I had a blast toggling through the various presets on the UA plugs. The SHARC DSP chip was only ticking over and Preshan reported great ‘zero’ latency playability. I also ran him through the Pultec EQ and the Raw stomp box emulation. I pulled Preshan away from his UA Ox review to monitor his Strat through the Marshall Plexi Classic amp sim, and a RealVerb plate. It’s a delicious prospect for a bus-powered portable setup. We may not be talking about recording a multi-miked orchestra but the two Unison mic preamps combined with UA conversion and the real-time UAD plug-ins means you can monitor, for example, a hi-z guitar input through the Marshall guitar amp simulator at near-zero latency. It appears to be a transmission protocol well suited to the world of audio.Īrrow isn’t a device that’s going to push the bleeding edge of Thunderbolt 3’s limits. Thunderbolt 3 is bi-directional with four lanes of PCIe Gen3. If you didn’t get the memo: Thunderbolt 3 uses the USB-C plug, but delivers lightning quick 40Gb/s data transfer (USB 3.1 operates at 10Gb/s, by way of comparison).

Note: you can’t use any ol’ USB-C cable, it’s got to have the Thunderbolt logo on the connector. Getting the Arrow working was about as easy as connecting up the Thunderbolt 3 cable (not included, and still new enough to be stupidly expensive), registering the device and downloading the installer/plugs. This works fine for me as I’ve recently purchased a mid-spec’ed MacBook Pro that’s dispensed with boring real-world I/O (ethernet, USB etc) in preference to a parsimonious complement of two USB-C holes (gotta love Apple). UA is marketing Arrow as the world’s first Thunderbolt 3 interface for Mac and Windows. Namely, there’s loads of scope for applying these plug-ins during an ad hoc tracking session, not just as insert effects for the mix. The plugs are selected for Arrow’s bus-powered ‘record anywhere’ ethos. It’s a super-tasty smorgasbord and well worth Arrow’s price of admission. SHARPEN UPĪrrow promises 11 UAD plug-ins straight out of the box, including a Marshall Plexi Classic Guitar amp emulation, LA-2A and 1176 compression and Pultec EQ. These are the plug-ins that have ‘turned’ rusted-on, analogue die-hards plugs that are defining the sound of top-quality commercial productions the world over. Think of it as a primo $700 desktop interface with great 24-bit/192k converters, and two top-draw preamps, and Arrow is already shaping up as a high-ranking wishlist item.īut we all know that’s not really where our desires truly lie.

The gun metal grey, steel chassis, the metering, the big knob it’s all solid. Arrow is a beautiful piece of industrial design.

Universal audio arrow thunderbolt 3