KVR Audio

wernerjanson · Post by **wernerjanson** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:27 am

Hi,

a friend of mine is considering getting either a TC Powercore or an UAD-1.

Which one would you recommend and why ?
Has anybody with experience with both of them ?

thanks
Sam

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:39 am

i would recomend a Creamware SCOPE card instead.

beej · Post by **beej** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:39 am

What type of music does he do? What kind of effects does he need?

With out more infomation, it's like asking a random stranger "what kind of music would I like?" - ie completely meaningless...

There's is shedloads of information about both of these if you search, which will give you a lot of this information...

wernerjanson · Post by **wernerjanson** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:49 am

steffensen wrote:i would recomend a Creamware SCOPE card instead.

He won't get a Creamware Scope, since is a happy RME user, and he will certainly not change to another soundcard.

wernerjanson · Post by **wernerjanson** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:55 am

beej wrote:What type of music does he do? What kind of effects does he need?

He is doing classic rock, Beatles, Stones style..

But since he has a little project studio he is not limited to that,
because it depends of the music of his customers.

I believe the most important effects for him are reverb and EQ,
of course a decent compressor would be good as well.

Things like chorus, phaser or delay are less important.

besides the quality of the effects I also would be interested in the stability of the drivers.

thanks
Sam

tuzemec · Post by **tuzemec** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:01 pm

I don't know about the UAD.. but I'm happy with my poco mk2... There are some rants about bugs and stuff, but I've never experianced something serious. You can check this forum for more info about poco: http://www.powercore.noheaven.com/
Currently there's some serious issues with certain AMD configs, so it's good check your friend's hardware configuration first.
Good luck.

And.. something new that come to PoCo platform is that you can demo for 20 hours almost all available adittional plugins (20 hours each).

mark77 · Post by **mark77** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:20 pm

i dont mean to badmouth either company here, just strictly expressing my opinion:
a coupleof years ago, computers/processors struggled with high quality effects.. but as always is the case.. technology and processor speeds always improve. So.. while a few years ago u could justify getting one of these things.. today.. why the hell would u bother? if you're after a good eq, get a convolution eq which can give u any eq that ever existed (providing u have the impulse respone for it) same goes for reverb (convolution reverb) etc, etc. the list goes on and on. You might argue that using these will make your computer come to its knees.. well just make sure u have an up to date pc, or simply wait a few months for the new breed of CPUs.

Having said all that, i would go for the powercore simply to have access to the access virus powercore plugin, which gives u the virus sound in a plugin format but at half (or maybe even third?) the price of the virus TI. cheers, hope this helps.

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:43 pm

i dont mean to badmouth either company here, just strictly expressing my opinion:
a coupleof years ago, computers/processors struggled with high quality effects.. but as always is the case.. technology and processor speeds always improve. So.. while a few years ago u could justify getting one of these things.. today.. why the hell would u bother? if you're after a good eq, get a convolution eq which can give u any eq that ever existed (providing u have the impulse respone for it) same goes for reverb (convolution reverb) etc, etc. the list goes on and on. You might argue that using these will make your computer come to its knees.. well just make sure u have an up to date pc, or simply wait a few months for the new breed of CPUs.

Hmmmm...completely missed the point of using either of those DSP cards, perhaps?

Nobody in their right mind uses them for the CPU issue...they use them for the quality of the plugins, many of which are not available in any native form whatsoever. Convolution also misses the point entirely - I use convolution - exactly why I need to hurry up and buy my UAD card sooner rather than later - convolution is static and severely limited. Convolution for Eq? You must be joking, surely? How many hundreds of thousands of impulses would you need to have a useful Eq via convolution - what happens when I only want -1.7dB cut at precisely 312Hz with a Q of 0.66 octaves? You show me where there is a collection of Eq impulses that go anywhere near that kind of precision (which is exactly what you need with Eq in most cases). You're lucky if Eq impulses only go up in 1 dB steps, and they certainly don't have different and specific Q values and they do not under any collections I've seen go up in individual Hz or even in 10s of Hz.

As for the choice between UAD and TC...I prefer UAD, but it really is down to taste. My opinion on many of the plugins is that the UAD ones tend to go for colour and character, whereas I've always seen TC as more of the transparent and clean type of FX - that's a big generalisation, but it's the reason I'll go for UAD. I've never liked TC reverbs - they sound too thin and clean to me. Whereas the EMT plate on the UAD card is full of character and density. Same as the compressors/limiters - the UAD ones deliberately emulate obviously characterful and coloured h/w - which you either like or don't like, but especially as you mention old-style rock etc...I'd think those same colourful emulations are more likely to give the flavour you want. Some of the TC plugins are very good - just not quite the character that I like. For Stones/Beatles type stuff...dirty compression and obviously coloured Eq would suit more. Clean, pristine digital transparency would ruin the feel of much of that style music IMO.

As ever though - you need to trial the plugins - never ever go on our recommendations for that type of expenditure. Even I'd admit there are some TC plugins that are very worthwhile having - isn't the Sony Inflator on TC? Not that I'd buy anything that comes from that bunch of crooks though - it's just another reason I'd steer clear - Sony are scumbags and always will be...won't ever touch them with a bargepole ever again.

beej · Post by **beej** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:48 pm

Totally agree with Kritikon...
I'd choose UAD for fatness, rock, guitars, compression, eq and making things sound analog (and for reverb with the plate). Poco for clean stuff like chorus, phasers, hall reverbs etc.

Overall? Well, I own a UAD, and don't own a Poco, so make your mind up from that!

edoosx · Post by **edoosx** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:59 pm

mark77 wrote:

Having said all that, i would go for the powercore simply to have access to the access virus powercore plugin, which gives u the virus sound in a plugin format but at half (or maybe even third?) the price of the virus TI. cheers, hope this helps.

i got the powercore for the same reason: the virus powercore is really awesome! but before buying i recommend to check this forum:
http://www.powercore.noheaven.com/
the potential buyer of the quite expensive powercore/virus powercore duo will discover that there are many bugs and no tech support. for this reason i don't recommend to buy of the powercore if the main reason is the virus until a new version with the necessary bugfixes is released.
please note the many bugs of the new 2.0 driver of the powercore.

i totally agree with mark77: i think that nowadays native plugs have reached a very good quality level and modern cpus have enough power to run them without problems.

please note that the additional powercore plugs are quite expensive and that you will need to bounce the tracks where you used the powercore plugs to be compatible with other people who don't have the tc card (of course the same is valid for uad-1).
in my case, when i wanted to buy a new mac i discovered that they use now a new pci standard that is incompatible with the previous pci cards. so, i was in front of a drastic choice: 1- to buy an older mac with the old pci slots, or 2- to sell my powercore and my uad-1, loosing compatibility with my past projects. ...and i choosed 1-.
in the future i won't buy any non native plug anymore. i prefer to invest in a good computer and in native software.

Grain Bastard · Post by **Grain Bastard** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:29 pm

UAD-1 first then maybe another or a Powercore to add to it later. Check out UA's site and take a look at the webzines as there is loads of info about well experienced producers/engineers using UAD-1 now. Price is good too on the UAD-1 and you don't get completely fleeced by new plugin prices, although some users are starting to moan about the increase to around $200-250 mark. Early plugins like the the Pultec Pro etc were ridiculously priced at like $79 so it does seem like a hike but compared to many other hi-quality plugs, native, DSP & TDM, then they are still good vfm.

Oh and the recent agreement between UA & Neve will see some very interesting developments in DAW mixing in the coming months.

Also the main UAD-1 forums are at http://www.chrismilne.com/uadforums so you can see what problems any users might be having or indeed the joys they are experiencing.

One final thing, I've been hearing the arguments about how superb native is for the past three years or so since I got my UAD-1. How its obsolete already and native will inevitably win with super fast CPU's (10ghz CPU's in two years some people used to say) and guess what - I'm still very happy with the UAD-1. I have a 3 gig CPU which rarely maxes out and I've absolutely no reason at all to upgrade my DAW.

beej · Post by **beej** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:35 pm

Generally speaking, the people that don't own a UAD say "why bother, native stuff is now just as good" and the people that *do* own a UAD say native stuff isn't quite there.

For me, I've tried some (but by no means all) of the stuff that's the best of native, and I'm not a plugin whore by any stretch, but I've still not found anything that sounds as nice to me as the UAD compressors, which is my main use of it. There's nice native stuff to be sure, I like my Waves Ren and the Sonalksis is nice, but none have quite the same feel. Haven't tried stuff like URS or much of the Voxengo etc stuff (and being on Mac cuts down on some of the things I can demo).

Which is why i don't regret owning a UAD at all (just regret not being able to use it on my laptop as well... ;(

original flipper · Post by **original flipper** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:49 pm

HI

I have dual a Xeon DAW and TBH I can still hit the max with host programs that utilise both CPU's ... so I think it will be a long time before we ever have enough power for 'unlimited' (I mean a LOT) native plug's.

I have heard many good comments about the UAD board although I have a PoCo.

Either way if you want lot's of eq's/comp then either will do a good job.

I tend to ask if a synth is important; obviously you will not get this from a UAD ... the Poco has the built in 'blip' machine along with the optional Virus and V-Station.

IMO the Oxford EQ (for the PoCo) is the 'sweetest' I have yet heard - although I have never listerned to the UAD board.

Flipper.

Tony Ostinato · Post by **Tony Ostinato** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 4:26 pm

"He is doing classic rock, Beatles, Stones style.."

Its , i feel, important to point out that UA gear was used heavily by those guys, and the fairchild defined ringos drum sound as well as being used all over the place on the other instruments and of course the emt 140 plate and pultec eq's etc etc pretty much the whole uad-1 package.

if its THAT studio your goin for the choice is pretty easy.

Poco's advantage is that it uses cheap common motorola dsps that are used in pro tools tdm and rolands VS card and line6 pod and access virus and ooodles of other places, people have been coding for them for decades. So theres a lot of easily ported plugins and easily ported code. Maybe consider it a circa 2000 Pro Tools studio.

with native plugins i find it easier to cover the latter than the former, but like being able to remember your 1st gf but not the 3 you had last month my fondness for those classic pieces will never fade. your mileage may vary.

some things matter to some and not to others, for instance i was amazed last week when they announced saturns moon enceladus has yellowstone-like water geysers shooting water up into space and most likely it has a vast liquid ocean as close as 10km to its ice surface.

it hasnt even been mentioned in the news, most people dont even know, some wouldnt even care, some think its a waste of money.

BTW the cassini space probe that made the discovery was programmed by the guy who does UAD-1's best plugins. Weird eh?

AndrewSimon · Post by **AndrewSimon** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 5:55 pm

Tony Ostinato wrote: ......... for instance i was amazed last week when they announced saturns moon enceladus has yellowstone-like water geysers shooting water up into space and most likely it has a vast liquid ocean as close as 10km to its ice surface.

it hasnt even been mentioned in the news, most people dont even know, some wouldnt even care, some think its a waste of money.

Agreed
Extremely important discovery (assuming it's actually water) that will change the future of mankind, yet no big news stories...... yet

Ahh and I love my UAD plugs.

UAD-1 or TC-Powercore ?