UA Announce PCI Express DSP Cards And Plug-In Packs

US UAD-1E Express Pak and UAD-1E Expert Pak Available Soon 22/05/06

Universal Audio have announced the UAD-1e Express PAK and UAD-1e Expert PAK, PCI Express DSP Cards & Powered Plug-Ins.
This means that anyone with a newer computer with the PCIe slots can now have access to the UA range of powered plug-ins. Mike Barnes, VP of Marketing for Universal Audio told us, "The UAD-1e Express PAK and Expert PAK offer DAW users with new PCIe-based Mac/PC computers access to UA's DSP-powered and sonically superior mixing and mastering plug-ins.This is the first big milestone in our UAD strategy to offer a wider range of UAD solutions, help our customers cross-grade to new systems and give them total flexibility to choose precisely which plugs they actually want at the UA online store - my.uaudio.com." Key Features include:

UAD-1e Express PAK ($499 with UAD$100 plug-in voucher for my.uaudio.com)
UAD-1e Expert PAK ($999 with UAD$750 plug-in voucher for my.uaudio.com)
UAD-1 & UAD-1e can be used together seamlessly in the same system
Cross-grade UAD$ voucher program for existing UAD-1 users who buy a new UAD-1e. Customers keep their UAD-1 & purchase an Express PAK for an extra UAD$100 voucher, or purchase an Expert PAK for an extra UAD$250 voucher.

Joe Bryan, VP of Technology had this to say, "The PCI Express (PCIe) bus offers exceptional performance, lower system overhead, and higher reliability for low-latency audio signal processing while allowing us to maintain software compatibility with legacy PCI and PCI-X systems. This approach allows users to mix and match UAD-1 and UAD-1e cards in any combination for maximum flexibility. The PCIe bus and ExpressCard system interfaces are vastly superior to other high-speed interconnects, and allow us to run many more channels (up to 254 channels per card), operate reliably at higher sample rates, and offer much more powerful DSP expansion than alternatives using FireWire or EtherNet. Put simply, PCIe is the professional solution." Price and Availability
The UAD-1e Express PAK (US$499 street) and Expert PAK (US$999 street) will both ship in Q3 2006 bundled with UA's core 15 free Mix/Gtr FX plug-in suite plus a UAD$100 (Express) and UAD$750 (Expert) voucher that customers can use to pick and purchase UA plug-in authorizations online.
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