Yuichiro Nagai, Universal Audio, International CEO Manager AES Sala de Audio-Mexico Student Section September 13th, 2011
Yuchiro Nagai, "Ichi", started his conference talking about Bill Putman Sr., founder of Universal Audio. He was a WWII radio engineer who came up with the idea of modular consoles and the use of special effects as we know them today: to make it sound unreal, rather than the opposite. He made the engineer part of the recording. He participated with the Harmonic Cats in the production of "Thriller" and thus changed the perception of an audio engineer's job.
His son, Bill Putman Jr., studied Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and physical modeling in Stanford and decided to renew Universal Audio, bringing it to it's Modern Era. He decided to recreate analogue tube equipment so that it could be used inside a Digital Audio Workstation.
Universal Audio is now presenting UAD-2 powered plug-ins and DSP hardware for coloring sound. They are the best hardware emulators out there and with PCIe, Express cards or Firewire 400/800 there is no need for host processing. They work together with the engineers that develop the hardware for most well known brands, such as SSL, Lexicon, dbx, Little Labs, Roland, Boss, Fairchild, Studer, Neve, Harrison, Manley, EMT, spl, Pultec, Ampex and Moog to mention a few.
"Ichi" then allowed the audience to experience what some of these plug-ins can do, demonstrating their power and capabilities in a very interesting presentation. To wrap off, Universal Audio's International CEO Manager mentioned some of the projects Universal Audio has been involved in lately, such as Arcade Fire "The Suburbs", John Mayer "Battle Studies", "Inception", Raconteurs "Consolers of the Lonely", Maroon 5, etc.
