Native vs. UAD, comparisions....

[buscemi]

Who cares about Gigaflops - we're making music arent we at the end of the day?

Exactly. The point of the UA cards, as well as Creamware, E-mu, etc. is to reduce the strain on your CPU so you can use more plug-ins when your CPU can't. And yeah, if you can max out a QUAD, then you're doing it wrong.

And if you can live with it not being an exact replica but still pretty farking great (IMO blah blah) then I'd rather have a single UAD2-Solo card in my system than have to go buy the approximately five 1176s, five Fairchild 670s, five Neve 1073s, and the six LA2A units or even one of each with printing/bouncing tracks and the upkeep of hardware units.

[chilln]

Who cares about Gigaflops - we're making music arent we at the end of the day?

Exactly. The point of the UA cards, as well as Creamware, E-mu, etc. is to reduce the strain on your CPU so you can use more plug-ins when your CPU can't. And yeah, if you can max out a QUAD, then you're doing it wrong.

And if you can live with it not being an exact replica but still pretty farking great (IMO blah blah) then I'd rather have a single UAD2-Solo card in my system than have to go buy the approximately five 1176s, five Fairchild 670s, five Neve 1073s, and the six LA2A units or even one of each with printing/bouncing tracks and the upkeep of hardware units.

+1 HIGH FIVE

[dirty oscillators]

everyone seems to only bring up the EQ's or compressors. how do the other plugins sound, like the Roland emu's, the Moog filter, and the reverbs?

@swan808 - thanks for the reply, seemed like i read somewhere that it could load only 2 plugs at once (like one would use up 50% processing). but if you can use four or five at once, seems like a really useful tool.

[mcq714]

i think UAD has some of the best emulations out there and i would gladly pay $4000 to get my hands on the quad omni even though i would probably not even max out a solo on any given project. show me another plug that's as unique as the moog filter. and don't you dare say the bomb factory plugs. that would be just plain stupid and they're ugly as hell. let's see some comparisons on SSL emulations. i think it was two days ago that we had a topic about buss compressors and universal audio delivers probably one of the most sought after in the hardware world.

[buscemi]

everyone seems to only bring up the EQ's or compressors. how do the other plugins sound, like the Roland emu's, the Moog filter, and the reverbs?

@swan808 - thanks for the reply, seemed like i read somewhere that it could load only 2 plugs at once (like one would use up 50% processing). but if you can use four or five at once, seems like a really useful tool.

It is the 33609 on the UAD-1 that is the hog. The list I put up there should all be able to run on a UAD2-Solo judging from the charts (http://www.uaudio.com/support/uad/charts.html) meaning not just four or five of each of those but ALL the ones listed at the same time. For my mixing purposes this is more than adequate and can't wait to get my hands on a UAD-2. Though the UAD-1 is good enough for now as it is.

Oh and I meant to say that the Plate-140 is a spectacular reverb. The CE-1 is great too. I will be getting the RE-201 at some point too, but the two I mentioned are good examples of non-EQ/comp plugins that are great.

[WillieJenkins]

Look I'm not a UAD fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but you have no clue what you're talking about. I've never maxed out my UAD-2 Duo in a real-world project, so what you're saying about plugin counts isn't based in any sort of reality.

Reality:

UAD2 Quad - 6,4 Gigaflops - ~1500€
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... ost3239925

Intel Core2Duo E8400 - 24 Gigaflops - ~140€
http://www.intel.com/support/processors ... 023143.htm

GForce 8800GT - 504 Gigaflops - ~100€
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_ ... al_summary

The performance for the money you pay is absolutely ridiculous!
And don't come me with "it's better suited for audio-processing". Even if this might be true to some degree, it still can't compensate the pure lack of processing power compared to a CPU/GPU. And the old UAD1 (which actually used a GPU) proved, that those kind of chips seem to be at least not to bad.

Different chip architectures. You're comparing apples and oranges. Take an engineering course.

-Eric

[dirty oscillators]

thanks buscemi

[SWAN808]

everyone seems to only bring up the EQ's or compressors. how do the other plugins sound, like the Roland emu's, the Moog filter, and the reverbs?

@swan808 - thanks for the reply, seemed like i read somewhere that it could load only 2 plugs at once (like one would use up 50% processing). but if you can use four or five at once, seems like a really useful tool.

That does happen with 'some' of the plugs - best look here...:

http://www.uaudio.com/support/uad/charts.html

[Nokenoku]

Who cares about Gigaflops - we're making music arent we at the end of the day?

Exactly. The point of the UA cards, as well as Creamware, E-mu, etc. is to reduce the strain on your CPU so you can use more plug-ins when your CPU can't.

I'm sure the reduction isn't that much. Look at how much CPU the native Sonnox plugins need for example .. almost nothing. And before they were available on PC people also spreaded myths like "They need the power of the Powercore-card, CPUs are to slow".
I bet on a Q6600 you could already use more UAD-plugins than on a UAD2-Quad, if they'd actually do PC-versions (which of course makes no sense to UA atm).

You dont HAVE to run a UA2D quad...there are cheap ways to do it. Pick up a UAD1 card secondhand bundled with some plugs...

No, you don't have to, but every UAD-user I know is at least "not impressed" with the processing power of the UAD cards. Most people already have/had 2 UAD1 cards, and now they added another UAD2-Solo card (sometimes replacing one of the UAD1 cards).
That are at least a few hundret euros for basically a dongle since the CPU on their systems still has loads of reserves and don't need that little bit extra processing-power of a UAD-card.

Different chip architectures. You're comparing apples and oranges. Take an engineering course.

Funny, I'm studying engineering.
But you should take a reading-course since I already adressed that point (just in the part you quoted).

[Grain Bastard]

everyone seems to only bring up the EQ's or compressors. how do the other plugins sound, like the Roland emu's, the Moog filter, and the reverbs?

@swan808 - thanks for the reply, seemed like i read somewhere that it could load only 2 plugs at once (like one would use up 50% processing). but if you can use four or five at once, seems like a really useful tool.

Plate140's cool, Moog is very, very good and Dreamverb does some really good 'wierd' verbs imo as it has so much control and you can automate all the UAD-1 stuff and it's silky smooth.

Instances vary on one card depending on the plug used obviously, (I just got 1 UAD-1) but if your from the old-school and know how to use a mixer with its sends/groups etc then you can get a surprisingly long way into a mix before you have to bounce/freeze. If your like Charles Dye and think the only way to mix 'in-the-box' is to have a chain of 'eq-tapesim-flange-comp-verb-eq' on every single sound you got in your mix then maybe a single UAD-1 ain't for you.

Personally I save the best plugs I have for where it matters - drum buss gets an 1176, vocals the plate & LA2A etc and stuff like the Cambridge EQ & EX-1 use very little DSP and still sound very good. I'm really happy with what I've got and don't even bother looking at the stuff like the Neve EQ's because they do use lots of DSP and would make the one card system less viable imo.

[Grain Bastard]

No, you don't have to, but every UAD-user I know is at least "not impressed" with the processing power of the UAD cards. Most people already have/had 2 UAD1 cards, and now they added another UAD2-Solo card (sometimes replacing one of the UAD1 cards).
That are at least a few hundret euros for basically a dongle since the CPU on their systems still has loads of reserves and don't need that little bit extra processing-power of a UAD-card.

You can't see the wood for the tree's can you.

'All' these people you know who are buying extra UAD-1's & 2's even though they have spare CPU cycles are doing it because of the UAD-1/2's plugins and the effect they have sonically.

To many people its about the sound they end up with rather than the plugin count drag-race you seem bothered about.

[dirty oscillators]

Different chip architectures. You're comparing apples and oranges. Take an engineering course.

Funny, I'm studying engineering.
But you should take a reading-course since I already adressed that point (just in the part you quoted).

funny, i've reread your posts on this thread and you never addressed the fact that a UAD processor has a different architecture than an Intel PC chip.

but it doesn't matter. you're still comparing apples to oranges as a way to conjure up some weight for your argument; you're making unfair comparisons and only going on specs.

there's plenty of older music production devices that use older antiquated technology, but that's not as important as it's sound.

you also stated:

I'm not saying the UAD plugins are not great or anything. Actually I don't really know it, since I've never tried them by myself

which makes your biased view even more unfounded.

[minx]

[quote="Nokenoku"][quote="pandashake"][quote="SWAN808"]
Look at how much CPU the native Sonnox plugins need for example

I have the latest v3 Powercore Sonnox Plugins that have a button on them
that can switch to Native.There is a big sound difference when switching in
the Native versions which to me do not sound as good.And the 2 version do not Null
so there is some DSP Mojo going on I guess.

[Nokenoku]

You can't see the wood for the tree's can you.

'All' these people you know who are buying extra UAD-1's & 2's even though they have spare CPU cycles are doing it because of the UAD-1/2's plugins and the effect they have sonically.

To many people its about the sound they end up with rather than the plugin count drag-race you seem bothered about.

You understood me totally wrong.

I just wanted to point out, that the concept is outdated and should be discontinued, since it's not done for the reason some people still think it'd be for. The plugins should be available native, since it's more user-friendly, less waste of hardware and cheaper.
The only reason because they still sell it with those cards is because of marketing and money.

Nothing to wrong about that. If the plugins are really so good, that it's worth the price/hassle anyways, then go for it. Just wanted to point out, that you're not really paying for processing-power (or if that's actually one of your motivations, you get a pretty bad deal price-wise on THAT point).

funny, i've reread your posts on this thread and you never addressed the fact that a UAD processor has a different architecture than an Intel PC chip.

You guys should really learn to read:

And don't come me with "it's better suited for audio-processing". Even if this might be true to some degree, it still can't compensate the pure lack of processing power compared to a CPU/GPU. And the old UAD1 (which actually used a GPU) proved, that those kind of chips seem to be at least not to bad.

I'm not saying the UAD plugins are not great or anything. Actually I don't really know it, since I've never tried them by myself

which makes your biased view even more unfounded.

Since I made not a single comment on the sound, I don't need to have a founded opinion on that one.
The sound of the plugins was never part of the point I (and other people before) made.
You should learn to differenciate.

[Nokenoku]

I have the latest v3 Powercore Sonnox Plugins that have a button on them
that can switch to Native.There is a big sound difference when switching in
the Native versions which to me do not sound as good.And the 2 version do not Null
so there is some DSP Mojo going on I guess.

No, there's not.
The difference comes most likely just from different ways to handle roundings etc. But both ways are accurate enough to not make a qualitative difference.
http://www.siliconrecords.de/reverb/SONNOX.pdf
You want to tell me, you actually hear the differences and one sounds better than another?
Read that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo