UAD-1 + Live users - Speak Up!!

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Thu May 19, 2005 4:05 am

who is using a UAD-1 in Live?

i realize that the lack of PDC makes the Live/UAD-1 combo less than lovely. But i don't mine compensating the delay manually. i just heard the Pultec EQP-1A and LA-2A and i gotta say those are some tasty tasty analog emulations ... nearly a TDM quality to them.

So my questions are - with Live 4, is UAD-1 suffering from the increased host CPU usage that the Powercore DSPs are?. If you aren't familiar with this, TC says that the way Live's audio buffer operates and its realtime nature - makes PoCo plugs consume about 3 times more host cpu than it does in other hosts such as Cubase and Logic.

How is host cpu usage when using the UAD-1 ?

Any other thoughts on the UAD-1?

I see that UA is having a promo till June with including the LA-2A with the Project pack, and my dual G5 2ghz buy is getting closer and closer so i'm having a long, hard loook at this.

majestic · Post by **majestic** » Thu May 19, 2005 4:54 am

AdamJay wrote:I see that UA is having a promo till June with including the LA-2A with the Project pack, and my dual G5 2ghz buy is getting closer and closer

Hey, I was just looking at the UAD-1, the special offer and the current cost of a 2 x 2GHz Mac myself a couple of hours ago, and thinking the same thing. Think I might wait until they fix the PCI-X problem though - funny how the UAD performs better on a 2 x 2 than a 2 x 2.7!

Something else to keep in mind: there's a good chance that dual core Powermacs will be announced at WWDC next month. Even if they take a long time to arrive, the price of the current range of Powermacs should drop again in a couple of months.

olafmol · Post by **olafmol** » Thu May 19, 2005 7:43 am

i didn't notice any strange things when using my UAD1 plugins with the demo of ableton live 4 ... on the UAD forum there is a posting though that the ASIO buffer should be set to a minimal setting to avoid this increased host CPU useage you're talking about ... i will see if i can find this posting

oh..and of course they're much better than TDM quality

Olaf

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Thu May 19, 2005 7:57 am

olafmol wrote:i on the UAD forum there is a posting though that the ASIO buffer should be set to a minimal setting to avoid this increased host CPU useage you're talking about

thanks,
i went to the UAD forum and found it...

Ableton Live handles it's plug-in buffering with a low buffer size (I believe plug-ins operate in Live at a 128 samples), as opposed to most programs, which end up using a higher buffer size. This might be because the application in made mainly for live performance, but many people (including me) use this application for standard music production.

Having a very high ASIO buffer size, and a very low plug-in buffer size creates host load, because the plug-in is trying to get the audio card's attention way too many times. Try settings of 128-256 samples for your ASIO latency, and you should see the host load disappear to a minimum. From my understanding, Ableton Live in general should work better at this lower buffer size, it just is the way the application is written.

I'm curious to how this translates to Mac though. do i try to use a low core audio buffer size? very very vague. and i searched the Mac section of their forum and the term "ableton" showed zero results

anyone with a UAD-1 and Live 4 willing to do a test or two?
just slap on like 3 or 4 UAD-1 plugins and see if host cpu % increases at all with those plugins vs. ZERO UAD-1 plugins,
and adjust core audio latency to see if it further increases or decreases?

gregoreck · Post by **gregoreck** » Thu May 19, 2005 9:01 am

I've been using the UAD card for the last 6 months or so and I've got to say that it's the best purchase I could've made. Almost all the plugs are unbelievable... all the compressors, the precision limiiter, the pultech eq, the cambridge eq, the plate reverb... I'm using them more than any other set of plugs (i almost never uses the waves plugs anymore, these blow them away).

While I haven't done any specific tests, I do notice that each instance of UAD plugs does use a tiny bit of host CPU in Live, it's nothing as extreme as the powercore issue (my friend just bought and then returned one) and I find myself using lots of instances of the plugs with no problems. The only time I will notice it is if I have the CPU already pushing 80-90 with host plug ins and then start to add a lot of UAD plugs on top it can start to get hairy (this is on a MDD dual 1.25 G4).

The lack of delay compensation in Live is annoying of course -- I usually use Digital Performer to do my final mixdowns and in there, the UAD with PDC is super crisp and works like a magic voodoo charm -- but UAD provides a delay compensation plug in that's pretty easy to use (not the nightmare that trying to compensate for the Waves plugs!) and half the time I'll just bounce some of the sounds down anyway once they've been compressed or effected (and just nudge things over myself) so I'll have it to use live if i want anyway...

Anyway, I think you can tell I've become a huge fan of the UAD. It sounds great and super authentic, the tech support is superb and it's an unbelievably reasonable price for what it is. I heartily reccomend...

drush · Post by **drush** » Thu May 19, 2005 6:16 pm

majestic wrote:Think I might wait until they fix the PCI-X problem though - funny how the UAD performs better on a 2 x 2 than a 2 x 2.7!

ay, really? didn't know the pcix issue was this pronounced.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Thu May 19, 2005 6:31 pm

drush wrote:
majestic wrote:Think I might wait until they fix the PCI-X problem though - funny how the UAD performs better on a 2 x 2 than a 2 x 2.7!
ay, really? didn't know the pcix issue was this pronounced.

it has to do with an AMD chip used in the PCI-X slots of the middle and high end G5's. Thus all G4 powermac's, and all lower end G5 powermac's have the PCI slots only, and work flawlessly with the UAD-1. They may fix the PCI-X thing soon, rather than waiting on Apple to use different hardware.

this was said in a forum post...

"Hi Everyone,
I've got some updated news on v3.9 and the Tiger support.

* 3.9 will be released by end of Q2 2005

Key Features:
* Boss CE-1 Plug-In
* OSX Tiger Support
* Logic Pro 7.1 Bypass/Freeze Support
* Improved G5 Operation
_________________
James Cigler
Mac QA Lead
Universal Audio
http://www.uaudio.com"

* Improved G5 Operation could very well be resolve for the G5 PCI-X issue.
oh shit did i just use the word Resolve? fuck... now i sound like Dubya..[/b]

drush · Post by **drush** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:54 am

or "Improved G5 Operation" could be analogous to Live 4's "mac optimization" -- true statement but not really what you're looking for.

i already feel like you maybe don't get the relative performance increase in the 2x2.3ghz or 2x2.7ghz machines relative to how much more you pay. er, that sentence sorta makes sense. the >2x2ghz machines are lot more $ and maybe not worth it, comparatively. unless you *need* pci-x, which i guess is the point. audio world, not so much.

anyway.. interesting.

because i need more computers. hah.

xfive · Post by **xfive** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:50 pm

I've been lookin at these pretty hard myself...

Really can't beat em for the price... they sound great.
My friend David used his heavily on his Monoid release and I must say it sounds warm and phat as !

Where's this deal you speak of Adam? I'll have cash by June...

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Fri May 20, 2005 3:54 pm

So, what you're saying is that the the UAD-1 will work on a G5 even though it is not PCIx? It works- just not optimally?

And to the person who mixes in DP... How are you getting your Live sets into DP? Rewire or are you bringing in WAVs? Track for track or 2 track stereo?

Thanks.

Rahlo · Post by **Rahlo** » Sat May 21, 2005 12:55 am

I've been looking at the UAD-1 for a minute! A friend of mine in Chicago got one for his daul G4 set up, and his mixes are sounding waaaaay better than they used to. I'm probably picking this one up next week, most likely.

Where are you cats finding the best prices?

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat May 21, 2005 1:03 am

rahlo wrote:I've been looking at the UAD-1 for a minute! A friend of mine in Chicago got one for his daul G4 set up, and his mixes are sounding waaaaay better than they used to. I'm probably picking this one up next week, most likely.

Where are you cats finding the best prices?

$399 for the Project Pak (with free LA-2A till June 30th), $899 for the Studio Pak, pretty much across the board.

Rahlo, does your G5 has PCI-X slots? there have been issues with PCI-X and the UAD-1. Thats why i'm looking at the new Dual 2ghz G5 with PCI slots, and the Project Pak. If i can get a refurb on the G5, that would be $2100 total and i can live with that!

Rahlo · Post by **Rahlo** » Sat May 21, 2005 1:08 am

AdamJay wrote:
rahlo wrote:I've been looking at the UAD-1 for a minute! A friend of mine in Chicago got one for his daul G4 set up, and his mixes are sounding waaaaay better than they used to. I'm probably picking this one up next week, most likely.

Where are you cats finding the best prices?
$399 for the Project Pak, $899 for the Studio Pak, pretty much across the board.

Rahlo, does your G5 has PCI-X slots? there have been issues with PCI-X and the UAD-1. Thats why i'm looking at the new Dual 2ghz G5 with PCI slots, and the Project Pak. If i can get a refurb on the G5, that would be $2100 total and i can live with that!

Mine is one of the original 1.8 single processor joints. I'm not sure if it's PCI-X or not. Guess that'd be good to know, huh?! I'll look around online to try to find out what's what. Or, mayhaps you know already AJ?

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat May 21, 2005 1:14 am

yep, if its Rev A, it does have PCI-X
=(
well, the UAD-1 will work in your G5, but at the cost of some CPU usage.
just how much CPU usage, i'm not sure of.

you might want to pose that specific question at the osxaudio.com hardware forums..

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat May 21, 2005 1:20 am

actually, i just did some more research on it looks like the penalty of PCI-X isn't that you'll use more host CPU. i was confusing the Powercore/Live issue with this.

the penalty is that the UAD-1 on PCI-X will usually perform at only 85% its capacity (some folks have reported as low as 65% capacity)

so for instance, instead of running 20 LA-2As, on PCI-X you'll only be able to run 13 to 17 of them. or 6 to 8 CS-1 channel strips, rather than 10. (these examples are at 44.1khz)

but i still think the Project Pak plus the $149 LA-2A for $399 total is a steal... weather you can run 10 of em or 20 of em. the whole reason i want the UAD-1 is the LA-2A

UAD-1 + Live users - Speak Up!!

UAD-1 + Live users - Speak Up!!

Re: UAD-1 + Live users - Speak Up!!

Re: UAD-1 + Live users - Speak Up!!

Re: UAD-1 + Live users - Speak Up!!