I will probably be buying an UAD Soundcard soon, but what i don't understand is how everything works, i have seen a lot of people using more than one UAD soundcard.

I plan on buying a complete setup "futureproofing" i need to be able to record a full band, drums bass guitars, vocals all at the same time.

one soundcard does not do the trick, two can, so how does it work and what should i buy (i have my eyes on an apollo x8).

while you're at it, what do you suggest for a studio (hardware wise) if you know a secret piece or a secret and cheap compressor or anything don't hesitate to share! i consider this a personal favor!

 

I think you need to be clearer here as there are two UAD products, which are audio interfaces and PCIe cards.

UAD cards are not sound cards. They are essentially a hardware ‘authorisation key’ of sorts for unlocking and allowing you to use UAD plugins. However, that’s not all they do obviously. They have CPU processors on the cards so that the processing power used for UAD is offloaded from your main system and the CPUs on the card does the processing, saving your system resources for ‘other’ stuff. Essentially, it’s a DSP card.

With this, the model names, Duo, Quad, Octo etc refers to how how many of the SHARC CPU processors the PCIe card has on it. You can add however man6 to your system as you have room for and it doesn’t have to be the same type, meaning you can start with a single, then add a quad if you like them to give you five processing chips.

The simplest way to understand them is to look at them as PCIe expansion cards that allow you to use UAD plugins without taxing your system resources.

The audio interfaces are different though, and there are various version of the Apollo product, therefore to give you a simple answer is that buying a bigger Apollo obviously makes more sense than trying to use multiple smaller Apollo’s, which would probably cost more anyway.

 

If you're using the cards, the driver software will conjoin any four seperate units into a single processing surface - you don't worry about where the plugs go, you just use the juice. So you could have 4xOCTO boards and have more processing power than you know what to do with. Don't buy 2xQUAD - you're wasting money. Buy an OCTO to begin with and then add more if you need it. Also look out for the plugin bundle deal that comes with it. You need to learn to play the UAD 'special offer' game which usually involves a bit of waiting.

The FMR audio compressor (around 200 bucks) is worth it's weight in gold. That should be everybody's my first hardware compressor.

 

depending on your needs, a mixer aside of this could be useful ( I'm thinking of the drums recording, when I say that )
the apollo 8 looks a bit short for me in terms of inputs if you have to record a whole band live.

it's ok, the quality is good, but doesn't leave much room for errors and requires optimal placement ..

 

UA Device Compatibility with Apollo Twin Thunderbolt
Note: The information in this article applies to both Apollo Twin and Apollo Twin MkII.

Windows 10

Note: UAD v9 or later is required for Windows 10 compatibility with UAD Thunderbolt devices

• In UAD v9.1 and later, up to four Apollo Thunderbolt interface models can be connected together (mix-and-match)
  Note: Apollo Twin USB and Apollo/Apollo 16 FireWire connections cannot be combined with Apollo Thunderbolt connections
• UAD-2 Satellite (Thunderbolt, FireWire, USB) and UAD-2 PCIe cards can be combined with each other and Apollo Thunderbolt models.
• A maximum of two UAD-2 Satellite USB devices can be connected
  Note: All compatibility requirements for UAD-2 Satellite USB still apply when used with Apollo Thunderbolt
• A maximum of two UAD-2 Satellite FireWire units can be connected
  Note: All compatibility requirements for UAD-2 Satellite FireWire still apply when used with Apollo Thunderbolt
• A total of six UAD devices can be combined in one system
  (Apollo Thunderbolt + UAD-2 PCIe + UAD-2 Satellite FireWire + UAD-2 Satellite USB + UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt)

Mac

• Up to four Apollo Thunderbolt interface models can be connected together (mix-and-match)
  Note: Apollo/Apollo 16 FireWire connections cannot be combined with Apollo Thunderbolt connections
• A maximum of one Apollo Twin Thunderbolt can be used in a single system
  Note: Apollo Twin USB is Windows only and cannot be combined with Apollo Thunderbolt connections
• UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt, UAD-2 Satellite FireWire, and UAD-2 PCIe cards can be combined with each other and Apollo Thunderbolt models
  UAD-2 Satellite USB is Windows only and cannot be used with Mac systems
• A maximum of two UAD-2 Satellite FireWire units can be used
  Note: All compatibility requirements for UAD-2 Satellite FireWire still apply when used with Apollo Thunderbolt
• A total of six UA devices can be combined in one system
  (Apollo Thunderbolt + UAD-2 PCIe + UAD-2 Satellite FireWire + UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt)

Notes

• All Apollo units must be connected via Thunderbolt (Apollo connection types cannot be combined)
• Apollo Thunderbolt interface models include Apollo/Apollo 16 FireWire with Thunderbolt Option Card, Apollo Twin Thunderbolt, Apollo x6, Apollo 8, Apollo x8, Apollo 8p, Apollo x8p, Apollo 16 MkII, and Apollo x16
• With first-generation FireWire rack models (silver Apollo/Apollo 16), both the original Thunderbolt 1 Option Card and the newer Thunderbolt 2 Option Card are compatible
• UAD-2 DSP Accelerators (UAD-2 PCIe cards, UAD-2 Satellite FireWire, UAD-2 Satellite USB, UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt) cannot be used to process UAD plug-ins in Apollo's Console application. For details, see this article.

https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/ar...ce-Compatibility-with-Apollo-Twin-Thunderbolt

 

hi. i see you are still hesitating.

i just got a presonus itwo. it's integrating nicely with studio one -> zero latency monitoring with plugins !! i'm using it with plugin alliance plugins from sister site . plugin alliance makes the same plugin for the uad platform, they are the exact same plugins.

if you want to save big bucks , buy a 8 input PreSonus Studio 18|24 USB Audio Interface and use the plugin alliance suite. high quality plugins, same as uad. uad is a trap, you are buying into their ecosystem, will cost you 1000's of dollars at the end.

good luck with your purchase !!

 

I know all about DSP and plugins and all, and to reply to that, my main reason i'm going with UAD is their Amp sims Plugins collection it just can't be beated, for the rest i already have a Solid work flow that is working perfectly for me, i don't need others, i might welcome something new if i deemed fit for my workflow, or if it surpasses some of my already getting-the-job-done plugins.

what i didn't know is how to interconnect more than one UAD soundcard, that mush has been answered by @Fudsey Plange and for that i thank Him.

So my plan is to get 2 apollo x8, plug them in, and forget about it, and based on their Plugins Chart, 12 Core SHARC, is way more than enough for a single project or a live band, and it leaves me with so mush headroom to use other plugins that i'm pretty sure i wont be using at least for now. if i got some cash left and didn't go broke after getting what i need, i will throw in a Satelite Octo just to be sure.

About the FMR audio compressor, @Fudsey Plange that might be what i need, a good compressor is what i'm messing from what i have in mind.

@korte1975 i appreciate your comment, but for now the only thing i have in mind from Presonus is their Studiolive mixer.

 

I'd recommend UA without reservation. It's almost endlessly expandable. I have a rack quad core and a satellite octo and I've never crashed my Mac because of too many instances. As far as outboard gear goes for recording, you'll save a fortune using Unison plugins rather than equivalent hardware and where are you going to find a Neve Channel strip for tracking for a few hundred bucks? And for mixing, again you have the world's top name brands at your fingertips. Naysayers site cost, but with Christmas sales, Easter Sales, Mid Year sales, Oktoberfest Sales, Thanksgiving Sales, etc. etc.... you never need pay ticket price...

 

I am a huge fan of the UA hardware and plugs. That being said I am also a huge fan of the plugin alliance plugs. If you sign up for the plugin alliance emails you will receive weekly and monthly deals which make all of their amazing plugs very affordable. Just have patience and you can grab the majority of their plugs for $20-$69. UA has sales throughout the year but not as often as Plugin Alliance. Even with the sales you will not get near the Plugin Alliance pricing.

All of that being said I would HIGHLY recommend True Iron from Karzog. You cannot beat it for the price. UA, Plugin Alliance and all of the Plug companies out there model the units but mostly the output signal of a unit (i.e. Neve, Fairchild, etc...). What True Iron does is models the input transformer which gave all of these units their magic. True Iron aligns frequencies and allows you to drive the input. You can put it on every track due to it using little power. If you read the instructions and understand what each transformer model does it becomes very magical and useful. Stick it in front of an LA2A, Fairchild, Neve, etc... and you will hear the depth and warmth. I own a pair of Neve 1073 and LOVE the warmth and Depth of that preamp. The UA 1073 is great. I didn't think that it could get much better until I put the True Iron in front of it.
https://kazrog.com/products/true-iron/

That is my 2 cents. Good luck with your purchases.

 

Remember that with the card based DSPs the DSP links to the DAW through the PCIe buss. On an Apollo it has to go down the wire, unless you're running in Unison mode in the Appolo in real time. You'll need to budget in a fairly beefy Thunderbolt.

 

don't waste your money and time, go for Acustica Audio and 3rd party developers SoundDrops, London Acoustics, etc. (+ a recent powerful PC as hardware support).
You're welcome.

(long story short: I own 6 UAD cards, different formats and age. In time the native counterparts of the competitors has filled the gap between UAD plugs and them. Then appeared Acustica Audio with acqua plugins, that are AMAZING! Now I'm using basically AA and Softube, Fabfilter.
Keeping UAD just for some stuff and for the backward compatibility)

 

UA Audio interfaces are mediocre. Their Ins and outs even on X6 Series are nothing unique. On top of that, the company fits into fake marketing and that it.You will be in a way where oyu will need to buy overpriced plugins which sounds exactly the same as the Cubase stock EQ for example. Just watch this video and you will see what i am talking about :

. I strongly recommend you too look for another brand! On top of that their support is absolutely useless and they are responding only with pre-made templates.

 

Seems legit. Especially after reading the very first comment of this video.

 

What are they criticising, the UAD delivery system or Little Labs' VOG?

https://littlelabs.com/vog.html

 

Back in 2004 or 2005 i had a emu1820 soundcard also with an pci card and dsp support and some plugins
as far as i can remember the only problem was you had 2 reverbs something like a lite and a normal verb after loading 1 instance of the normal reverb the dsp couldnt handle more plugs
And rendering songs with fx on the channels didnt work so you needed to play it in your daw and then record it from there then the fx got recorded

 

I don’t use FabFilter plugs. There’s nowt wrong with them, it’s just that I have shedloads of other stuff already, and meh, I don’t like the FabFilter user interfaces much. Then again, I don’t like blue cheese, I don’t like Lady Gaga and I don’t like your tie. It’s a personal preference. But there are oceans of people out there who love FabFilter gear, swear by it, trust it, it’s the kind of gear they like and boy do some of them turn out real good work.

What you don’t get is people who don’t use FabFilter queueing up like Johns at a free hoorhouse waiting to slag FabFilter off, particularly people who have never used their plugs, at all, ever. You only get that with UAD, because UAD is one of the very few ITB recording solutions you can’t freeload. It creates the feeling that there’s a special, better place somewhere that only the people with money can get into, and that makes some folk burn a bit inside.

If you can’t do it with your DAW’s stock plugs, you can’t do it. Period. You can’t do it with FabFilter, you can’t do it with UAD, because you just can’t do it. It’s not the car, it’s the dude driving it. Get over it and work out why Universal Audio has so many customers over the long haul. It started with Universal Records, became Universal Records Electronics Industries (UREI) which became Universal Audio. These dudes know what they’re doing. That's why they're still here after all this time.

 

In the PlugIn used in this video stands "UAD-2" in the left bottom corner.

 

Yes, I noticed that. The issue is are they criticising the UAD plug because it's not a valid emulation of the hardware (and why didn't they compare it to the hardware), or are they comparing a valid emulation of the hardware to a stock EQ plug and then complaining about the plug instead of the hardware. That's a kind of deception if they are.

I don't have much time for VOG myself, but loads of people do.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 23, 2019

This guy didn’t even have the modeled circuitry enabled. The red LED is on. It’s states right in the UAD manual that circuitry is enabled when the green LED is on. This was a very dishonest comparison and shouldn’t be referenced. UAD stuff is great. Yes they’re expensive, but so is bacon. Also don’t cheat yourself by buying cheap toilet paper. Rant over, goodbye have a nice day.

 

Also don't trust anybody whose voice suggests his father married his sister.
But on a serious note, keep in mind that UA is the only interface that allows you to use specific plugins during recording. Yes, Acustica Audios Gold Neve Console is probably better than the UAD Neve channel strip, but only the UA can be used in Unison mode to use when recording. And who wouldn't like the option of switching between the characters of either Neve, SSL or API when recording a vocal? You can also "print" the recording using a Manley VoxBox and a LA-2A. This is the only system that allows that without spending, quite literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on the same hardware. No, it's not identical.... but it's damn close.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 24, 2019