Studer^® A800 Multichannel Tape Recorder

Subtle and effective

This is a studio basic. The effect is subtle but essential for providing the familiar warmth of tracking to tape on a quality machine. I recommend it, especially in conjunction with the Ampex 102.

Buy This

If you buy one plugin in your life, buy the UAD Ampex ATR-102. If you buy two plugins in your life, buy this one as well. I've popped this on every track in all my recent mixes, and in 90% of cases, I've simply ditched all EQ and compression. The gorgeous way it warms the mix while adding detail and separation to your tracks has to be heard to be believed. In short, it improves your mix while saving you work.

Sure, it's a bit of a resource hog, but complaining about it reminds me of the Louis CK routine where everyone bitches about awesome, mind-blowing things that didn't exist five minutes ago. Get the plugin.

What can I say? I just love this plug in so much. This one is worth the price of admission alone. How else can you buy a pristine 24 track machine with no repairs or maintenance for $2000? This gets a lot of use in overdubbing when I'm trying to match the MCI tape machine I use for tracking & everything just melts together like you remember it. I really like the ability to easily change tape & calibrations, it's just unheard of in real life to do so fast & creates real tone shaping possibilities. I see on the forums posts saying "do you ever use this thing anymore?" I just don't get it. My answer is YES YES YES! I'll be using this one proudly till my days in audio are done. Thank you UA for making such invaluable tools!

Purchased this plug-in for a project that had to sound like it was recorded in 1965. Turned up the hiss and squashed the tracks unmercifully and really pleased the client. Thought I might use it again from time to time. But, used with more subtlety it's fantastic to marry tracks recorded at different times or in different studios/locations. Use it as much or as little as needed to get the real tape sound without the hassles of real tape or a real tape machine.

Amazing, just like the real thing. For drums, bass, guitars, vocals for everything.

Love it so much i have quit my job so i can use it all day long.

Looks expensive but finally an affordable and painless solution compared to OTB summing. Good Results with the ergonomics of a plug-in.

I was immediately impressed by after inserting this across my mix buss how the sound took on a certain sheen, presence , warmth and punch !

You can mix into it and use it as channel inserts. It is versatile as it has presets, plus you can play with the imput(clean or distortion), output levels , speed, bias and eq and delay.

If there is one UA plug to buy, imo the Ampex is it !

p.s, plus it gives a little compression variable by input settings so very useful across the mix bus !

Kcat

After using a DAW for the last 12 years and not getting to use tape, I've forgot how it just glues it all together. I always loved the sound of Bass, Kick, Overheads, and Acoustic Guitars on tape. The Studer A800 was one of my favorite machines to print to as well, UA hit a homer with this plugin. There aren't many plugins that take me back to times in my tracking or mixing but this one did. That Fat Warm Vibe was present after doing a mix with this plugin! The best part about it is you can totally use different formulas for different instruments! Kick on 456 +6 and Acoustic on GP9 +3 Bass on 900 +7.5 that is a great amount of flexibility that the analog world can't give. UA is a great company that moves to get better and better. WELL DONE

All I can say is WOW! Just got it, fired it up and did a couple of vocal tracks just fooling around (like testing) and again, WOW! I CAN'T WAIT to get serious with this plug-in! I would give it 10 stars, if I could (or a hundred, a thousand, whatever!).

In the late 80's, the studio where my group and I used to record had two of these machines (and a Trident console). There is NOTHING like 'em!!!

I also can't wait to get the 2 track, analog tape recorder plug-in from UA. I read about it and saw the demos and I'm ultra jazzed about that one too!!!

EB
From The Hip, Inc. Animation Studios
:-)

The Studer A800 plug-in is one of those "must have" tools.

I've been amazed at how things can be rescued simply by added this to the insert. I also use it across the mix bus to eliminate that digital harshness that typically builds up over the course of an "in the box" mix. It's amazing.

I had the opportunity to purchase an actual A800 several years ago for a mere 5 grand but it needed a $24,000 head block replacement so I gave it a miss and was very disappointed.

As far as I'm concerned, I now finally have one with this plug in, only without the $300 per roll tape costs and $500 monthly lineup fees, and I'm not limited to just 24 tracks.

This plug-in combined with the new Apollo is the game changer the industry has been waiting for.