When we talk about software packages, many will say there’s nothing too interesting about it, no special something to be excited of. But if you’re a UAD-2 card owner, and I’ll tell you that as of this moment, the arrival of a new plug-in to add UAD’s impressive list of titles has been announced, you will share this joy with me and start spreading the news, like what I did now.

All in a single hybrid plug-in entitled EP-34, is the latest classic boxes EchoPlex’s revered EP-3 and EP-4 tape echo units.

Tap tap tap

I started on checking the control set of this EP-34 and I can say that it is fairly straightforward and what is prominent is the echo time slider which can be moved between short and long values. Amazingly, Echoes can either be provided in milliseconds or as sync’d to tempo ‘quantise’ values.

Just to give an overview for those who are unfamiliar with tape-based echo units, there are separate heads one for playback and the other one for record, with the loop caused by the fact that the record head is active to recapture the loop each time the tape goes round.

How it works is reflected here by three separate dials, the Repeats dial that controls the amount of feedback generated on each tap, the Volume dial and the recording Dial which controls the gain at the Record head stage.

Delay grit

As you play with the delay grit and increase it you can push incoming signals into distortion and it is shown with an LED graph reflecting on the right side.

Bring delays to life, make your vintage Rhodes sound more vintage and add color to your dry vocals, these are all possible with UAD EP-34, with either subtle or dominant settings and you can really fill your mix out with just this control. This can make you feel and appreciate the beauty of this plug-in.

There’s more to expect from UAD EP-34, authentic dub relays can be created, it can be panned left or right over on the far-right of the GUI and the tones of your repeats can be shaped with separate bass and treble dials. Having such results is suprising and creative.This one is warm, sumptuous and hugely flexible and is capable of going way beyond mere echo with a sound which can be pushed close to and then into distortion, if you so desire.

Credit: http://gadgetspage.com/