Scotts Valley, CA (October 13, 2026)—A familiar sight in the outboard racks of studio and live sound engineers, Empirical Labs’ Fatso units—the Sr and the Jr—have long been used to impart a little analog warmth and vibe on the audio signals that pass through them. Now there’s an official digital emulation as Universal Audio has teamed up with Empirical Labs to create the UAD Empirical Labs FATSO Tape Simulator plug-ins for macOS and Windows.
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Developed with Empirical Labs founder and Fatso designer Dave Derr, the new plug-in aims to provide that familiar tape-style saturation and compression. The UAD Empirical Labs Fatso plug-ins bring the signature Fatso Jr and Fatso Sr tape simulation and compression effects, emulating the original hardware, with multiple compression and saturation modes for adding anything from subtle sounds to in-your-face aggression.
The release is in fact two plug-ins—the Jr and the Sr. The Jr delivers familiar tones, while the Sr provides deeper compression control as needed. Both editions offer four Compression Modes, allowing users to glue buses and mixes together with Buss, G.P., Tracking, and Spank settings. Other features include sidechain filtering, variable transformer saturation and deeper compression parameters.
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UAD’s Empirical Labs Fatso Tape Simulator is available now at an introductory price of $79 USD through the end of 2026, before rising to $149 USD. Current owners of the Apollo DSP version of Fatso can upgrade to the native version for $2.99 USD. The plug-ins are also now included in UAD Spark Studio subscriptions.
