Am I too stupid for UAD?

[beats me]

I'm not doubting the quality or that they are great emulations of vintage gear but I've never used this vintage gear and last night I was randomly throwing their plugs on tracks and was completely perplexed by what they are, what they were supposed to do in some cases, or how one has any advantage over another. It also doesn't help they are all just in a big folder and not organized by effect type.

If you want to know which plugs, all of them.

[sparklepuff]

Holy fuck, you bought all of them??

[beats me]

Holy fuck, you bought all of them??

Which makes this post even more embarrassing and also explains my confusion.

I'll just say some people know a bartender that hooks them up with cheap stiff drinks from time to time. I have other types of connections.

[sparklepuff]

Then take an hour or more and watch the demo videos of each plug. They'll give you a pretty good idea of what they all do. Many of them are very subtle, and that's the point of them, adding that extra special flavor. They aren't destroy-your-audio plugs. These are the special seasonings high end chefs use, this isn't Big Mac Special Sauce type shit.

[Hidden Driveways]

I'm used to hearing people say they could instantly hear an improvement with the UAD stuff (but, of course, I've never used them myself). Functionality aside, could you hear what the plugs were doing? Did it sound good?

[tw1nstates]

The Eq's are very good, depends on the source material as to how much you will notice it however.

And your ears and monitors as well. . .

Try a side by side boost on a vocal using the native live eq and say the vintage emus such as the Neve eqs.

I found the UAD stuff to significantly improve my mixes when i first ogt it.

Then each addition along the way also helped, cambridge really helped my mixes for example, partly because the native stuff i was using before simply didn't sound as good when boosting or cutting.

however if you don't hear the difference then don't use them. . .

[beats me]

My problem with videos when they are on subtle effects is the dude is always "hear the difference" and no, I really don't in most cases, not sure if that is audio quality or I just suck. Although that is a good recommendation on at least getting a grip on exactly what the plug-ins are for.

The other problem is that the GUIs are also emulations of the vintage gear and those aren't exactly loaded with the visuals that we are used to in today's plug-ins. In some cases it's just a little GUI LED that is either red or not and that's about it.

The one thing I kind of find annoying, even beyond not knowing exactly what I am downing, is on a lot of the knobs you have to move the mouse in that circular motion instead of the up/down motion that works on just about everything else. We really didn't need that movement emulated.

I think what I did here was jump a few levels of "pro" and skipped some very important experience levels.

[mr.adl]

Dude, you really should have looked at the vids and stuff BEFORE you bought the UAD.
I own 3 UAD1 and 1 UAD2 Quad and REALLY love the plugin and how they sound. Especially the earlier mentioned Neve EQ´s, but also the Compressors (try the 1176LN with the "all button in" mode on drums!).

Also try boosting with native EQ´s and boosting with the Neves, this should give you an idea what "musical sounding EQ" does mean

[Chang]

Also, go on the UAD forum and look around all the time, there's always someone finding a new trick that really works. Just recently we all figured out that the 1176SE sounds a lot better on electronic 909-808 type kicks and subs than standard more power hungry 1176. http://www.chrismilne.com/uadforums/vie ... 12&start=0

[Tarekith]

Some of the plug ins can be complex to figure out, especially the Fairchild. I'd say I had to spend a good month playing with all the plug ins before I felt I had a handle on using some of them. Even knowing exactly how compression works and all that. Some of the vintage gear works different than what we're maybe used, so you need to read up on the specifics and take the time to really understand how the parameters interact.

[beats me]

Like I said, I got a GREAT and legal deal on these and I would be stupid not to take advantage. If I didn't get this deal then I probably wouldn't have even looked at UAD stuff because I don't feel I've pushed my other stuff to it's limits yet. So it wasn't a matter of me running out and purchasing to impress the ladies.

I'll check videos and the forums but wanted to check if I was the only one that was somewhat confused by these bad boys, and it sounds like I'm not, even from the more skilled and experienced producers.

Sort of off topic, but does anybody else feel with the greatly increased power of the UAD2 cards that they should work on some original plugs as well instead of just emulations?

[Chang]

Sort of off topic, but does anybody else feel with the greatly increased power of the UAD2 cards that they should work on some original plugs as well instead of just emulations?

No imo, thats kind of the point. People that have worked with units like the 1176 which is actually a UA bill putnam hardware design want that 1176 sound thats been around forever. People know what a 1073 & 1081 sound like and are looking for that sound without spend $3,000 on hardware. But there are also original in all the limiter, the multiband comp, the reverbs and so on. Those are not emulations of hardware. The UAD2 has just made the dream come true of actually being able to run more units without magma chassis nightmare.

If anything I want more classic super expensive hardware units emulated that are known to work. I want them to do a deal with eventide and port over the TDM anthology bundle. Empirical labs Distressor, Manley labs, portico 5033 etc. Bring on the emulations!