UAD Essentials Edition

Welcome to the Sound of your Favorite Records

Get the rich analog tones heard on decades of classic albums with 11 "must‑have" UAD plug-ins and instruments — for one low price — no UA hardware required.

With three versions of the legendary Teletronix LA‑2A compressor, a collection of classic Pultec EQs, Oxide Tape Recorder, and much more — a $1,493 value if purchased separately — your productions will take a huge leap forward with professional analog sound.

No Hardware Required

UAD Essentials Edition plug-ins run natively on Mac or PC and work with any compatible DAW including Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, LUNA, and more.

Included Versions

UAD Native
Runs on your Mac or PC without UA hardware.

Apollo Realtime & UAD‑2
Runs accelerated on Apollo interfaces and UAD‑2 hardware.

UAD Native plug-ins run on both macOS 10.15 Catalina or newer and Windows 10 and 11.

Add analog warmth and texture to vocals, bass, synths, and more with iconic tube compressors and EQs
Discover the fat sound of magnetic tape on your drums, vocals, and guitars
Explore ambience and space on vocals and instruments with award‑winning plate reverb and tape echo
Capture the perfect take with an easy-to-use tube channel strip featuring EQ, compression, and mic preamp
Experience a vintage-inspired analog synth packed with "album‑ready" sounds

PolyMAX Synth

Our vintage-inspired synth gives producers, sound designers, and musicians fat analog tones from the golden age of polysynthesis. PolyMAX's warm, analog-modeled oscillators and filters, professional UA effects, and curated presets easily fit into any genre — with album‑ready sounds instantly.

Century Tube Channel Strip

Enhance your vocals, guitars, synths, and more with a vintage-style tube mic preamp, simple three-band EQ, and optical compressor designed to give you everything you need to capture "first take" magic.

Pultec Passive EQ Collection

Featuring three astonishingly accurate Pultec EQs that are indistinguishable from the original analog hardware, get the same silky curves used by the engineers of John Mayer, Daft Punk, and Mariah Carey, on your vocals, drums, keys and more.

Teletronix LA-2A Classic Leveler Collection

Get smooth, radio-ready vocals, guitars, and bass with three highly sought-after versions of the most famous optical tube compressor ever made — and the go-to for professional mixers worldwide.

Galaxy Tape Echo

Add subtle tape delay and colorful cacophony to drums, vocals, guitars, and synths with the definitive emulation of an iconic analog contraption used by everyone from Pink Floyd and David Bowie, to King Tubby, Scientist, and Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Pure Plate Reverb

Experience UA's revolutionary plate reverb emulation in a simple, easy-to-use package — with all of the essential features — and give your vocals, guitars, strings, and synths lush, satisfying ambience.

Oxide Tape Recorder

Based on our award-winning Ampex and Studer tape machine emulations, Oxide Tape Recorder gives you the warmth, presence, and vibe of professional analog tape, with only the essential controls, so you can get sounds faster and make everything "sound like a record."

System Requirements

macOS Catalina 10.15, Big Sur 11, Monterey 12, Ventura 13, or Sonoma 14
Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit editions)
Intel, AMD or Apple silicon processor
Internet connection to download software and authorize native UAD plug-ins
Free iLok account with iLok Cloud or iLok USB (2nd generation or higher)
Free UA Connect application for managing native UAD plug-ins
A supported DAW compatible with VST, AU and AAX plug-in file formats.

Native UAD Instruments Requirements

Sample-based UAD instruments require SSD storage with APFS formatting for macOS or NTFS formatting for Windows
1 GB to 10 GB available SSD storage per plug-in (space requirement varies per UAD Instrument). A minimum of 100 GB available storage is highly recommended.
Individual UAD Instrument storage requirements are listed on UA Connect’s UAD Plug-Ins tab.

Notes

Operating systems not listed above are untested. Although untested operating systems may work, they are not supported by Universal Audio.
Pre-release and beta versions of operating systems are not supported.
Native UAD plug-ins on Apple silicon machines automatically run natively on Apple silicon in DAWs that support native Apple silicon.
Windows running via Bootcamp on Mac systems are not supported.