Thinking of selling my UAD and my Powercore PCI, am i crazy?

[stag]

I'm on the same situation, just plain sick of it all.
I'm also planning on selling the whole deal and buy Waves SSL, Musian bundle II and IK CSV.

However you must have your setup very poorly configured, i can lower the Latency on the FireFace to 48 samples and every thing runs well... most of the time.

Bye.

[erminardi]

A couple of years ago I was a strongly supporter of native VST plugins (or better RTAS)... then I took my first Creamware + one UAD: After a lot of time spent to understand the Scope enviroment (my first impression of both Scope and UAD was quite cold), spent to read the PlanetZ & UAD forums, and spent to compare with external audio gear... I've concluded that DSP solution is the best choice available in software env. Period.
It's obviously that external gear like i.e. Manley variable Mu, Distressor, Neve comp/EQ, API, Focusrite, etc. are lightyears above software emulations!!!
But they costs light years over software...
In home audio field they are 4 level of users:
1) native free & a lot of pay native plugs and rare cheap hardware (hobbist homerecording)
2) few native and DSP & cheap hardware (semi-pro home recording)
3) few DSP hi-end plugs and medium-accessible hardware (pro home-recording)
4) expensive hardware (mainly mastering purpose) and Protools HD or Nuendo (pro recording & mastering)

Respirator, if U record with a cheap audiocard U cannot ear any sensible difference between native and DSP, but if U record with i.e. an Apogee A/D, for each further native process added U can ear a degradation of signal clarity. This is true for each process, but with native is more audible. This is the reason because the today tendence is to use an external mixer or a summator instead any internal mixing host algorithm.
A easy proof is that native VST waves plugins i.e. sounds "mouldy" compared to the same in TDM version.
Same for URS plugins (VST vs. TDM)
Repeat: native is a compromise between CPU & quality.
Often the VST developer must limit some techniques like oversampling, etc. for CPU power saving.
The proof is that, day by day, new native plugins that runs in new CPU sounds alot better than older versions.
DSP gives (in average) today what native will gives tomorrow.
It's my personal opinion based on my experience and a on a costant pro-audio forum reading.
I wish to avoid any kind of war (native vs. DSP vs. hardware)... it's obvious that in KVR the majority of the people "vote" for native!
It's a sort of religion, here

[Amberience]

Who the f**k are you trying to convince man? It's ALL one's and zero's in TOTALITY. That's all it f**king is!

There is no difference between a UAD, native plugs, a PodXT, Amplitube 2, and any other digital product you care to mention ... no difference apart from the humans behind them.

If something is shit its because a human made it shit. Not because of the technological aspects. There is nothing inherently "better" about a DSP card apart from the programmed plugins possibly being better programmed.

A VST is fully capable of producing the exact same sound that a powercore or UAD card is. The only reason that there might be a difference is if the programmer cut some corners or wasn't skilled enough to make something that high quality.

[Amberience]

Respirator, if U record with a cheap audiocard U cannot ear any sensible difference between native and DSP, but if U record with i.e. an Apogee A/D, for each further native process added U can ear a degradation of signal clarity. This is true for each process, but with native is more audible. This is the reason because the today tendence is to use an external mixer or a summator instead any internal mixing host algorithm.
A easy proof is that native VST waves plugins i.e. sounds "mouldy" compared to the same in TDM version.

BTW: lies.

[erminardi]

I'm on the same situation, just plain sick of it all.
I'm also planning on selling the whole deal and buy Waves SSL, Musian bundle II and IK CSV.

However you must have your setup very poorly configured, i can lower the Latency on the FireFace to 48 samples and every thing runs well... most of the time.

Bye.

Yes, IK CSV are very good. I've tried it.
I use DSP Timeworks reverb, from the same developers of CSV, since 2-3 years.
CSV is available only today (2006) because the CPU of PC is more powerful.
I use very very good reverbs like UAD dreamverb, TC PoCo ones, and Creamware's ones, until 2001!!!
Howewer I think that i.e. UAD dreamverb sounds still better than IK CSV and, plus, it's less CPU hungry

[respirator]

I have this problem, see. I use the Windows calc application and all my summations comes out, I don't know how to put it, dull. Or brownish. Now this guy that I know (well, I actually don't know him, but I've heard of him ... well, OK, not exactly heard of him, but I've read in a shiny mag that someone else has heard of him - for sure) he owns this very high-end calculator, with a brushed aluminium finish and blue leds and everything, and when he adds 1+1 he gets the shiniest 2 you'll ever see.

[erminardi]

Who the f**k are you trying to convince man? It's ALL one's and zero's in TOTALITY. That's all it f**king is!

There is no difference between a UAD, native plugs, a PodXT, Amplitube 2, and any other digital product you care to mention ... no difference apart from the humans behind them.

If something is shit its because a human made it shit. Not because of the technological aspects. There is nothing inherently "better" about a DSP card apart from the programmed plugins possibly being better programmed.

A VST is fully capable of producing the exact same sound that a powercore or UAD card is. The only reason that there might be a difference is if the programmer cut some corners or wasn't skilled enough to make something that high quality.

Yes you are right.
Repeat: native is TODAY, NOW, a compromise between CPU & quality.
Often the VST developer must limit some techniques like oversampling, etc. for CPU power saving.
UAD i.e. has an amazing programming team beyond the DSP power!
Maybe in 2010 the CPU power allows to program VST without any compromise... I hope that
Respect.

[respirator]

Actually he gets 3, but that's probably to complicated to explain...

[defjamm]

@erminardi: i think you lack a certain understanding. when you compare different plugs on different platforms you compare different algos, not native vs something else. native is technically superior. it has nothing to do with the sound-quality of the platform. you compare different algos(some more advanced, some less). the only problem there is with native is the cpu-power. that's why there are a lot of the same 1% algo-designs all over again. give it 5-10 years more, it's just a matter of time. but there is nothing wrong with native as a dsp-platform.

edit: started to write before your recent answer, which is like mine.

edit 2: btw the uad is also at a limit regarding power. the newer plug-ins kill it, you can't run many.

[AndrewW]

I have 2 UAD1 and a Powercore FW in my system. I run into all kinds of problems with my Nvidia3 chipset, Creamware Pulsar, RME Multiface and Maudio FW1814 sound cards. I get dropouts, system crashes etc, due to some kind of glitches with UAD1 cards. One thing I cannot do is get rid of my UAD1 cards. I use them for mixing and mastering. I render all my VSTi tracks to audio tracks and than throw UAD1 on it, and some native plugs as well, but mostly UAD1. I tried using more Powercore plugs and native, but it does not sound the same. UAD1 just sounds like it's supposed to, like I want stuff to sound. Too bad they are underpowered by todays standards, problematic with the interface (PCI going out of fashon). People want a more powerful UAD1 card. But people love the sound of UAD1.
Hlpefully this situation will improove in the future.

[erminardi]

White flag!
English is not my first language... it's hard to explain my concept.
My discussion is not native digital versus versus DSP digital domain. 0101000010 is the same in every kind of CPU.
The difference is between the specific audio DSP power versus the generic CPU power.
A last example: why, today, if U wish run a game U MUST buy a GPU (DSP) videocard? Why not use the huge CPU power instead? The binary digital code is the same...
In audio enviroment is almost the same case.
The quality reached is the same (digital) but the hardware power (and quality/speed/etc.) is different.
Anf!
It's hard to explain.

[edit] yes, I think that the actual available power influences the programming skill. UAD cards was on market with this high quality almost 6 years ago!!!
6 years ago the native reverbs was very poor compared...

[Amberience]

White flag!
English is not my first language... it's hard to explain my concept.
My discussion is not native digital versus versus DSP digital domain. 0101000010 is the same in every kind of CPU.
The difference is between the specific audio DSP power versus the generic CPU power.
A last example: why, today, if U wish run a game U MUST buy a GPU (DSP) videocard? Why not use the huge CPU power instead? The binary digital code is the same...
In audio enviroment is almost the same case.
The quality reached is the same (digital) but the hardware power (and quality/speed/etc.) is different.
Anf!
It's hard to explain.

Ah I get what you mean now. You like the fact that there is a dedicated DSP chip for audio processing, whereas with the PC's CPU it has to handle everything as well as the audio processing.

[AndrewW]

From what I know, in game world, the most powerful chip in the computer probably is the GPU not the CPU.

[respirator]

English is not my first language... it's hard to explain my concept.

Nor mine. I think we understand what you are saying anyway.

My discussion is not native digital versus versus DSP digital domain. 0101000010 is the same in every kind of CPU.

Yet you keep saying that DSP sounds better, less mouldy(?) than native.

The difference is between the specific audio DSP power versus the generic CPU power.

OK. Truth is DSP power is very low compared to native CPUs. DSP chips are of a design that was made a long time ago.

A last example: why, today, if U wish run a game U MUST buy a GPU (DSP) videocard? Why not use the huge CPU power instead? The binary digital code is the same... In audio enviroment is almost the same case.

That is a good and valid point. Fact is that while DSP-chips has a comparatively small market, the market for video cards are huge. So there's a lot of financial interest in developing new graphics chips. Another important difference is that most games runs equally well on different GPUs. I wish you could say the same about DSP and audio plugins.

[edit] yes, I think that the actual available power influences the programming skill. UAD cards was on market with this high quality almost 6 years ago!!!

6 years is an eternity in hard and soft ware development.

6 years ago the native reverbs was very poor compared...

True. There was not enough good programmers working on Native (there was Waves though).

The chips in my Powercore is laughable compared to what you can buy for your PC. And that'll only be more true in the future.

[erminardi]

My discussion is not native digital versus versus DSP digital domain. 0101000010 is the same in every kind of CPU.

Yet you keep saying that DSP sounds better, less mouldy(?) than native.

Because the algorithms are different version of the same concepts.
A lot of years ago I was a Commodore 64 owner: there was a lot of games available for both C16 & C64, the programming language and the machines was almost the same, only the CPU power was different.
So the same game was out in 2 different kind of version: C16's game was more pixelate than C64's.
The playability was also the same (frame rate, colors, etc. = the effect) , but the video quality was a little different (resolution = the quality).