Studer^® A800 Multichannel Tape Recorder

I run everything through this. I do very little. It just makes everything sound "right"

The A800 is perfect.
All the variables add up to subtle but tangible changes,
keeping the almost mystical properties of tape true and alive.
Most tape saturation emulations may have qualities of
some aspect of tape, but they are normally over stated and
seem like an obvious effect. The Studer A800 can be
pushed to be dramatic, but really shines in the accumulative
effect of adding the plugging to every track and the master
buss. It is amazing to use different tape formulations for
different instruments, as some really extenuate the bass,
drums or guitars more than others. Something you could
never do ( well, not easily) when using actual tape.
It is the single most important plug-in I own. It is the one
thing digital recording has been lacking. Tape hears
in a musically pleasing way, digital is more pure in many
respects, but less attractive. This is a great breakthrough.

I personally don't care how close this thing is to tape, to me it's a compressor that sounds like nothing I've ever used. I've had it since it was released and am still discovering new tones with this thing; there's always a combination that works. Together with the process of my HEDD 192, I finally don't need any more "analog" saturation effects.

I would love to see an upgrade to this where the reels would stop spinning automatically when there's no audio passing, as well as the hiss being stopped. Not for the purpose of realism, but because it's distracting (and so is having to remember to click on the ips label to manually stop the reels when you want to). I used to record on a Fostex reel to reel years ago and for me it just feel unnatural.

Incredible sounding plugin! Everything you put thru this baby sounds amazing, so rich in harmonics, I've record on tape in the early 90's and the Studer Plugin does exactly what It says. Beautiful tape compression, thanks again UA team.

This plug-in is amazing! Sure you can say maybe it's just saturation, with some EQ, with a bit of compression, but the way the plug combines these things into an intuitive fun interface and the SOUND is so killer. I've never worked with a tape machine in a studio I just wanted a fun tool to 'pre-mix' tracks a little so they sit better, and that's exactly what I got. This plug-in can do amazing things quickly and easily, super versatile too. Great!

Always wanted a great tape plug. This is it. My mixes have become bigger, fatter, and have a well-defined low-end. I'm now making mixes almost indistinguishable from professionally produced records. Great job UAD!!!

The depth this plugin adds is not to be missed. My mixes have gone from cold, to extremely warm in an instant. Great work UAD!

At first, I thought it sounded pretty, but not enough to buy it by closing my eyes, so I removed my projects, then listening I thought that I was missing a little something, then I put it back and there is the evidence, I happen to have the plug that little something extra on the total sound that makes the difference, now I have left two days before the end of the demo and I unable to tell me it's over, I need it .....
Otherwise it is very thin and rounded voice guitars batteries etc. ... suptile but very real.

How do you turn sterile digital recording into analogue warmth, swirling through the entire stereo spectrum with just a click of the mouse button? As soon as I got my bundle, and tried the Studer A800, I fell in love with it so quickly, that I went and bought it on the spot. If you're familiar with THAT ANALOGUE MAGIC, the Studer will tranform your recordings into big, fluffy pillows of sound. It's really that amazing!

Just one word:
AMAZING!

Seriously, try the demo & believe Me You will want to buy it :)

UH-MAY-ZING. Best, most useful plug-in ever. Hardware manufacturers are probably scrambling like mad cause in another 5-10 years, with the exception of good mic pres, outboard hardware will be unnecessary thanks to UA.
Yeah, that's right, I said it, I'm not scared. Ever since I got a UAD-2, (got 4 now, and I'll keep on getting them) the rules of the game have changed. And after getting the Massive Passive and FATSO plug-ins, I thought how can they top them? Well they did, and did they ever.
This is hands down the most useful, incredible plug-in made by any company to date. If you have enough UAD cards, you can drop this on every track as the first plug, adjust to taste, using the input and output to saturate or "compress", the tape types and IPS settings to "EQ", not to mention the calibration, all the under the hood controls to further create and tweak the tone you're looking for, and the Bias and LF settings are just fantastic on bass or kick, not to mention beefing up overheads and room mics, guitars, etc. And all in about a minute or 2. Makes mixing in the box and dream whether you have a million dollars of outboard or not. Yet another miracle from UA to add to your collection. Let's not forget you also don't have to buy any tape, do any maintance, and can run tons of them with all different settings which you could never do with the real thing.
I can't really think of a UA plug-in I don't like, and I have most of them. If you're weary of the price, than get out of recording, cause this is hands down a f***ing steal. People who complain should have their gear taken away and auctioned off to charity! Now you need to get together with Chandler and Cranesong and make the Germanium comp and EQ and the Trakker plug and I literally will be in heaven!

Growing up in the days of tape-and-blade editing and having a career that has involved some tape-to-digital transfers, instantiating this plug-in provides what's been missing for the last 20 years in DAWs. Before this was released, it usually took several plug-ins to get the sonic qualities needed to warm up individual tracks, especially in the rhythm sections. And with all those plugs, it never came close to what you get with just a single instance of this one.

Not only will you notice that your ears are pleased by the results - more low end, more dimension, the harshness of digital recording tamed and a warm, round presence overall; you also have the ability to creatively use different tape types and speeds for different tracks. It's a joy mixing with this plug-in and well worth it.

In the last weeks I was definitely looking for a great sounding Studer for my studio. But
after listening to the Studer A 800 Plug-In my choice was different. I decited to test
the new Plug-In intensively and it´s sound knocked me out. So warm and really really
great analog sounding. The missing link in mixing ITB and simply unique. Congratulations Universal Audio!

UA has truly "changed the game" with this one.. The A800 has became the most appreciated plugin in my toolbox.

First I thought that the A800 would work for me as a FATSO alternative, but after using it I must admit that it's much more than that..

When applied to every track, the combined sound is more than the sum of it's parts.. I can't even begin to speculate on how UA pulled this one off.. But oh so very glad they did :)

If you're producing electronic music ITB with softsynths/etc, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try!

I've always been sceptic about kind of simulation. After 15 days demo period, i think this plugin is amazing. Goooooooooood job.!!!

I took the plunge and bought this even though I cringed at the price. I'm hoping that when the price does finally drop for a sale that UA shows some love with a special coupon of some sort. But anyway...

I'm really pleased with the results on this thing so far. It's pretty easy to use and being able to set different tape speeds and tape types for different channels is great. Drums seem to benefit the most with kicks and snares fattening up and pounding extra hard and cymbals smoothing out very nicely. I tried this with the Neve channel strip on each channel and the cumulative effect is quite nice.

It is a bit of a resource hog and with the channel strips it quickly started to tax my UAD-2 Duo card so now I'm looking to upgrade to the Quad.

The first project I used this on, the client was very happy with the results and noticed a difference from previous projects I've done for him so I guess the investment was worth the money.

Overall, I'm pleased with the purchase.

I just used this inline on a big midi project going to PT9. Recorded all tracks thru this plug strait to disk to save using it in the mix later. I would have to say it is amazing. But be careful as it can mess with timing on things if you make small adjustments on individual tracks to it. I sold my old Tascam deck for this and so glad I did!

Simply gives an incredibly warm and rich tape sound to any source material, stunning!!!

I have to agree with the last reviewer, that it should be aimed more at the 250 bucks level...
I will not be buying until some sort of offer is on it :-(

Well done UAD.

As an EX owner of the Telefunken-M-15-A I can say this product is not bad by any means.

I was mixing a whole song with it and it was fascinating how it can round of transients and saves you from using extra compression in the mix.

The user manual lacks description in how to use the hidden EQ,Bias etc. controls traditionally right.
There is a Generation that never had the chance to work with such a Tape-Machine.
For this reason it would be great to get more context-information how these hidden knobs affected the output.

At this point I don't care if it sounds like a real tape machine.
At least it emulates well the Tape-Kompression and alone that is great!!

I measured the plug in - watching out for inharmonic-distortions...nothing bad to see.
Other UAD plugs still suffer from inharmonic-distortions - missing dithering in the signal-path?

I give it only 3/5 points because I think it is too expensive for a plug-in.
For some more money you can get a decent 1/4" real HW tape recorder and you will have lot of fun with it.

The price point in my opinion is 250$.
350$ will make this wonderful plug in for a lot off younger-folks unreachable-

I skipped Massive-Passive and Fatso because of the high price.
It looks like that I will skip this one as well even if I like it.

Development: 5 POINTS
Price-Tag: 1 POINT