Universal Audio

Bill Putnam Sr. built the modern recording studio - the console, the vocal booth, the first artificial reverb (a bathroom, in Chicago) - and then built the boxes to go in it. The 610 preamp, the 1176 and the LA-2A are still on every ‘desert island’ list going, and since the Putnam sons revived Universal Audio in 1999, the Apollo interfaces have put that heritage on desks everywhere.

The hardware side is the Putnam family album: the 610 tube preamp in Solo/610, LA-610 and 6176 form; the 1176LN with its FET grab (all four buttons in, obviously); the LA-2A’s slow optical glue; and the 2-1176 and 4-710d for when you need more of everything. Older UREI-era units and ‘blue stripe’ 1176s come through our doors too, and when a rarity like an original 610 console lands, we shout about it.

Then there’s Apollo. Twin, X4, X6, X8, X8P and X16 - Thunderbolt interfaces with Unison preamps that change their impedance and gain staging to behave like the classic preamps they’re modelling, plus onboard UAD DSP so you can track through an 1176 or a Neve with next-to-no latency. UAD-2 Satellites and PCIe cards add more processing when a session outgrows your computer.

Universal Audio rarely hangs around here - Apollos and 1176s in particular - so if the one you’re after has just gone, tell us via Find Me Gear and we’ll let you know when the next one arrives. Everything has been through our workshop, checked and cleaned, and is ready to ship UK-wide.