Universal Audio UAD POWERED PLUG-INS ver.6.1 - Manual (Page 38)

UAD Powered Plug-Ins Manual - 38 - Chapter 3: UAD System Overview
CHAPTER 3
UAD System Overview
The UAD Environment
The complete UAD Powered Plug-Ins environment consists of many compo-
nents. These components are:
• One or more UAD DSP hardware accelerator devices
• The UAD device drivers
• The UAD plug-ins
• The host computer system
• The plug-in host application software
• An audio I/O interface and its drivers
All these components operate together simultaneously within one computer to
form the complete audio processing system.
The other UAD component is your account at my.uaudio.com ( page 47 ) and
the UA online store, where UAD devices are registered, UAD vouchers are re-
deemed, and UAD plug-in licenses and authorizations are obtained. Al-
though my.uaudio.com is not required during normal system use, it is essen-
tial for initializing the overall UAD system because authorization is required
to use UAD-Powered Plug-Ins (see
“Authorization Overview” on page 48 ).
The UAD Hardware
The UAD DSP (Digital Signal Processing) hardware accelerator devices pro-
vide the “power” behind UAD Powered Plug-Ins. Most of the UAD plug-ins use
extremely complex algorithms to provide the quality sound and accurate mod-
eling Universal Audio is famous for. The UAD processor engines are signifi-
cantly more optimized to perform the complex DSP routines required for these
algorithms than a standard desktop computer CPU can deliver.
Two main UAD device “families” are available: UAD-2 and UAD-1. Each de-
vice family has its own set of drivers which are specified during UAD software
installation. All UAD devices are Mac and Windows compatible unless stated
otherwise; the hardware is identical for both OS platforms.