Volt to Spark: UA’s new electric avenue?
Spark service doesn’t need UA hardware and includes new UA instruments!
There was a time when Universal Audio plugins had to be purchased as companions to their (albeit fantastic) hardware. Then, with the release of their Volt interface a few months back, things changed. It was Universal audio hardware, without the software. Now with Spark, the trend continues. It’s UA software without the hardware! No. UA. Hardware. Required. And with UA instruments! And while Spark is a subscription service (which we are always in two minds about), this is still headline-grabbing news to us. But that’s probably just us… What about existing UA users? What of the future? Are UA entering the instrument market big time? Is this the end of UA accelerated hardware? And could you have come up with a better headline than we did? (Of course not.)
First the facts. Spark is an expanding set of plugins for $19.99 a month. Currently it is Mac only with PC compatibility coming this autumn. Then it will run in all major DAWs that support AU, VST3, and AAX. The current lineup is around 10 of UA’s classic outboard emulators including Neve 1073 Preamp and EQ, UA 1176 Classic Limiter Collection and Teletronix LA-2A Leveler Collection.
More exciting is the inclusion of four instruments including the Moog Minimoog and Ravel Grand Piano only previously available on UA’s LUNA system. The other two are all-new instruments: the Opal Morphing Synthesizer (a wavetable/ analogue hybrid) and Waterfall B3 Organ. Knowing UA as we do, you can bet that the organ will be modelled to a tee on the original B3. However, as far as new synths go, there’s little in the way of a track record to judge them on but Opal does look cool. It is an “analogue-meets-wavetable synth with continuously morphing oscillators, noise, filters, and LFOs” and includes UA effects like 1176-style compression,
Existing UA owners of hardware will get the native plugins for free that they already own. We have also pushed UA on their future plans for both instruments and their own accelerating hardware, but they have yet to get back. We suspect more of the former and less of the latter, but we’ll keep you posted.