UAD Sound City Studios Plug‑In
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Get the authentic sound of the world's most famous rock & roll studio.
Produce music in one of the most famous recording studios in history — including the room, mics, iconic console, and outboard gear — as heard on classic records from Nirvana, Metallica, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Rage Against the Machine, and more.*
Add the vibe and character of this legendary space to your drums, guitars, vocals, synths and more — right in your own bedroom or home studio.Included Version
UAD Native
Runs on your Mac or PC without UA hardware.UAD Native plug-ins run on both macOS 10.15 Catalina or newer and Windows 10 and 11. Go to our UA Support page for system requirements.
- Place your drums, guitars, vocals, and more inside Sound City Studios' famous Studio A
- Transform your sources with a collection of vintage hit-making mics
- Sculpt perfect guitar tones with expertly placed cabinet and mic setups
- Get the authentic tone of an iconic '70s custom British console, including 3-band EQ and inline compression, based on the legendary Sound City Studios' desk
- Smash your tracks with Sound City Studios' collection of analog outboard gear including "secret weapon" Dolby A-style effects**, 1176 limiting, and more
- Put your sources in Sound City Studios' lush-sounding reverb chamber
TAKE A LISTEN
Immerse Yourself in a Historic Room
Sound City Studios' famous Studio A is the birthplace of hundreds of hit records. Voiced with original multitrack recordings cut at Sound City Studios, we expertly captured the distinct "warts and all" character — with historical setup guidance from engineers who used it everyday — so you can easily put your productions in the same space where magic was made.
Easily Find Your Sweet Spot
Simply choose your source — vocals, drums, guitar, ensembles, or piano — and get proven room and mic setups, from the big reflective sound used on Nirvana's Nevermind to Tom Petty's intimate "wood" corner.* You can even re-mic your guitars with a selection of perfectly placed cabinets and room mics.
Reposition Vintage Mics with Dynamic Room Modeling
Go far beyond historic setups and customize your space by moving a stunning collection of classic condenser and ribbon mics from AKG, Neumann, and RCA — in realtime for authentic room sounds beyond the original chart-topping positions.**
Explore a Legendary Custom British Console
The centerpiece of Studio A since the early '70s, Sound City Studios' custom-made console artfully colored everything that ran through it. Now you can get the same satisfying analog character and tone with perfect emulations of a vintage British 3-band EQ and bus compressor on all your sources.
Crush, Gate, or Add "Air" with Secret Weapon Compression
Along with the legendary limiting of the iconic Rev E 1176 compressor, Sound City Studios gives you the first-ever emulation of the Dolby A301** noise reduction system — a multiband EQ/limiter used and abused by Sound City Studios' engineers — so you can get the same glossy-to-hyped background vocals and explosive drum sounds heard on decades of hit records.
Add Chart-Topping Ambience with Iconic Reverb Chamber
Put the finishing touch on your tracks with the same natural, open-sounding reverb used by Queens of the Stone Age, Phoebe Bridgers, Death Cab for Cutie, and more. Plus, you can season your ambient space using perfectly placed pairs of dynamic, small-diaphragm condenser, and ribbon mics.*
*Use of artist names does not constitute official endorsement of Sound City Studios software.
**All trademarks are property of their respective owners and used only to represent the effects modeled as part of Sound City Studio software.
Disclaimer: The famous Sound City Studios is located in Van Nuys, California where it was originally founded. Sound City Studios has no affiliation with Sound City Amplifiers of New Jersey. For information on Sound City Amplifiers visit their website at soundcityamp.com
UAD Sound City Studios Tour
Learn how to add classic drum ambience, re‑amp guitar tones, and craft unique airy background vocals using the UAD Sound City Studios plug-in.
“The UAD Sound City Studios plug‑in sounds amazing, letting you put your performances into one of the greatest sounding studios of all time!”
– Butch Vig (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters)
“The UAD Sound City Studios plug‑in sounds just the way I remember that room – and heck, I even own one of Sound City’s original AKG C24 microphones from the good old days.”
– Sylvia Massy (Tool, Johnny Cash, System of a Down)
“There’s an explosive magic to Sound City's live room that‘s electrified so many seminal records. UA not only captured the sound of that room, but has gone to great lengths to model the outboard gear that’s integral to those recordings.”
– Billy Bush (Garbage, Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney)
“The UAD Sound City Studios plug‑in can put any sound into the legendary studio's live room. The ability to change the mics and their positions is fantastic, you can really dial the room sound.”
– Richard Rainey (U2, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison)
“I’m doing percussion overdubs in hotel rooms on tour, and Sound City Studios makes everything sound finished. It’s nuts.”
– Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace, Beck, Other Lives)
“Some of my favorite albums were recorded at Sound City, so it’s amazing to have such a faithful reproduction at my fingertips.”
– Jeff Balding (Taylor Swift, The Eagles, Florida Georgia Line)
“The Sound City Studios plug‑in adds life and vibe to dry drum tracks with its great mic configurations. And the console section sounds fantastic!”
– Mark Needham (The Killers, Neon Trees, P!nk)
“The UAD Sound City Studios plug‑in is more than just a room emulation – it’s a toolkit that can take your tracks to a whole new level of sonic Nirvana!”
– Adam Whittaker (The Damned, The Saw Doctors, Evergreen)
“UAD Sound City Studios is the perfect acoustic "space" plug-in, and its compression, reverb chamber, and EQ sections make it all-encompassing for re-amping.”
– Joe Chiccarelli (The Strokes, U2, Jason Mraz, Morrissey)Customer Reviews
j. smith
December 8, 2023
It’s awesome
It legitimately sounds like recording in a large room. It makes drums sound huge, acoustics sounds spacious, and the cabs are great for electric guitar. It won’t be the right thing for...
Read MoreA. Hunt
December 8, 2023
Iykyk
This will open the window on your mixes. Iconic again. It is native only so you’ll need to download UADx.
Read MoreR. Araya Letelier
December 8, 2023
A great room
I'm still discovering its potential, but so far so good. It's the room ambience I always wanted to achieve with convolution reverb, but it's also a lot more thanks to the re-mic option,...
Read MoreJ. Bru
December 8, 2023
Grandes resultados
Aunque no la recomiendo para todo, si que necesita tiempo para saber si su aplicación es correcta. En este caso no me han servido los presets, he tenido que configurar el plug-in a mis...
Read More -
Key Benefits
Place your drums, guitars, vocals, and more inside Sound City Studios' famous Studio A
Transform your sources with a collection of vintage, hit-making mics
Sculpt perfect guitar tones with expertly placed cabinet and mic setups
Get the authentic tone of an iconic '70s custom British console, including 3-band EQ and inline compression, based on the legendary Sound City Studios' desk
Smash your tracks with Sound City Studios' collection of analog outboard gear including "secret weapon" Dolby A-style effects**, 1176 limiting, and more
Put your sources in Sound City Studios' lush-sounding reverb chamber
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Customer Reviews
UAD Sound City Studios Plug-In
F. San Filippo
Holy buckets.
Sounds great on drums and guitar re-amping.
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AMAZING
I have no issue with the cost what a insane plugin
j. smith
It’s awesome
It legitimately sounds like recording in a large room. It makes drums sound huge, acoustics sounds spacious, and the cabs are great for electric guitar. It won’t be the right thing for every track in the mix, but definitely a good tool to have in the box.
A. Hunt
Iykyk
This will open the window on your mixes. Iconic again. It is native only so you’ll need to download UADx.
R. Araya Letelier
A great room
I'm still discovering its potential, but so far so good. It's the room ambience I always wanted to achieve with convolution reverb, but it's also a lot more thanks to the re-mic option, which is not something I'll always use, but it's been great with piano and sax.
c. michels
Sound City Exclu Natif.
Incontestablement un excellent plugin, néanmoins j ai quand même réussi à me faire piéger par votre marketing agressif voire fallacieux et j ai réalisé trop tard qu il s agissait d une version uniquement native ... Le vent tourne chez UA ... Dommageable !
J. Bru
Grandes resultados
Aunque no la recomiendo para todo, si que necesita tiempo para saber si su aplicación es correcta. En este caso no me han servido los presets, he tenido que configurar el plug-in a mis necesidades. Para instrumentos como Baterias, no he notado una mejoría al instante, para voces, guitarras y piano, me ha gustado mucho. Pero recomiendo dedicarle tiempo ya que las mejoras que aporta pueden ser muy buenas.
D. Hetzel
At least as good as Ocean Ways
The ladies and gentlemen from UA have once again done a great job here.
It has never been easier to emulate a good and above all realistic sounding room. Especially for drums and backing vocals an absolute must have.N. Grant
Amazing App but CPU heavy
Sounds absolutely amazing on guitar and drums. I'm on M1 mac with 8gb RAM so it's drain on CPU. I have to freeze tracks in Luna.
N. Grant
Amazing App but CPU heavy
Sounds absolutely amazing on guitar and drums. I'm on M1 mac with 8gb RAM so it's drain on CPU. I have to freeze tracks in Luna.
c. ibbetson
CPU killer
This is by far the most CPU heavy reverb I have ever had. Even heavier than Waves Abbey Road verbs. Making it mostly unusable especially if you want more than 1 instance. 8 cores running at 5ghz and Sound City wanted nearly 25% of my CPU power.
Also 2 days after purchase of Sound City along with the 1176 ($99 bundle) the price was reduced for the 1176 even lower. I feel cheated. I would have preferred just the 1176 at the lower price in hindsight.
This 1st purchase has effectively caused me to make sure I never buy any plugs from UAD again. Shame really, I had high hopes.
F. Schoffelen
A room with a sound
As an old time user of Ocean Way to pep up recordings in a small dry mix room I was curious about this one.
//Room & Mics
Quite a bit more tools but also fewer microphone-settings. On my stuff it imparts a good room-sound which can turn a bit boomy when certain low frequencies are overly present in the original : Pre-Eq to the rescue or the internal EQ module ( although that is very limited in variability). I will rarely use the mono microphones and I wonder a bit that there are more MONO mics than STEREO field mics. Especially on the close mics. I love the sound of the Ribbons but mono? Why restrict that so much when you're at it ?
//Dynamics // EQ
I like the variety of dynamics processors where the dolby one is my favourite at this time, second would be the AIR setting. I wish the dynamics module would not default to "crush" though, as that is rarely needed in my line of music ( acoustic & acoustic VI's) . The EQ is a bit minimalistic but of course that is easily resolved by any EQ in a DAW or in Console.
//Stereo field //
When I use it on quite wide stereo acoustic recordings ( stereo Neumanns panned ) I can hear the stereo field of the recording become A LOT SMALLER or tighter. Even with the WIDE setting on the added Reverb-Room module and selecting the C414 stereo close mics and the stereo room mics. You get the room and the mic-placement : you can't change the placement in "wide-ness" as you could ( a bit) in Ocean Way. This has been brought up in other reviews and I guess it is something that can present a problem. I am going to try to do parallel with this and give the complimentary channel just the original side-signal. If phase coherence permits...
// Native-ness
I wish it was usable in console as well. I use Ocean Way there and it does work nicely also for printing. Please UAD : make it APOLLO as well. On my 16 core Mac I don't notice any big impact using 5 of these but I can understand that a lot of people would.
// Sales
As I bought it in a special 2 for 99$ pack so omnipresent during the BF to NY sales frenzy it was a no-brainer for me. Please offer 2 for 1 deals retrospectively to people who bought if of the bat only days or even weeks before sales. It is good customer-binding.
To sum it up : Great plugin and welcome addition to the kind of Plugins that Universal Audio does so well : Room and Equipment virtualisation.M. Koprak
Great room! Versatilities as you wish
Great room! Versatilities as you wish
E. Nerva
Great sound, but very cpu hungry
You would want to use multiple instances in a mix to get the most out of this realistic-sounding reverb. That way, you could make use of the source-dependent algorithms. However, the CPU usage is through the roof, even by UAD standards. Other people I've spoken to have the same issue. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of testing I replaced it with my usual go-to's. Hopefully, they will bring some optimizations with future updates.
Z. Toman
Native only
As always, the plugin sounds good, but the native-only option is disappointing. It seems that UA is slowly abandoning the hardware, and professional users in general, for the cash cow that is the casual home user. I don't mean that as a disparaging to casual users. Rather, both groups have different needs. I need to have the ability to run plugins on the way in, on the Apollo, as part of my workflow.
And with the constant sales and price drops, what is a UA plugin truly worth in late 2023/early 2024? I never minded the price, as long as I got the absolutely best plugins money could buy. But is that what we're getting? Is Sound City up to the standard of the classic Ocean Way? I'm not sure.y. yamada
Sound city studio Plugin is a masterpiece. but,,,
UAD is not just dishonest with its regular customers. I feel angry at the way the sale was conducted. I won't buy it again until it's under $39. If you don't do this, you will lose a lot of money. I would be grateful if you could reconsider your management strategy. This review was written with the feeling of "help me". However, all products are masterpieces.
J. Castro
UA what's going on? No Native?
I spent a lot of money to have DSP power now, this is Native only? come on guys what's happening? also your Customer Service/Technical Support is terrible nowdays. If you continue like this, you're going to lose a lot of your fan/customer base and become just like an regular low quality plugin company
A. Skage
Turns your little village into sound city
Flexibility for days, sweet sounding ambiences and reverb . Highly tweekable room solution for pop rock productions . Love it.
D. Lawrence
People need to stop
For years everyone complained about UAD not being Native. Now they finally did it and people are one starring a pristine plugin. What is wrong with people? THIS PLUGIN IS PERFECT. Do your self a favor and disregard the stars. The low overall rating is due to people angry that they missed a sale or that the plugin does not run on UA DSP.
c. chamberlain
SoundCity
As a longtime OceanWay user I felt I knew what to expect. As much as I dig OW, SC is a major surprise. Really well done. Great room, with certainly more obvious character than OW which is a wonderful purpose built room that is way more subtle. With SoundCity that sound is there on default. Great tweak ability to shape any sound source. I love drums in there. Ditto acoustic piano (so far). Very nice on acoustic guitar/electric guitar. Really good on multi voice harmonies. It’s OK on lead vocals but that might be my problem getting there and not the plugin. Thanks Team UA… I will be using it a lot going forward.
