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 Amplification, LLC. For information on Sound City Amplification products 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
P. O'Neill
December 20, 2024
Sound city Studio
I'm not a professional just a music room person. This plugin makes a big difference to the playback sound....like a professional recording....
Read MoreA. Dimeck
December 16, 2024
Literally Plug & Go, Absolutely Love This Amazing Plugin !!!
Absolutely Love This Amazing Plugin !!! For years I have heard successful working Producers & Mix Engineers talk in online video's about putting a particular VST plugin or piece of...
Read MoreS. Salo
December 4, 2024
Instant Vibe and Character
I just got this about a week ago and I am really starting to get into it. I love what I can do with this to guitars. Another cool thing is to remic a VST-instrument through this to get a...
Read MoreC. Swift
November 28, 2024
Amazing reverb that kills CPU
I love the sound of this plugin, it's amazing but it comes at a cost. The CPU hit is too much. Please can UAD look into this and make it...
Read MoreJ. Hardy
November 23, 2024
Sounds like there’s so much potential. Pleased I purchased it.
Put it on a track and it just makes it better. The metal on the drum kit really shines. Anyone worried about the CPU usage I have 8 cores M1 chip 32RAM and none of them were over 25% when I...
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
P. O'Neill
Sound city Studio
I'm not a professional just a music room person. This plugin makes a big difference to the playback sound....like a professional recording.
A. Dimeck
Literally Plug & Go, Absolutely Love This Amazing Plugin !!!
Absolutely Love This Amazing Plugin !!!
For years I have heard successful working Producers & Mix Engineers talk in online video's about putting a particular VST plugin or piece of hardware gear on Your audio project to instanlty take it to the next level.
I put the UAD Sound City Studios Plugin on My Master Stereo Buss and for the 1st time ever My audio project's are now being taken to the next level !!!
This experience has gifted Me with an added confidence to continue to learn and keep improving My audio projects !!!R. Christe
Great Sound , but as a native plugin hardly usable.
It sounds awsome but even with powerful PCs there are problems with dropouts and crackles if it is not used as the only plugin with only one instance in a project. It really is CPU-greeedy. UAD should offer a UAD-2 DSP version asap.
R. Christe
Would be a great plugin on UAD-2 hardware
A great sounding plugin but as a native hardly usable even on powerful PCs . It should be adapted to UAD-2 hardware urgently.
A. Corbino
Best plug-in
Best plug-in
S. Salo
Instant Vibe and Character
I just got this about a week ago and I am really starting to get into it. I love what I can do with this to guitars. Another cool thing is to remic a VST-instrument through this to get a more natural and acoustic vibe sound the room and the mics, the sound of which can be further sculpted straight from the excellent tools within the plugin itself. Aside from being fun to just play with as I have discovered, Sound City Studios is also very immediately useful for color and vibe purposes - I have also found it to be a quick solution for getting stacked rock guitars to sit nicely in a mix. Highly recommended!
C. Swift
Amazing reverb that kills CPU
I love the sound of this plugin, it's amazing but it comes at a cost. The CPU hit is too much. Please can UAD look into this and make it more usable on windows?
J. Hardy
Sounds like there’s so much potential. Pleased I purchased it.
Put it on a track and it just makes it better. The metal on the drum kit really shines. Anyone worried about the CPU usage I have 8 cores M1 chip 32RAM and none of them were over 25% when I used 5 inserts of the plugin.
Superb.G. Spiridion
Room Seller
Amazing sounds.
Re-Rocrding and Reverb..
Excellent to create an environment for your instrument
I like to always have a room that an instrument is recorded in. This is how recordings were always made years ago and how I was taught when I was younger. Get the source recording the way you want it with the proper room, mic positioning, etc., and then the mix is 3/4 done already. Well…nowadays we don’t usually have the luxury of recording in great rooms and normally record everything dry. This plugin is so amazingly fantastic at giving that perfect room sound. I was floored at how easy it was to just insert my dry sound into it and position the mics and set things up the way I wanted and instantly get the sound I wanted. It is a real game changer for me. Usually I am trying to bus my kit and other instruments to a wood room or something and put vocals into ambience before anything just to get started. This makes all that a thing of the past. And it is much nicer and up-to-date than the Ocean way studios plugin. Well done UAD! Fantastic and well worth it. God bless :)
L. Woo
If you are running Mac OS Sonoma, DO NOT BUY.
I absolutely LOVE what this reverb is capable of. I started using it on release running Catalina and it worked like a dream. I used it very consistently and quickly fell in love with it. The plugin is very intuitive, and sounds incredible when utilized tastefully. I had no issues running 10+ instances of this on my system (iMac mid 2020 Retina 5k, 3.6 GHz 10 Core i9, 128 Gigs Ram running Logic Pro X)
**HOWEVER**
I just recently updated my system to Mac OS Sonoma, and now this plug-in is basically unusable. There some CRITICAL issue with the compatibility of this plug-in and Sonoma. The GUI has become unbearably sluggish. It takes 30+ seconds to update ANY changes, and the controls do not respond to input 90 percent of the time. I'm extremely disappointed that UA has not resolved this issues yet.
I still use this plug-in because I love the way it sounds, but it has become a major hindrance in my workflow, and for that reason I cannot recommend it AT ALL at this time. (unless you are NOT on Sonoma.)
Please fix this!! :(D. Moeller
Sound City Studios would be just awesome if it ran on UAD-2 hardware, but native it's unusable :(
Sound City Studios sounds awesome, but I can only run one instance of this plugin on my PC ( i7 10700k, 64 GB RAM, Cubase Pro 13). This makes it unusable. PLEASE make it available for UAD-2 hardware!
C. King
Awful CPU performance on Windows
Is basically unusable for me in windows. Uses WAY too much CPU. If I could get a refund I would. Seems UAD plugs have CPU problems with windows...
B. Varin
GAME CHANGER !!!
It's a game changer.
I mean, it bring, your productions, to another Level !
I can't work without it since I tried it !A. Momsyakov
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Плагин UAD Sound City Studios
Sound City Studios является моим любимым
Очень хорошая имитация помещения
удивило, насколько реалистичен этот плагин!!!!!!!J. Kasurinen
Game Changer plug-in for small/bedroom studio producers
Sound City Studios is currently my favourite plug-in of all UAD plugins (or ATR 102 plugin). This plugin is essential for small studio/bedroom producers. Try it!!!
J. Kasurinen
Game Changer plug-in for small/bedroom studio producers
Sound City Studios is currently my favourite plug-in of all UAD plugins (or ATR 102 plugin). This plugin is essential for small studio/bedroom producers. Try it!!!
S. Kallimanis
Very good Room emulation
Very good room emulation. The included effects provide fast and excellent results whether it is for demo or professional recordings.
J. Balzen
Basically unusable on an M1
So I tried this just now on one of my Macs (M1 Mac Mini - I know not top of the line, but it is not a base model either). Generally the M1 performs incredibly well, I can run very demanding limiters, stuff like Gullfoss, huge session etc. all no problem (including other great sounding reverbs). Inserting this on a return takes almost a full core, in some sessions instantly causing a system overload in Logic 11 (macOS Sonoma). The UI is laggy and doesn't react properly to anything (also a tell for what an incredible resource hog this is) - After roughly 30 seconds the UI "stabilises" and you're able to change parameters in the UI like expected. I think this plugin is designed to work in a way, where you load like 2-4 instances (ideally even more) and place your sources like they were recorded in those rooms, but even on a more powerful machine you're going to notice how incredibly inefficient both the processing and the graphic interface are. I mean it does sound great, but so does the VSS3 which is a very old algorithm, but that old algorithm just performs 1000 times better. I love the idea, I hate the execution - There is no way that this would have to be so much more resource hungry than lets say the Capitol Chambers (which I can easily run multiple instances of on the same Mac) - And this explains why there is no DSP version.. the UAD DSP is probably waaaaaaaaaay too slow for this. Would have loved to love this but sadly its a hard pass.
D. Mayhew
Amazing for my Home Drum Studio
This plugin offers amazing possibilities, and is perfect for adding scale to my 20 raw drum stems, which I capture, with 10 of them being outboard channels of Neve 1073 style preamps, for that analogue flavour. This pairs up perfectly with the UA Distressor plugin in the recording chain I find. But do love to mess with the compressor options within the Sound City plugin too.
