UAD-2 Satellite Quad alternatives?

[Guido3]

I quite fancy picking up a UAD-2 Satellite Quad (FW version) to take some pressure off my Mac when mixing. The UAD plug-ins look/sound lovely if not a little expensive. Which got me thinking, is there any other similar device that does the same job but with native plug-ins?

Is the Satellite worth a punt?

[Hugh Robjohns]

If you're using native plugins you don't need a hardware DSP unit... by definition!

And there are a lot of very good native plugins to rival pretty much anything available on the UAD platform -- you just have to track them down....

Personally, though, I am a very big fan of the UAD platform... the developers take extraordinary care to get them exactly right -- but then I am in the luxurious position of not having to pay for the plugins.

However, if you can bide your time and wait for the various sales and discount offers, you can pick up most UAD plugs at quite attractive prices across the year, so it needn't be anything like as expensive as the headline prices suggest.

H

[Guido3]

Hugh,

Thanks for the reply. By native, I meant a DSP processor that wasn't tied to a particular set of plug-ins (bad terminology on my part!!!).

I am impressed with what I have heard regarding the UAD stuff. I agree with you with regards to picking up plug-ins during the year as and when offers become available.

I seem to remember Focusrite doing something many years back but I am sure that system is dead in the water now.

[Dave B]

The Focusrite Liquid Mix was a brilliant box but was many moons ago and has been let go. The irony is that it still works just fine and, I am reliably informed by people who owned both, was able to accurately replace the hardware dynamic / eqs that it was modelled on. The approach is now pretty much what the acoustica plugins do these days natively - convolution-based processing.

TBH, the UAD is the last supported platform really. TC ditched the Powercore, Focusrite dropped the LM, and Avid moved away from TDM. UA seem to be continuing to produce great plugins that run on it. Which is nice.

But it's mainly there to provide 'flavour' effects rather than clean and precise ones. There's a lot of native alternatives these days - check out Slate, or the Plugin Boutique ones ... and so many others...

[James Perrett]

If you are using Reaper then it has an option to run plug-ins on another machine to allow you to share the load. Other DAW's probably have something similar.

[ConcertinaChap]

I think maybe the OP had in mind the idea of a Satellite style module that took advantage of load sharing. It would basically be a dedicated cut-down PC. But then you might as well buy a PC, it seems to me, because it probably wouldn't cost much more. I don't think anything like this exists.

We use UAD because of the great plugins. The actual DSPs are basically a huge security dongle, TBH, they aren't really needed for their power any more.

CC

[Sam Inglis]

TBH, the UAD is the last supported platform really.

Not quite -- you can use the Waves Soundgrid Servers in this way. They run all the Waves plug-ins and a few other third-party ones. They are basically embedded PCs, so I'd imagine that porting plug-ins to the relevant format isn't too difficult.

[Bob Bickerton]

Regarding UAD being the (almost) last external plug-in platform following the demise of platforms by TC Electronic and Focusrite, unlike those companies, I'd imagine that UAD's business model is much more focused on plug-in development than hardware and is likely to be such an important part of their revenue that they will keep it going.

As Chris says, the UAD DSPs are essentially security dongles as much as anything else, which is sort of annoying, but understandable.

Having said that, UAD is pretty much all I use these days.

Bob

[Guido3]

But it's mainly there to provide 'flavour' effects rather than clean and precise ones. There's a lot of native alternatives these days - check out Slate, or the Plugin Boutique ones ... and so many others...

That's the sound of a can of worms being opened!! The Slate stuff looks great. Good pricing too. A shade over £10/month for the whole library. Might download some demos and give them a whirl. Do you use Slate stuff Dave?

[Dave B]

Guido, no - I don't use Slate myself (I was looking into it at the time of Steven's meltdown over the mic and decided I wasn't happy with that), but they have an excellent reputation both here and elsewhere and from people who I trust. Pretty much can't go wrong.

Another company that I'd recommend for some 'colour' stuff is SoftTube - Zukan swears by their TLA100 limiter plugin and all of their stuff is tops.

I do use Plugin Alliance stuff here and there. Like many (I presume) I went for one of the special offers (they do lots of sales) and then picked up a few others. I think it was Martin's recommendation of the Lindell mic pre that swung it. All sorts of goodies there - including Noveltech Character which I used to (ab)use massively when I had a Powercore.

But, at the moment, Acoustica is currently the company which is wowing people. Again, great guys with a real love and enthusiasm and their stuff just sounds amazing. But it does need CPU grunt to run

[Sam Inglis]

Just for clarity, I think the company Dave is referring to is Acustica Audio, makers of Nebula and various colour-themed plug-in ranges. Acoustica are a different software company who make the Mixcraft DAW.

[ConcertinaChap]

All sorts of goodies there - including Noveltech Character which I used to (ab)use massively when I had a Powercore.

Chuffed to bits when I saw that turn up there as a native plugin, plus they did a very good deal for anyone who had owned the Poco version.

CC

[Wease]

There's no difference in price between the firewire and thunderbolt sattalite, regardless of configuration (octo, quad etc).... so,if your Mac is newish with thunderbolt ports you'd probably be better off with the thunderbolt version I rekon....

Quite interested in the platform myself, but yet haven't quite taken the plunge and am also concerned for my bank balance!!! Wonder if UAD would ever go to the subscription model?

Wease

[Guido3]

There's no difference in price between the firewire and thunderbolt sattalite, regardless of configuration (octo, quad etc).... so,if your Mac is newish with thunderbolt ports you'd probably be better off with the thunderbolt version I rekon....

Quite interested in the platform myself, but yet haven't quite taken the plunge and am also concerned for my bank balance!!! Wonder if UAD would ever go to the subscription model?

Wease

Wease, My MBP has FW800 and Thunderbolt. I would guess that TB would be better but maybe for what I need it for and the cost saving for the FW vs TB, the FW version would probably be just fine.

[Bob Bickerton]

Thunderbolt would be more future proof......

Bob

[ConcertinaChap]

The Thunderbolt versions have lower latency, quite a bit lower, I understand.

CC

[muzines]

I don't recommend going for the FW version, the bandwidth is barely adequate for decent plugin usage, especially if you have other things going over the same FW bus (like your audio interface, drives, etc).

If you can, go for the TB version...