It is not uncommon for software developers to be inspired, when creating plugins, by mythical units directly related to music styles with very specific sound characteristics. And that is precisely the case of Motown Sound, a musical movement that took its name from the Motown Records label, which was a reference in terms of soul and R&B in the 1960s, and the springboard for names like The Supremes or Stevie wonder. Now, nearly 6 decades after that racial explosion in American music, Universal Audio lanza Hitsville EQ Collectionand sets his sights on 2 rare EQs widely used in Hitsville USA studios to shape that sound that, according to Berry Gordy (founder of Motown Records) was made up “of rats, midgets with cream, cockroaches, and love”.
Universal Audio lanza Hitsville EQ Collection
Hitsville EQ Collection es uA bundle consisting of two plugins that emulate a 7-band graphic equalizer and a mastering mid/side equalizer that have never been modeled before. The first one is a fairly simple graphic equalizer at first glance, but very versatile in usedesigned to equalize the frequencies of 50 Hz, 130 Hz, 320 Hz, 800 Hz, 2 KHz, 5 KHz and 12.5 KHz, with gains of +/- 8 dB.
The other member of the pack is a more sophisticated processor, with dedicated Left/Mid and Right/Side processing sections, as well as a preamp section with filter and global controlsyes Each of the upper sections houses controls for the frequencies of 50 Hz, 130 Hz, 320 Hz, 800 Hz, 2 KHz, 5 KHz and 12.5 KHz, as well as a switch to work at half frequency in reproductions at half speed.
The 7-band graphic equalizer (top), along with the mastering equalizer (bottom) from Universal Audio’s Hitsville EQ Collection.
Universal Audio
–
–
Price and availability
Hitsville EQ Collection is available from the Universal Audio Store for Apollo interfaces and UAD Spark subscription. In the first case at a price of €299and in the second, with a monthly cost of €19.99. It should be remembered, to those who may be interested, that the UAD Spark platform is currently only available for macOS systems.
UAD Software 10.1
In parallel with the launch of the Hitsville EQ Collection, Universal Audio has released the latest version of the UAD software, 10.1with native support for Apple M1 processors, as well as optimization for macOS Monterey and Windows 11. The Studer A800 and Lexicon 224 plugins also receive retina-quality graphics, and there are several minor improvements and fixes in the update as well.
More information: Universal Audio
–
