UAD2 - Opinions Needed

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:23 am

Been doing some reading on this and really digging it, wanted some thoughts/opinions on it from people who own/have used/know about it:

1) Is the sound of their plugins REALLY all that good? in comparison to native plugins..
2) Whats the latency like when using it in a project for mixing purposes...
3) Overall, is it really worth the additional investment in hardware/software, when I can spend the same amount on various other native options...

djsynchro · Post by **djsynchro** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:16 am

1: Yes!
2: With UAD-2 the latency is the same as your DAWs audio buffer, so adds no latency.
3: Compared to Waves and SSL Duende UAD is a lot cheaper. Also they have coupons and discounts all the time. For example this month because they won a TEC award there is a $25 coupon that you have to use by the end of the month, and on top of that the EQ plugs are all discounted 20%.

You should go and read a bit on the forum:
http://www.chrismilne.com/uadforums

dominicw78 · Post by **dominicw78** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:27 am

The sound REALLY is that good.

Best hardware emulations out there. Works great with live

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:24 am

dominicw78 wrote:The sound REALLY is that good.

Best hardware emulations out there. Works great with live

I'm also keen on getting one of these.
Is the Quad worth getting - is it really twice as powerful as the Duo?
And what about the vouchers [in the Flexi package], better buy with the voucher or without when purchasing from the EU?

stjohn · Post by **stjohn** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:46 am

yes i think UAD 2 will be my next purchase! i too would like to know the difference between each package, except the processing of course

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:00 pm

djsynchro wrote:1: Yes!
2: With UAD-2 the latency is the same as your DAWs audio buffer, so adds no latency.
3: Compared to Waves and SSL Duende UAD is a lot cheaper. Also they have coupons and discounts all the time. For example this month because they won a TEC award there is a $25 coupon that you have to use by the end of the month, and on top of that the EQ plugs are all discounted 20%.

You should go and read a bit on the forum:
http://www.chrismilne.com/uadforums

Thanks for the inputs, so its basically the same as using any native plugin?

Mike Goodwin · Post by **Mike Goodwin** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:51 pm

Do not take this the wrong way UAD are at the top in the way of quality but I feel that there are native plug-ins that do sound as good and in come cases better. The newest offerings from waves, JJP bundle and the Classic Bundle for example sound very good and use VERY little CPU. They also run at a 1 sample delay in most cases. Other great offerings from Eiosis, PSP, Sonalksis and others that I am forgetting. I would love to have one but in the end I have owned powercore as well as UAD1 and in the end end I got sick of dealing with the problems that sometimes come with DSP cards. My point is that you do not have to go to a DSP card to get top shelf audio quality.

lola · Post by **lola** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:56 pm

Mike Goodwin wrote:Do not take this the wrong way UAD are at the top in the way of quality but I feel that there are native plug-ins that do sound as good and in come cases better. .

Totally agree with you.

Don't get fooled by the GUI.

esky · Post by **esky** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:31 pm

dominicw78 wrote:The sound REALLY is that good.

Best hardware emulations out there. Works great with live

And it's getting better. Can't wait to hear the Empirical Labs stuff...

djsynchro · Post by **djsynchro** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:42 pm

john doe by choice · Post by **john doe by choice** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:16 pm

I had to sell the mac I had my UAD card in and didn't have a desktop option open to me at the time to put the card into, so I had to let it go, but when I had it, I loved it dearly...their RE-201 plugin, in fact all of teir Boss/Roland plugins were awesome - I used the RE-201 and Nigel on everything to some extent. The precision plugs are pretty nice too. I don't know about the sound quality of other DSP cards, but I always hype the UAD to anyone who asks - affordability, sound quality, and CPU are all great factors in a purchase like that. I will say that their latency manager wasn't exactly great at the time I used it, but I could edit around that kind of stuff with minimal effort, so I wouldn't say that it's a huge problem, and that's something you deal with on just about any plugin, so it wasn't a bother.

afone1977 · Post by **afone1977** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:13 pm

2 UAD-1, 1 UAD-2 quad, all the plugins here (i use them since 5-6 years)

1) Is the sound of their plugins REALLY all that good? in comparison to native plugins..

best plugins i ever hear / use / know (and i try many : waves, sonalksis, psp, nomad factory, sonnox, flux, liquid mix ....)

best compressor (1176, LA2A, LA3A, fairchild, Prec Bus comp, VCA VCU, neve)
best caracter eq (pultec, helios, neve)
best plate reverb (plate 140)
best transient designer (spl TD)
best channel strip (neve 88RS)
best tape echo plugins (re 201)
best filter (moog filter) wich was free for me due to the voucher UA gives to me when i bought the UAD-2 card)
...

imo all UAD plugins are caracterized by : great workflow and beautiful sound at the end,

2) Whats the latency like when using it in a project for mixing purposes...

transparent for me during mixing with auto delay compensation (yes dsp cards generate latency but you have also live track mode with uad-2 if you want)

3) Overall, is it really worth the additional investment in hardware/software, when I can spend the same amount on various other native options

the only native plugins that i would buy to use with UAD plugins (because of the quality) :

Flux and sonnox plugins, all others are just ridiculous to my ears (i didn't test waves puigchild or puigtec yet but UAD version are so great, so i don't need them in a native version anymore, and v series were so ridiculous besides UAD neve series...)

but UA doesn't only offer good (not to say the best) plugins, but also fair price (and many voucher) and a great support.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:23 pm

transparent for me during mixing with auto delay compensation (yes dsp cards generate latency but you have also live track mode with uad-2 if you want)

Sorry if this seems a little obvious, but are you saying that Live takes care of the delay compensation automatically and the UAD plugins work exactly the same way as the inbuilt native plugins?

lola · Post by **lola** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:56 pm

afone1977 wrote:2 UAD-1, 1 UAD-2 quad, all the plugins here (i use them since 5-6 years)

1) Is the sound of their plug ins REALLY all that good? in comparison to native plug ins..
best plug ins i ever hear / use / know (and i try many : waves, sonalksis, psp, nomad factory, sonnox, flux, liquid mix ....)

best compressor (1176, LA2A, LA3A, fairchild, Prec Bus comp, VCA VCU, neve)
best caracter eq (pultec, helios, neve)
best plate reverb (plate 140)
best transient designer (spl TD)
best channel strip (neve 88RS)
best tape echo plugins (re 201)
best filter (moog filter) wich was free for me due to the voucher UA gives to me when i bought the UAD-2 card)
...

imo all UAD plugins are caracterized by : great workflow and beautiful sound at the end,

.

Ill try to be so *objective* as possible
Everyone defends own Good's i think, and a differs in taste.
I own 3 uad cards, and been working on analog consoles + hardware outboard over the years .
Been testing a Lott of plug ins over the years cause of the fun of it

The benefit with uad for me is easing the pressure of my CPU.

But do they really sound that much better as 3rd party plug ins?
Really i doubt it a little, could it be that the magic of the GUI does the trick, and tricks the mind with a beautiful example of audio placebo.

Why is it that when i close my eyes and listen carefully to one's eq's, compressors, and really can't tell the difference, can one do this , ill doubt it.

The uad has code, algorithm...right... but it does not have it's own da's or outs(op-amps), it goes trough the audio engine of your host, it's just code programmed within the vst protocol, As all other plug ins are.

The abbey road plugs i can compare with the compression series of uad, but i tend to use the abbey-roads more.(subjective)

At the end i use my analog eq of my console the most, nothing compares to that one, but that aside.

I really love my uads, but that they do sound better than 3rd party plug ins....i doubt it.(aside form the moogplugin

)
Who know's what the future will bring now the dsp can handle more power.

My personal objective as possible opinion

dominicw78 · Post by **dominicw78** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:41 pm

FORMAT wrote:
dominicw78 wrote:The sound REALLY is that good.

Best hardware emulations out there. Works great with live
I'm also keen on getting one of these.
Is the Quad worth getting - is it really twice as powerful as the Duo?
And what about the vouchers [in the Flexi package], better buy with the voucher or without when purchasing from the EU?

I couldn't say from experience whether the Quad is exactly double Duo, but I would see no reason for doubting that it is. It's not the same as comparing a duo processor on a computer to a quad processor. Each plugin takes up a percentage of the dsp processor, with the quad you get twice as much so you should be able to use twice as many plugins. They have charts on the site showing different possible plugin combos.

Probably better getting with vouchers as you will of course want plugins also, might be cheaper?

Even if there are other plugins out there that if hand selected and tested could get similar results, who cares?

The UAD ones are all great, more great ones to come, not over priced, plus they relieve processing power, what more could you want?