UAD apollo and plugins owners......is it worth it ? HOnestly

[V0RT3X]

Maybe Robert Randolf has a console and need 72 I/O

[Tronam]

I picked up a UAD-2 quad satellite a few years ago at a dirt cheap price and have occasionally purchased a few deep discounted plugins since then. I do quite like their Lexicon 224 and EMT140 reverbs, as well as several of their tape emulations. The quality is good with most of their plugins, but I'll be the first to admit that it's probably not a good value for most hobbyists considering the breadth of native options available these days. I could understand busy, working professionals liking the simplicity of an all-in-one ecosystem like this with its broad portfolio of plugins emulating most of their outboard gear in look, sound (hopefully) and workflow. One single installer, minimal copy protection hassle, offloaded CPU usage and relatively consistent support from UA over the past two decades now; a pretty dependable brand. I feel kind of mixed about it and am not fond of being tethered to this chunk of hardware, but I've kept the UAD for those couple of plugins I still like to use. I think of it like most any other piece of outboard gear.

[lfm]

I only have one single DSP chip, which lets me loads like 5 plug-ins tops, so I'm having to do the whole freeze/flatten workaround and being very careful with my bus processing but... it's worth it.

I think that is an important thing to consider - you are getting halfway to having hardware racks in the sense that some plugins use up those DSP chips really fast.

There are charts for UAD plugin how much they require each instance.

I had bookmarks to those charts a couple of years ago when i was looking at possible investment, which they removed and was unable to find again - and maybe UAD realize that it's not a selling point at all.

You have to keep track of those requirements and how much is left in DSP for new instances of a plugin you create.

With todays computers one wonders if this hardware is needed - and it's all about UAD skillset making plugins. Which is no good business modell to release native plugins when your business is hardware.

Back in the day Avid could charge silly money for HDX hardware versions for ProTools, and a bit of the same with UAD still.

Isn't it all overruled by standard computers today, one wonders.....but that little extra on dozens of tracks will make the entire mix many notches better.....so it's about plugin quality.... not hardware....

[robindrieghe]

and suddenly all often praised effects from valhalla and tdl etc are reduced to not worthy, uad is the way to go

[Tronam]

and suddenly all often praised effects from valhalla and tdl etc are reduced to not worthy, uad is the way to go

That's not true. I love Valhalla's plugins and use several of them regularly. I also enjoy some of UAD's. It's possible to like both.

[Scotty]

Why would you need or want 72 inputs and outputs?

There tends to be a lack of imagination from some posters who can't get their heads around the fact that there are many different workflows, needs , preferences , budgets etc. It would be equally short sighted to claim that this kind of set up leads to superior results. It doesn't, it is just ease of access and nice workflow that I am willing to fund through paying projects. It isn't expensive in the long term. I got the Raydat cards for half price from someone moving to an Apollo system a couple of years ago and I keep my eye open for ADAT converter boxes on the used market. Cables probably amount for a the same or bigger cost in the long run.

I'm on dual RME Raydats

I am using almost all of of the available inputs and about 30 of the available outputs. The reason is that all of my hardware are always patched in and defined within Cubase as external instruments and effects. I run a dedicated 6 channel headphone cue system with separate cue sends in stereo. Keeping a multi mic'd drum kit setup permanently and several mics available in a vocal booth and amp room will eat up IO very quickly. That along with a large rack of synths and groove boxes and you can see how the IO gets used up.

Apart from that, I host two other computer along with my main DAW that communicate to the DAW: Korg OASYS PCI cards and the Creamware DSP cards live in their own computers, again connected via ADAT cables.

Most of the gear is not on and running at the same time. But if I want it .. it is patched in and on its own midi cable and audio cable(s) and ready to go as it is defined in the routing system in Cubase. I don't use patchbays.

Monitoring through Effects at Low Latency:

I monitor at 64 samples via the raydats through effects when tracking bands in my 5 room studio. It is overkill for bedroom producers for sure and it doesn't make me special in the least. Nor does it make me an idiot. I know my gear. It is just how I have grown my system over the years. I prefer to have all of my gear available and on line.

[burnt circuit]

Maybe Robert Randolf has a console and need 72 I/O

Mixing on large analog consoles is going on out style, not sure there's much market left for it...

If it's only 72 i/o's he needs, there's cheaper ways to get it then Apollo.

He's already said he isn't interested in the "UAD ecosystem".

There are plenty of cheaper alternatives to 72 i/o's, such as by daisy chaining.

[Robert Randolph]

You can choose to spend (waste) your money on anything you desire, but some are financially wiser.

I agree, so would you please answer my question about a financially wiser system that meets the same needs that the Apollos do for me.

It's quite a bit of a strange line of reasoning if your whole argument is that some people buy things they don't need. We can make that case about literally everything this forum is about.

Most people don't need 72 i/o's, in fact they are most likely only using upto 4. So let's be realistic for a minute and take a deep breath. I think we're discussing real world applications for most people, not someone that needs 72 i/o's, that we still don't know the exact usage for? (note: see below)

Even if you really needed 72 i/o's, there is a cheaper way to string something together for a faction of the cost and twice the power.

Now back to planet Earth and a return to the discussion with bedroom producers... UAD is a waste of money to most people's situations and needs.

This thread is about Apollo and 'plugins'. You seem to be completely unaware of the fact that Apollo is an interface, not just the UA DSP system.

I mentioned more than just the 72 i/o (I have more than that actually). I find it somewhat revealing that you refuse to address anything else I mentioned or the capabilities that allow those workflows.

It's really easy to demonstrate value of the Apollo products without discussing the DSP outside the context of the Console application. As I said originally, we can completely ignore UAD for use in a DAW and there's quite a bit of functionality provided that is either unique or is difficult to acquire less expensively. Once a user needs multiple parts of those functions, I do not know of anything on the market that provides the capabilities more cheaply.

So! Let's back up. Let's talk about the Apollo Twin. Can you tell me of a product that does these things less expensively? (I'll be careful to only mention things that probably apply to a sizable chunk of "bedroom musicians").

• Allows expansion through purchases of other products in the ecosystem - You can plug in an apollo to another apollo and you gain all of the I/O (and DSP) without any hoops to jump through.
• Unison inputs - Impedance and Level changing inputs that adjust depending on the...
• Large selection of near zero-latency plugins - Particularly Guitar/Bass products.
• Extremely low RTL - <1ms round trip addition to buffer size latency (This excludes every USB product on the market). Particularly important when running larger buffer sizes to reduce "CPU" usage. The line between audible latency and inaudible latency is crossed easily when running at a 512 buffer at 44,100hz.
• Digital control of Preamps - Precise control of pre-amps to replicate setups from day to day or session to session.
• Digital control of output levels - Same.
• Fully recall of setups - Pres, Outputs, Routing, DAW I/O setups, cues etc...
• Talkback mic - Awesome feature when you want to have a friend over to record some vox.
• High gain preamps - You can use notoriously gain-hungry mics (Like the common SM7b) without needing a cloudlifter. This is a common bedroom musician pain point.
• Pad and High pass on Preamps - Obvious, but strangely missing from a lot of budget products on the market?
• Virtual Routing - You can use the UA drivers to route audio between applications and process system audio easily.
• Hardware dim - Single button press to dim the output. Great when mom comes over to ask you to take out the trash.

Does everyone need all of these features? No.

Can some bedroom musicians benefit from most of these? Yep. Some bedroom musicians can benefit from all of them.

Did I mention using DSP in a DAW in a manner where a soundgrid or upgrading your processor is an alternative? Nope.

Are there some people that don't really need any of these features? Absolutely. Surprisingly, they (like anyone) shouldn't be spending money on products that exceed their current or future needs.

Maybe Robert Randolf has a console and need 72 I/O

If it's only 72 i/o's he needs, there's cheaper ways to get it then Apollo.

He's already said he isn't interested in the "UAD ecosystem".

There are plenty of cheaper alternatives to 72 i/o's, such as by daisy chaining.

Heh. Well. QED I suppose.

[burnt circuit]

Maybe Robert Randolf has a console and need 72 I/O

Mixing on large analog consoles is going on out style, not sure there's much market left for it...

If it's only 72 i/o's he needs, there's cheaper ways to get it then Apollo.

He's already said he isn't interested in the "UAD ecosystem".

There are plenty of cheaper alternatives to 72 i/o's, such as by daisy chaining.

This sums everything up, no need to write an essay on why you don't think UAD is a waste of money.

Everything that UAD can do, can be done cheaper, facts.

[V0RT3X]

Mixing on consoles going out of style?? Lol maybe for the bedroom producer who doesnt do it for a living.

[burnt circuit]

Mixing on consoles going out of style?? Lol maybe for the bedroom producer who doesnt do it for a living.

You haven't been paying attention to the audio world if you don't think large mixing consoles are going out of style. Just look around at your local large studios and the saturated state of bedroom studios.

[Robert Randolph]

Maybe Robert Randolf has a console and need 72 I/O

Mixing on large analog consoles is going on out style, not sure there's much market left for it...

If it's only 72 i/o's he needs, there's cheaper ways to get it then Apollo.

He's already said he isn't interested in the "UAD ecosystem".

There are plenty of cheaper alternatives to 72 i/o's, such as by daisy chaining.

This sums everything up, no need to write an essay on why you don't think UAD is a waste of money.

I mentioned 7 things earlier, and you picked only the 72 i/o thing to discuss.

My most recent post listed 12 things, and you have decided to ignore all of them.

I can only assume at this point that you've chosen to not discuss the topic in earnest.

[burnt circuit]

Maybe Robert Randolf has a console and need 72 I/O

Mixing on large analog consoles is going on out style, not sure there's much market left for it...

If it's only 72 i/o's he needs, there's cheaper ways to get it then Apollo.

He's already said he isn't interested in the "UAD ecosystem".

There are plenty of cheaper alternatives to 72 i/o's, such as by daisy chaining.

This sums everything up, no need to write an essay on why you don't think UAD is a waste of money.

I mentioned 7 things earlier, and you picked only the 72 i/o thing to discuss.

My most recent post listed 12 things, and you have decided to ignore all of them.

I can only assume at this point that you've chosen to not discuss the topic in earnest.

I'm not going to do the research for you, but trust me there's always cheaper alternatives to UAD.

WAVES SOUNDGRID.

[Robert Randolph]

This sums everything up, no need to write an essay on why you don't think UAD is a waste of money.

This is also pretty funny, given that I'm not talking about UAD and discussing the values of Apollo is literally what the thread is about.

[burnt circuit]

This sums everything up, no need to write an essay on why you don't think UAD is a waste of money.

This is also pretty funny, given that I'm not talking about UAD and discussing the values of Apollo is literally what the thread is about.

UAD Apollo is overpriced for what it does, just accept it man.