plug-in goodies not available anywhere else, with a no-nonsense approach to sound that may not be as practical in native plug-ins. (And with support from software like Ableton Live, Apple Logic, and Cakewalk SONAR, you can then drop these into your host of choice.)

Here’s a look from around the Web at what people are saying about the UAD-2.

Oliver Chesler at Wire to the Ear notes what could be a real “killer app” / highlight of the UAD-2: a Moog multimode filter.

Two readers have sent follow-up videos (well, one a sort of slide show with audio) regarding tools previously mentioned on CDM, so it’s time to check in and see if we can learn more about these products.

Electronic Kits

Some readers lamented that the Zendrum MIDI controller was a compact unit with pads rather than arrayed like a traditional drum kit. True, that’s part of the point — supreme portability — but if you like your MIDI triggers in a conventional configuration and still want something expressive and unique, you should have a look at the NS2 electronic drum kits from RET. Zendrummer John Emrich must also love the NS2, because he does the demo performance of the NS2, as well — with even more convincing, realistic effect. (Disclaimer, since this evidently upset people last time: using a sampled acoustic kit as the drum sound for the trigger says a lot about the controller, because it reveals how sensitive and consistent the controller is, much as our ears can easily hear how good a MIDI keyboard is by listening to a sampled grand. These are the sounds we know well. Some of you just don’t like drum kits, so you guys I can’t really help.)

R.E.T. Percussion [Audio demo by John plays as soon as you open the page, with accompanying digital slide show]

I know nothing about the NS2, but from what I can tell — and from John’s endorsement — it merits consideration. Thanks to Bryan Tewell for the tip!

Updated: I couldn’t find this on the page but sure enough, there’s a full demo video by John from summer NAMM.

Latest from Universal Audio

The DCS (Desktop Console System) already caught our eye with beautiful design and an interesting philosophy: give computer audio users a high-end mic pre and DI in a compact form factor, perfect for project studios. The demo video from UA offers up more details, but it also teases us with something at the end:

DCS Remote Pre Demo [Universal Audio; video links]

“S” from tychomusic writes:

“If you go watch the demo video for the DCS preamp, at the end there’s mention of the forthcoming Monitor Master and the screen print artwork is shown briefly. This seems like a cool piece, since the only real options in that department are the big knob (pretty bad) and the central station (quite good, but probably not as good as a UA piece) Anyways, I can’t find any real images of it anywhere on the web, this seems to be the only thing out there right now.

Monitor master — sounds good to me, and definitely in line with the ideas behind the DCS pre.

Correction: I incorrectly stated that Euphonix themselves collaborated with UA; instead it is Euphonix co-founders and veterans of the company Scott and Rob Silfvast. I apologize for the error. In a way, this is even better; they represent some of the individual design vision behind Euphonix. See Scott Silfvast’s ideas at the end.

This weekend is the high-end AES audio show in San Francisco, meaning we get to ogle beautiful gear with serious-looking VU meters and drool-worthy audio quality. Universal’s new modular “desktop console system” is at the top of the list on both counts, and it’s actually geared at the project-sized computer music studio.