By Dave Crane
This month, "Plug-In Power" is really going to live up to it’s name. With the release of the UAD-Nevana X2, there is some incredible plug-in power available to anyone with a couple of PCIe slots and the desire to use the best mixing tools around. Nevana consists of two UAD-1e cards and the 7 UAD Neve plug-ins, plus the 14 Mix Essentials plug-ins. And to make the deal even sweeter, we’re throwing in a $200 voucher for UA’s online store, so you can purchase another plug-in of your choice (or toss in a bit more cash, and get two more great plug-ins!) This powerful combination yields many different custom Neve console configurations, and is limited only by your imagination!
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| Figure 1: UAD Neve 88RS Channel Strip |
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| Figure 2: UAD Neve Classic Console bundle |
If you mix and match, you can make some pretty impressive custom consoles. For example, in one 44.1k session with 12 mono, 4 stereo audio tracks, and 3 stereo busses, you could get 11 Neve 88RS (with various modules enabled), two 1081SE EQs, three 1073SE EQs, one 1081EQ, one 1073EQ, and one 33609SE compressor (see Figure 3). In this case, the full versions Neve 1073 and 1081 can be reserved for tracks that need the extra resolution, like drum overheads and lead vocal. This also leaves enough DSP for another plug-in, which can be purchased with the $200 voucher.
If you want to make an exacting custom console using only the best, you can get three 1073s, two 1081s, one 33609, and three Neve 88RS with various modules enabled at 44.1k (see Figure 4)
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Figure 3: One of the many possible combinations available with Nevana |
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Figure 4: Another Nevana example, using only the best of the best! |
If you want to build a straight console of one type of module, Figure 5 shows the stereo and mono instances you can get with the UAD Nevana at 44.1k. In the case of the Neve 88RS, all modules were enabled. Nevana will also give you up to 36 channels of fully loaded Neve 88RS Channel Strips (18 stereo channels), and you can also get 48 mono channels of the Neve 88RS with just the EQ enabled.
Plug-In |
Mono |
Stereo |
1073 |
10 |
6 |
1073SE |
38 |
36 |
1081 |
6 |
6 |
1081SE |
36 |
32 |
33609 |
4 |
2 |
33609SE |
20 |
16 |
88RS |
26 |
18 |
| Figure 5: Neve instance counts with Nevana | ||
In this month’s video, I am using the Nevana to mix a song in Digital Performer, with 21 mono, and one stereo audio tracks, and four aux tracks. I used nine 88RS Channel Strips, four 1081SE EQs, one 1081EQ, one 1073SE EQ, one 1073EQ, and one 33609SE compressor. Nevana comes with the 14 Mix Essentials plug-ins as well, so I used three 1176SE compressors and a DM-1 set up as a chorus. Because the Nevana comes also with a $200 voucher, I decided to “buy” a Plate 140 Reverb, threw in a few bucks more for a Pultec Pro and used one of each of those. That’s 23 great sounding plug-ins! (See Figure 6.) With Nevana, you’ll be in Nirvana!
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Figure 6: The plug-ins used for the Nevana demo video |
Over the years, we’ve written many articles and made a few demo movies of the UAD Neve plug-ins. In case you’re interested in reading (or re-reading) any of the Neve articles and watching the demo videos, I’ve included links to them.
The UAD Neve 1073EQ vs. the UAD Neve 1073SE EQ
Modeling the Neve 33609 compressor
Using the UAD Neve 33609 compressor plug-in
The UAD Neve 33609 compressor vs. the Fairchild 670 compressor
Using the UAD Neve 1073 EQ and the UAD Neve 1081 EQ
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| Download the Presets | |||
If you’re in a hurry, you can watch the movie on our Universal Audio You Tube Channel.
Music courtesy of The Fainting Goats, http://www.faintinggoats.net. "Big Chain" written by David Roda, and recorded by Will Shanks.