New Music Gear Monday: Universal Audio Capitol Chambers Plugin

Universal Audio Capitol Chambers plugin image

The right reverb sound is something that we take for granted when we have a good one available, and search endlessly for when we don’t. Many have called the sound of the chambers at Capitol Records as the best in the world, but unless you were mixing at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, it was beyond reach. Until now, as Universal Audio has modeled these great chambers and made them available to you in a brand new plugin, appropriately titled the Capitol Chambers plugin.

Designed by Les Paul (who was quite a music futurist for his era), these 4 chambers sit about 30 feet below the Capitol Studios, which are in the basement of the famed round, record stack shaped Capitol Building. They were built from reinforced concrete and tuned using sloped ceilings and a trapezoidal shape to deliver a balanced decay and a completely natural room tone that can’t be achieved in any other way.

The Capitol Chambers plugin goes beyond just the modeling though, and is quite flexible. The Position slider gives you control over spatial and time response, allowing you to reposition the chamber mics, which are also selectable. There’s also a Predelay control that goes up to 250 milliseconds, as well as a Decay control to further tailor the sound of the chamber itself.

A continuously variable high-pass filter and an EQ with 125Hz, 500Hz and 5kHz frequency points is also included. Finally there’s a Mix control and a Width control that provides full modification of the sound for any situation.

Also included is a full range of presets from legendary Grammy-winning engineers Al Schmitt, Darrell Thorp, Frank Filipetti, and more.

As with all UAD plugins, you need to own a piece of Universal Audio hardware to run the Capitol Chambers. If you don’t own one of their units already, this might be a great reason to pick one up (you’ll like their other plugins too, I bet). The Capitol Chambers plugin is available for $349, but there’s an introductory $50 coupon available to bring it down to $299.

I’m just happy that the Capitol Chambers have been modeled and we’ll have them at our fingertips from now on in case the Capitol Building is turned into condos or a parking lot (yes, I know it’s an historical building, but you never know about these things).

Watch the video below for more info, or go the dedicated site for more info.

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