Pro Tools and UAD 2 Quad satelite

[Blackers]

Hi fellas
I was reading about this uad 2 quad satelite,is afordable(cheapier than the pcie).It works via fire wire.
I'm about to upgrade to PT9 W7 core 2 quad 4 gig ram,and i'm looking for more power when mixing.
For those who are in touch with this,some doubts:
may i still use my on board plugins,i mean use the old plugs plus the uad plugs with no chock.Can't aford to by evrything again.
anybody allready use this uad satelite?
Will it worth the investment?
Any input will be apreciated
Thanx

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Blackers

Hi fellas
I was reading about this UAD 2 quad Sattelite, is affordable (cheaper than the pcie).It works via fire wire.
I'm about to upgrade to PT9 W7 core 2 quad 4 gig ram,and I'm looking for more power when mixing.
For those who are in touch with this,some doubts:
may i still use my on board plugins,i mean use the old plugs plus the UAD plugs with no chock.Can't afford to by everything again.
anybody already use this UAD Sattelite?
Will it worth the investment?
Any input will be appreciated
Thanx

If by the 'W7' in your post you mean Windows keep in mind that the UAD Sattellite won't work on anything other than a Mac running OSX. Not made to run on a Winbox unlike the pcie version. And both units (the pcie card and the Satellite external box) are the same price. Just make sure you are comparing the same units - the Omni which has all the plugs or the base unit.

[Blackers]

Yeah musicman,indeed,i just discover about the mac thing,but didn't new about the price.I found a uad 2 quad pcie 5x the satelite price.
Thank you anyway.BTW,is it possible to use both plugs in the uad and from the pc folder?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Blackers

Yeah musicman,indeed,i just discover about the mac thing,but didn't new about the price.I found a uad 2 quad pcie 5x the satelite price.
Thank you anyway.BTW,is it possible to use both plugs in the uad and from the pc folder?

The 2 UAD pieces you are talking about must be either used or different packages. Here's the US prices from Vintage King:

UAD2 Duo (pcie and Satellite versions) are both $899
UAD2 Duo Flexi (pcie and Satellite versions) are both $1199
UAD2 Quad (pcie and Satellite versions) are both $1499
UAD2 Quad Flexi (pcie and Satellite versions) are both $1799
UAD2 Qaud Omni (pcie and Satellite versions) are both $4499

The Vintage King webpage these prices came from are at:
http://www.vintageking.com/Universal...e=21%2C26%2C26

So as I say you must compare Duo's to Duo's, Flexi's to Flexi's and Quad's to Quads, not a bare Duo to a Quad.

As to your last sentence I don't quite understand - are you asking if you can use other non-UAD plugins like the ones that come in PT or other RTAS or TDM plugsins on the UAD card? If so, the answer is no. Only UAD plugins will run on the UAD cards.

[Blackers]

Oh thank you musicman.
I was saying to use the uad plugs at the same time with the PT rtas plugs.The plan is to use the uad for heavier duties as verbs and delays,freeing cpu power for the other plugs i use,and if so,would it be convinient to double the 4 gig ram to 8 gig?Once again thank you so much for your reply.I really enjoy the price lists.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Blackers

Oh thank you musicman.
I was saying to use the uad plugs at the same time with the PT rtas plugs.The plan is to use the uad for heavier duties as verbs and delays,freeing cpu power for the other plugs i use,and if so,would it be convinient to double the 4 gig ram to 8 gig?Once again thank you so much for your reply.I really enjoy the price lists.

Sure you can use PT plugs at the same time as the UAD ones as each will run on their own systems if you will (RTAS on the computer's cpu and UAD plugs on the UAD dsp chips). And it's always good to have more ram and with the prices being what they are, especially for desktop ram, you might want to think about putting in the maximum your computer will hold and that you can afford. Laptop ram, on the other hand, especially when you get to using 8 gig ram sticks, is way too expensive right now. Take a look at OWC at: http://www.macsales.com/ for Mac ram as they have some of the best prices around. I'm assuming we're still talking about Macs and not pc's right?

[Firechild]

@Blackers
Remember that DSP solutions ( TDM, Powercore, UAD, Duende ) nowadays are not about DSP power at all but just a hardware dongle to be able to run high quality plugins not available as native versions.
So if you plan to buy a UAD-2 card only to give your computer more CPU overhead, don´t do that ! Buy yourself a new computer instead and keep your system latency as low as possible. But if you like me can´t live without the superior quality in the UAD LN1176 or Pulteq EQ, you are on the right track considering an UAD card.
But a cheap 200$ native intel quad i7 CPU is approx 10 times the power of a UAD-quad card ( you can compare the brainworx plugin which exists both native and UAD plugin )

[Blackers]

Thank you so much fellas,really apreciated.Well,i'm really inclined to buy the card 2 duo,but i don't know if i will have money enough for the lexicon 224 plug,so can you talk me about the onboard verb Realverb,that comes with the uad?
Once again i thank you

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Firechild

@Blackers
Remember that DSP solutions ( TDM, Powercore, UAD, Duende ) nowadays are not about DSP power at all but just a hardware dongle to be able to run high quality plugins not available as native versions.
So if you plan to buy a UAD-2 card only to give your computer more CPU overhead, don´t do that ! Buy yourself a new computer instead and keep your system latency as low as possible. But if you like me can´t live without the superior quality in the UAD LN1176 or Pulteq EQ, you are on the right track considering an UAD card.
But a cheap 200$ native intel quad i7 CPU is approx 10 times the power of a UAD-quad card ( you can compare the brainworx plugin which exists both native and UAD plugin )

I beg to differ on your assertion that dsp cards are just a dongle. They take one heck of a load off the computer's cpu allowing one access to plugins a user otherwise wouldn't be able to run. You say buy another computer (actually assemble your own) - for some people that's not a possibility. And assembling one's own computer isn't a possibility for those that run OSX and have no use for Windoze.

Care to prove your assertion that a $200 Intel Quad i7 is 10 times more powerful than a UAD2 Quad card? Apple to oranges comparison. The UAD Sharc chips are purpose built to do one thing and that is to run high end dsp solutions. A general purpose cpu like any Intel i chip doesn't have the microcode or tight in and out integration to run the code a Sharc chip does. I know - I've worked with purpose built dsp chips before and it's amazing what they can do with the proper code.

[Firechild]

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=308919

Here is a benchmark Native vs UAD-2 vs TDM.

But as there is a plugin that is available an all platforms , native , UAD-2 and TDM I just HAD to do some benchmarking.

Mac Pro hexacore. 1050 Brainworx Digital V2 stereo instances.
HD2 Accel - 30 TDM plugins stereo.
UAD-2 quad - 80 stereo.

So my native 3.46 hexacore CPU is 13 times faster than my UAD-2 quad.