Universal Audio Ampex ATR-102
A plug-in that puts the wobble, air, and tape character of a mastering deck inside your DAW. A lot of records leaned on it hard.
Overview
This is the Universal Audio emulation of the Ampex ATR-102 mastering tape recorder, built for the UAD-2 plug-in platform. It is not the tape machine. It's the software version, and it gives you the sound of a two-track mixdown deck without owning, aligning, or maintaining one. Mix (October 2011, p.77) covered the release and noted that the plug-in carries settings for four tape formulations. That's the kind of detail that separates a serious emulation from a one-knob "tape" effect. The same piece listed the price at $349.
Working engineers stuck with it for the character. In Electronic Musician's coverage of Vampire Weekend's Modern Vampires of the City, producer Ariel Rechtshaid described running guitars and keyboards through the ATR-102 plug-in and getting "addicted" to it. He called the wow and flutter one of the defining sounds of the record. The pitch instability and tape movement, not just the EQ curve, are what people reached for. On "Don't Lie" the guitars carry that wobble at the tail end, and it's audible as effect, not accident.
Phoenix's Zdar told the same magazine he loved the ATR-102 plug-in for getting "some wobble or add some air" - but he was equally clear that hardware stayed in the chain wherever possible. The plug-in is not sold as a replacement for a real ATR-102. It's sold as a way to get that flavor in the box when swapping physical chains for every bass or keyboard part isn't practical. Engineers who owned the real thing still used it.
The source machine is worth a look, because the emulation rests on it. The Ampex ATR-102 was a 1/2-inch and 1/4-inch two-track mixdown deck. It turns up in studio gear lists across the period coverage here: at Sonic Youth's Echo Canyon West rig, at Sonora Recorders in Los Feliz alongside a Stephens 821 and an Ampex 354 tube two-track, and in the machine room of a studio archiving Frank Zappa's catalog next to an ATR-104 and a Studer A80RC. A deck that shows up that consistently in the "we mix to this" slot gives the plug-in something real to model.
It's a UAD-2 title, so it depends on the platform. Electronic Musician's writeup of the V6.0 software update that accompanied this era of UAD releases noted native RTAS support without a VST-to-RTAS adapter, plug-in category support, improved automation and preset handling, compatibility with Pro Tools control surfaces, Windows and Mac support including Lion 10.7, and effect-latency reporting to Pro Tools for Automatic Delay Compensation. The ATR-102 was one of the optional extra-cost plug-ins in that lineup, alongside a Brainworx EQ and an SPL Vitalizer.
The hardware and the software have two different crowds. The original ATR-102 is a studio machine - big, maintenance-hungry, and still valued enough that facilities keep them running for archiving and mixdown. The UAD plug-in is a $349 piece of software that runs on UAD-2 hardware and gives you the deck's coloration on demand.
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