Get the rich tube compression that changed recording.

Often cited among the crowning achievements of audio pioneer and UA founder Bill Putnam Sr., the 175B and 176 compressors are prized for their rich tube gain reduction character and sonic flexibility. Now you can get the same legendary sounds as the rare hardware with the only authentic plug‑in emulation of the original UA 175B and 176 compressors.

Included Versions

UAD Native
Runs on your Mac or PC without UA hardware.

Apollo Realtime & UAD‑2
Runs accelerated on Apollo interfaces and UAD‑2 hardware.

UAD Native plug-ins run on both macOS 10.15 Catalina or newer and Windows 10 and 11.

Add vintage compression and detail to vocals, drums, guitars, and more with one of Bill Putnam Sr.'s most coveted designs
Spice up synths with harmonically rich tube amplifier and transformer saturation
Creatively enhance the dynamics of your most important sources with 2:1, 4:1, 8:1 and 12:1 ratio controls
Get perfect drum and vocal sounds easily with Dry/Wet Mix parallel processing and Headroom controls

Add a Legendary Limiter to your Studio

Introduced in the early 1960s — and used on thousands of seminal records — the UA 175B and 176 were the first compressors purpose-built for studio recording and mixing music, giving engineers groundbreaking fast attack time and independently variable Attack and Release controls.

Experience Deep Tube Sonics

Based on a pair of UA's 1960s golden units, the UA 175B and 176 Tube Compressor Collection gives you all the ultra-musical harmonics and colorful saturation of these original units — down to their magical feedback compression circuit — giving you softer compression at lower input levels and harder, nearly brickwall limiting at higher levels.

Get the Rich Sound of an All‑Around Champ

Perfect for vocals, drums, guitars, and more, the UA 175B and 176 plug‑ins give you all the character and juice of the originals — indistinguishable from the target hardware in blind listening tests. Easily add depth to room mics or a drum bus, give your guitars definition, park a bass in a mix, and inject vocals with energy. You can even turn off the compression and use the 175B/176 plug-ins as a "tone box," lending rich tube textures galore.

System Requirements

macOS Catalina 10.15, Big Sur 11, Monterey 12, Ventura 13, or Sonoma 14
Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit editions)
Intel, AMD or Apple silicon processor
Internet connection to download software and authorize native UAD plug-ins
Free iLok account with iLok Cloud or iLok USB (2nd generation or higher)
Free UA Connect application for managing native UAD plug-ins
A supported DAW compatible with VST, AU and AAX plug-in file formats.

Native UAD Instruments Requirements

Sample-based UAD instruments require SSD storage with APFS formatting for macOS or NTFS formatting for Windows
1 GB to 10 GB available SSD storage per plug-in (space requirement varies per UAD Instrument). A minimum of 100 GB available storage is highly recommended.
Individual UAD Instrument storage requirements are listed on UA Connect’s UAD Plug-Ins tab.

Notes

Operating systems not listed above are untested. Although untested operating systems may work, they are not supported by Universal Audio.
Pre-release and beta versions of operating systems are not supported.
Native UAD plug-ins on Apple silicon machines automatically run natively on Apple silicon in DAWs that support native Apple silicon.
Windows running via Bootcamp on Mac systems are not supported.