Universal Audio’s recreation of the Empirical Labs FATSO has just become the latest of the company’s plug-ins to join their native line-up. 

Previously reserved for users of Apollo interfaces or UAD’s hardware accelerator systems, Empirical Labs FATSO Tape Simulator is now available as a native plug-in for all Windows and macOS users. Developed in collaboration with Dave Derr, the founder of Empirical Labs and designer of the hardware FATSO, the plug-in faithful recreates the tape-style saturation and compression of the physical unit, and introduces a handful of features that aren’t present in the original design.  

The Only Authentic FATSO Plug-in: Get the same tape and saturation processing heard on recordings by AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and more.

• Two Plug-ins: Access iconic tones with FATSO Jr or get deeper compression control with the FATSO Sr 
• Four Compression Modes. Glue buses and mixes together with Buss, G.P., Tracking and Spank settings.
• Warmth for Everything: Slam drums, make bass pop on small speakers or warm up a vocal instantly .
• Beyond the Hardware. Enjoy features like side-chain filtering, variable transformer saturation and deeper compression parameters.

Empirical Labs FATSO Tape Simulator is supported on PCs running Windows 10 or above, and Macs running macOS 11 and higher. VST3, AU and AAX plug-in versions are available.

UAD Empirical Labs FATSO Tape Simulator is available now, and is being offered at an introductory price of $79 until 31 December 2026, when it will increase to its full cost of $149. Owners of the Apollo DSP version can upgrade for $2.99. The plug-in is also included in the company’s UAD Spark subscription plan.

www.uaudio.com/products/fatso