I was looking for a quality modulation unit that didn't cover half of my nano+ board. With the addition of the Astra my board is as follows: Tumnus Deluxe, Strymon Sunset, Astra, DMM, Strymon Blue Sky. The sounds of the Astra are certainly studio quality and add just the right amount of movement and polish to my sound. In the 2 weeks I've had the Astra my favorites so far are the Chorus, flanger and the Dharma Trem (free download) that offers a great Univibe sound for Robin Trower licks. Many of the on-line reviews mention the fact that there's only one preset available, which is true. But once you download the UA app you have access to 35 factory and 9 artist presets. Plus you can add your own presets that can all be recalled in seconds with the UA app on your phone. Might not be ideal for playing live, but works great for practicing. I would also recommend downloading the UA Effect Control Map so you clearly see how each knob affects each Mod sound. Different for each affect, but that's why the app presets are so handy. Build quality is great and has USB-C for future updates. No MIDI. I can only imagine how great this would sound in a stereo set-up. 4 stars because it's the only Mod pedal I own so I don't know how it compares to the competition.

This pedal is great! I bought the Golden first loved it so much that I got the Starlight and now I have the Astra. I absolutely love these pedals. I really can't put into words how pristine the audio quality of these pedals. It's like having every single paint color in the world available to you. So many possibilities!

I posted before complaining about the fixed chorus rate. It turns out you CAN change chorus rate via tap tempo (which you have to switch on via the UA Control App for Iphone and Bluetooth (or the desktop app via USB)). Huge save for me. Strange they wouldn't map it to the manual rate knob but hey! I'm happy. Bumped up a star.

I was enamored with their Golden reverb, and I still think it's amazing, so I gave this a shot looking to tidy up the pedalboard and replace 4 pedals with one (despite loving to run a phaser into a chorus).

Technically, the UI is a mess, as some knobs don't function with certain settings (though the led blinks to let you know if a knob has no function when you turn it), and for a while I had to constantly refer back to the quick start guide to make sure what I was doing.

The bad: I know they're emulating a CE, but at this extremely premium price point you'd think they'd at least add a rate to the chorus control. I've had to reintroduce my Julia already.

The Phase 90 introduces some weird low frequency muck on the Script setting, no matter how low the input drive is set. Disappointing. I've had to reintroduce my Phase 90 already. So, in the end, only one pedal eliminated.

The good: The stereo settings for the chorus, flange, and even tremolos sound amazing.

The flanger/doubler is a great, faithful recreation, and both tremolos are excellent, and the ramp function on the harmonic temolo is a nice added touch based on an envelope of input signal.

Overall, a huge personal niggle with the chorus and a huge technical problem with the phaser keep this from being a runaway smash like the Golden reverb.

Honestly wish I'd ordered from Sweetwater instead of buying local, as I would've returned it the next day. Alas, I'm stuck with it…but you don't have to be. The appeal as an all-in-one yet simple mod pedal is unfortunately dashed with the problems listed above. The flaws are too big to pay this much.

I'll be skipping the delay and saving myself a cool $ based on this disappointment. The Golden is a cut above, still highly recommended.

Before I registered this Pedal I thought it needed more modulation settings for the price. Where's the Rotary and Univibe?

After connecting the USB port and updating to get the free Phaser and Harmonic Trem, I am satisfied with the available options for now.

This pedal is capable of the most lush modulations I have ever heard in Stereo.

Simple perfect tonal recreations of the original modulations in a small pedal that appears to have been CNC'd from a metal block.

I placed the Astra after my delay and reverb pedals and it's sublime.

Within the given parameters you can create a vast variety of usable tones.

So why 4 and not 5 stars? Only one preset. In a studio setting that's probably fine, but on a pedalboard, in a live setting, it's far from ideal. I would recommend with all the power of the dual engines, this pedal platform the firmware can be upgraded to allow at least one preset per modulation.

Now that would increase its functionality. Imagine hitting both foot switches to toggle between mods.

This pedal does chorus reasonably well, but it doesn't sound nearly as good as a $50 chorus pedal I already have. It can do a decent tremolo, but not remotely as good as a $30 tremolo pedal I already have... and so on. To me this is like a restaurant with a 10 page menu - everything is decent, but nothing is outstanding. Most of my other pedals only do one thing, but they do it well. As a result, those other pedals also have completely intuitive, simple control interfaces, often with only a couple of knobs. The Astra is a design disaster in this regard. I want to glance at a control and know immediately what it will do. I don't want to have to memorize what various multi-functional controls will do in one mode vs another. I guess if you're into fiddling with gadgets you might like this pedal. To me, the interface is a train wreck. The phone app is nothing more than a glorified product registration assistant.

This would be a somewhat cool pedal for well under $... No way... one of this most disappointing products I've ever purchased, which is shocking to me because I own and love a ton of UA stuff.

The UAFX Astra is a very bold design that takes multi modulation pedals to new heights, or that's what it tries to do. The sounds are beautiful and lush, with impressive routing options. However once you want to tweak some settings, things start to go south. First off, since the designs are modeled after vintage hardware, the controls are only limited to what those units had. The chorus algorithm has one working control and a gain control plus stereo. Then the controls on the pedal change with each algorithm and when you realize only 1-2 algorithms actually use all six knobs, then things don't make any sense. I wanted to love this pedal, but the only way to improve it was adding midi for some more presets. The layout is way too confusing when jumping from one sound to another. Plus their app doesn't work. I've tried connecting it and after an hour of fiddling with Bluetooth and redownloading their software as suggested by UA, I finally got things to work. I'm just disappointed overall and wish I was able to return my unit when I had the option to.

I bought this pedal based on my experience with UA. I like their I/O products, which sound really great. This pedal doesn't meet what I expected. The presets are moderate at best, and I haven't been able to connect with the device using the UAFX iOS software. This product is too expensive to be this limited. My advice would be to find the emulated pedals on eBay because you would save yourself some money.

So I started out with the Golden Reverberator and promised myself that I would not be seduced into being tempted to purchase the Starlight and Astra due to the extreme costs to own all 3 pedals. But I gave in to my mortal desires. I must say that all 3 pedals sound absolutely amazing!!!! The problem that I had, especially with both the Astra and the Starlight is that out of the 2 hours that I play every day, I spent most of my time tweaking parameters to get back to a few sounds that I had the day before. Spent much less time actually playing my guitar and more time playing with the pedals, ONE PRESET IS ABSOLUTELY NOT ENOUGH!!!!!! ( Come on Universal Audio, are you reading this?)
I did not have the same issue with the Golden Reverberator as I typically only use the Amazing spring and the Hall 224. Not constantly switching between different settings, the Golden Reverberator is more of a set it and forget it type of pedal. Good luck playing live with the Astra and Starlight, they sound great but are almost impossible to quickly change parameters and find your sound from before. All of these UAFX pedals should have the ability to save at least 5 user presets. Ultimately I kept the Golden Reverberator and returned both the Astra and Starlight pedals.

Have been dabbling with some of the sounds encased in this box for years - pretty much just took presets on plugins and emulators. This was the first I've really experimented with modulation parameters. The algorithms and hardware in the box creates stunning sounds! There are 5 effects (two addition after product registration) and 2-3 mods of each. Multiply that by the number of incremental options on the 6 controls and you have millions of different sounds - but honestly just playing with the knobs and dry/wet ratio you are able Togo from pleasing to way-out-experimental sounds pretty quickly. Ultimately, very easy to evoke what your looking for (and I saved that as a preset) and will probably keep that as the preset (you only get one - my only real complaint) for a while. UAD has yet to implement their Bluetooth capabilities with an accompanying app - I'm hoping when they do the App can store multiple presets. Right now I keep a little notebook by my rig to document - settings I like, and while the sounds are stunning, the analog settings notebook is not. Still, I knew that going in and the sound (and build) quality is still high enough for 5-stars from me!!

This is my first experience with Universal Audio (UA) gear and honestly...it's fantastic, true to form and very close if not indistinguishable from the original effects it's made to emulate! Navigating the dials can be a bit confusing at first as some do different things 'per effect' and some are not used at all...similar to the layout of the original effects design - it won't take long to understand how they work though. I really like the fact that if a dial/function is not used for a particular effect in the Astra you don't have to reference the user manual to determine if it controls an effect parameter or not. Instead and directly below the knob there are two small LEDs, when you turn the knob and if they blink...that function is turned OFF, simple. The sounds are exceptional...watery CE-1 style Chorus, Metallic Flange, swooshing Phaser, throbbing Trem they're all there and feel right when blended with your guitars tone! I've used many mod effects that either take your signal over, sound thin or are not present enough, with the Astra you feel the effect under your fingers and in your playing;) I'm waiting for the UAFX Mobile App controlled via Blue Tooth as that capability and like my H9s, is always more convenient to control an effects parameters...then connecting via USB to a computer. I wish though that the Astra could do Pre/Post processing...placing the Phaser and Flanger before my ODs and then the Chorus and Trem after, would be best option for effects routing. Great pedal though.

I bought the Golden and Starlight first, but I was not so sure about getting this one. However, I decided to bite the bullet and get it to try it out and I was honestly blown away. The effects on this pedal are quite fantastic and I am having a blast with them. Everything sounds super High Fidelity and it's quite easy to dial in a good sound. You get five different algorithms in this pedal and the effects sound indistinguishable from their analog counterparts in my opinion. Definitely worth the price and it's built like a champ too. Buy it, you won't regret it!