Universal Audio has announced the Thermionic Culture Vulture, a new plug-In for the UAD Powered Plug-Ins platform and Apollo audio interfaces.
For more than 15 years, the British-made Thermionic Culture Vulture has provided studio-grade, high-gain valve distortion, yielding a palette of vivid distortion colors on numerous genre-spanning recordings. Following a multi-year engineering effort from Universal Audio, producers and engineers can now track and mix with the only authentic circuit emulation of this unique valve distortion tool.
The Thermionic Culture Vulture plug-in models the original hardware’s three distinct all-valve circuit topologies and includes Universal Audio’s first-ever pentode tube circuit model. The plug-in also offers two functions not found on the original hardware: a Dry/Wet Parallel Mix control and a Link function for a matched stereo image to maximize workflow and preserve balances.
In addition, it includes presets from famous Culture Vulture users, including Tony Maserati (Alicia Keys, Beyoncé), Rik Simpson (Coldplay, Portishead), Eric “ET” Thorngren (Talking Heads, Cyndi Lauper), Peter Katis (The National, Interpol), Chris Coady (Grizzly Bear, TV on the Radio), and more.
“The Thermionic Culture Vulture plug-in was one of our most challenging projects to date,” says Universal Audio CEO Bill Putnam Jr. “Getting the nuances of the various distortions right took more effort and invention that we had ever expected.”
“We decided some time ago that UA would be the best company to make a successful plug-in emulation of our Culture Vulture, and we are very happy to say that the plug-in has exceeded our expectations,” adds Nick Terry, director at Thermionic Culture. “It seems that the Culture Vulture has now taken on a digital life of its own.”
Available for purchase from the UA online store (here) for $299, the new Thermionic Culture Vulture plug-in is part of the new UAD Software v7.8, along with the Softube-developed Valley People Dyna-mite and Tonelux Tilt EQ plug-ins.
