Some mixes are technically fine but feel flat. Drums that don't hit, a bus that never quite glues, vocals that sit politely instead of leaning forward. The fix is often a bit of tape colour and a compressor that adds attitude rather than just reducing level.
UAD Empirical Labs FATSO Tape Simulator does both in one box, and it has just arrived as a native plug-in. Universal Audio developed it with Empirical Labs founder and FATSO designer Dave Derr, so you can run it on macOS or Windows without needing UAD hardware.
Let's dive into what you get.
Two Plug-Ins, Two Ways to Work
The package includes two plug-ins. FATSO Jr is built around the classic hardware tone and its straightforward control set, so it's quick to dial in. FATSO Sr adds deeper compression control and features that go beyond the hardware, for when you want to shape the behaviour more precisely.
Four Compression Modes, One Personality
Both versions give you four modes, each suited to a different job:
- Buss: a gentle 2:1 ratio with a soft knee, for gluing a mix bus or group.
- G.P.: general-purpose compression for steady levels.
- Tracking: an 1176-style response for tracking sources.
- Spank: a limiter modelled on the talkback compressors found in 1970s SSL consoles, for aggressive, punchy results.
Tape Colour You Can Push
The Input knob takes you from light peak softening through to heavy distortion, and a pinned LED tells you when you've driven it hard. Transformer and Warmth circuits add tape-style colour and soften harsh highs, which is handy on bright vocals and cymbal-heavy drums.
FATSO Sr goes further with variable transformer saturation, sidechain filtering, and compression parameters including Threshold, Attack and Release.
The Details
- Formats: VST3, AU and AAX, plus support in LUNA.
- Platforms: native for macOS (including Apple Silicon) and Windows. UAD DSP versions also run on Apollo interfaces and UAD Accelerators.
- Apollo owners: existing DSP owners can upgrade to the native version for US$2.99.
- Subscription: also included in UAD Spark Studio.
