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

[kritikon]

And - to those who say the UAD is just an expensive dongle. Yes, of course it is. I didn't think anyone was under the illusion it wasn't. It happens to add the benefit of relieving stress on your PC CPU...but that's becoming less and less of a benefit nowadays anyway. Of course UAD maintain their platform specifically to have the card as a dongle. They don't want their plugins pirated. And do any of you seriously think that if they became native, that UAD plugins wouldn't be the prime target for crackers etc and they'd be distributed free all over the planet within a week? I think we can all understand why UAD don't want that, and probably have no intention of going native whatsoever.

It's a dongle. It's no bloody conspiracy or secret! We know that. It's just one of those things that you have to buy if you want to use those exceptionally good plugins (that in themselves are sometimes cheaper than the new breed of native plugins...if you look at it objectively).


If you don't buy dongles, then simply don't buy it. But that means you won't use anything that sounds remotely like an LA2A or a Fairchild, or an EMT plate with full control (i.e not convolution). So you can pay for the full suite of Urs plugins instead, or a Waves bundle and run it native. And is that going to be any cheaper than buying a DSP card? Hmmmm?


No.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

I wouldnt classify the UAD or POCO as a dongle, if you do that, you are truly ignorant.

it runs off of the cards power.

at one time, that power was alot.

now, it is not.

hopefully they will come out with a new, modern, supercharged version that will truly be worth it

[Van Greco]

I too would really like to get a UAD for some of the plugs, but dont really want to buy something that is getting kindof long in the tooth. They have to be updating these things soon...right?

[Jason Brian Merrill]

I too would really like to get a UAD for some of the plugs, but dont really want to buy something that is getting kindof long in the tooth. They have to be updating these things soon...right?

I would certainly hope so.

[daverich]

I sold my uad a while back.

I don't miss it, and actually everything works alot better now than it used to.

More hardware = more things to go wrong = BAD THING.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[fgimian]

I sold my uad a while back.

I don't miss it, and actually everything works alot better now than it used to.

More hardware = more things to go wrong = BAD THING.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Just out of curiosity, what plugins do you use to replace the UAD1 plugins ? And how do they sound compared to the UAD1.

I have been dreaming of UAD1s for ages, but have all the main Voxengo & Kjaerhus Gold plugins which I love ... however I'm always curious to hear what all the fuss is about.

If you could share your thoughts about mixing after having owned a UAD1.

Thanks
Fots

[Amberience]

You're all living in the past.

[daverich]

I sold my uad a while back.

I don't miss it, and actually everything works alot better now than it used to.

More hardware = more things to go wrong = BAD THING.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Just out of curiosity, what plugins do you use to replace the UAD1 plugins ? And how do they sound compared to the UAD1.

I have been dreaming of UAD1s for ages, but have all the main Voxengo & Kjaerhus Gold plugins which I love ... however I'm always curious to hear what all the fuss is about.

If you could share your thoughts about mixing after having owned a UAD1.

Thanks
Fots

I bought wavearts trackplug and masterverb, Voxengo Marquis compressor, Voxengo Harmoni EQ, Sytrus synth and a large sample collection from an EZsounds groupbuy.

I had a few problems with the UAD thing - the first being that it just didn't like my setup. ERR-21 errors all over the place were a complete PITA and it really did seem like UA didn't give a damn and Cakewalk are only now getting around to fixing the issue.

The other is project compatibility. I already knew that i was going to upgrade to a dual-core athlon, and I'd already seen on the UA forums that the card was not happy in the new motherboard I was going to be getting - great, MORE problems.

So, even if it wasn't then, the UAD was going to have to go at some point - and with it all those plugs I'd used in previous projects were going to disappear. At least with native, unless you sell the plug - you can guarantee pretty much that you'll be able to load up the plugins in your old projects just fine at any point in the future (even in vista thanks to sonar's bitbridge)

The sound quality of the UAD is great, but Marquis is equally as good as is HarmoniEQ. My system now works fine and actually when it comes down to it there's nothing I can't do now because I don't have the UAD. I can run ooooodles of plugs on my 4400x2 athlon with zero plugin latency if I desire and never ever have to worry about those dreaded Errors which really stuffed up the workflow (i.e. reboot)

Universal Audio should go native, use a usb dongle if it makes them feel better - but Native is the way forward and I certainly won't be buying any hardware-dependant plugins again. What's the point of having a VST studio which is supposed to be convenient, quick and open - just to whack in a card/box which adds problems, adds latency and limits your plugin count. It's software, trying to be hardware, trying to be software. ARRGGHH!

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[Jason Brian Merrill]

... and how do you fare with sound quality? Worse, better, same?

[daverich]

Sound quality - no difference. Plugin quality, well that's really subjective - I would say different, but then two DSP cards will give you "different" sounding plugins.

If I'm shooting for a harmonically rich, slightly fuzzy analog-sound, I can certainly achieve that no problem without the UAD.

The only plug I don't have a substitue for is the Plate reverb. That was very special, but it won't be long before someone codes one for native.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[erminardi]

You're all living in the past.

I think that another strange opinion here is the continuous necessity of upgrade!
This upgrade necessity policy of last 8-6 years in computer music makes me crazy...
In the recording studio of friend of mine (where I can try almost all of most famous audio gears ) I can see that they buy gear in a long term "vision"!
They uses Protools HD as recorder with Apogee A/D converters. They mixes everything on a old NEVE mixer-bank (32 tracks).
As effects they uses a few (selected) TDM plugins, very rarely sone RTAS and often (if possible and prefered) external gear (for mastering only external gear, mainly from SPL or custom tools).
They (and me) hates any upgrade because this tends to change the equilibrium of the workflow.
My friend says that if U buy i.e a UAD is like buy an external and durable gear with his own distinguible character... I think that he has right point of view.
A lot of people here says that UAD-1 is obsolete... it's like say that i.e. a Focusrite red 2 or ISA 430 are obsolete!!!
Only native plugins needs constant upgrades because my theory about the compromise between CPU power usage and quality (complexity) of the algorithm availables, in average, in this moment.
I.e. Distressor is a software based gear (with some analog I/O processing): how many people can says that this famous and awesome comp needs an upgrade???
Same for Scope enviroment: it's a complete and mature OS with devices that feels more like "audio gear" than simple "plugins".

[Amberience]

Its not the upgrade thing that makes me think you're living in the past. Its the fact you want emulations or models of old gear. Get over it. You don't need something pretending to be a NEVE whateverythingymajig to make music.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

Its not the upgrade thing that makes me think you're living in the past. Its the fact you want emulations or models of old gear. Get over it. You don't need something pretending to be a NEVE whateverythingymajig to make music.

yes, good thought.

[DevonB]

Its not the upgrade thing that makes me think you're living in the past. Its the fact you want emulations or models of old gear. Get over it. You don't need something pretending to be a NEVE whateverythingymajig to make music.

Considering that almost every single plugin is an emulation of something in hardware(some more than others) I think this statement is a bit silly myself. "Need" is a strong word. "Desire" I can understand.

Devon

[fgimian]

Dave, huge thanks for answering my question. I too use Marquis daily, and must say that it indeed sounds incredible. I actually use GlissEQ as my track EQ these days and don't ever end up with harsh sounding mixes unless I do something seriously wrong. I love that EQ. I personally prefer HarmoniEQ for mastering but mainly that's due to the CPU usage.

I think the convenience of the UAD1 plugins are maybe a huge plus for most people. e.g. 2 knobs on the LA2A, instant gratification on vocals.

Alternatively, you could always setup a good vocal preset on the Marquis and just adjust the threshold and output to taste.

In terms of the reverb, I know it won't match the plate .. but I find the Classic Reverb by Kjaerhus is very plate sounding. Apart from that I use impulses and Reason's reverb Plate algorithm (when the sound is in Reason).

I'm still not convinced that Arts Acoustic is worth the price ... so I'm too hanging out for a great dongleless reverb (even though I already have a dongle for Cubase)

Wizooverb was incredible but takes way way too much CPU

Fots