Anybody using the UAD plugins?

[program_insect]

Hey dudes,

Are the UAD powered plugins a good choice for a small studio? I'll use them on soft synths/samplers and analog synths, making various types of electronic music. I'm mostly interested in the vintage compressors, reverbs, and the tape delay emulation. Opinions? Rival products I should consider?

 

Thanks

[Carey M]

 

Hey dudes, Are the UAD powered plugins a good choice for a small studio? I'll use them on soft synths/samplers and analog synths, making various types of electronic music. I'm mostly interested in the vintage compressors, reverbs, and the tape delay emulation. Opinions? Rival products I should consider? Thanks

 

 

Our band's studio comp has two UAD cards installed. I love the compressors, EQs, the Roland emulations (Dimension D, CE-1) and especially the EMT 140 Plate emulation. The cards are somewhat underpowered, but with two cards we've been doing just fine as we use some native plugins too.

 

The most obvious rival products you should be considering are some native plugins... Waves' new SSL, API, Neve and Pultec emulations and all the URS plugins, for example.

 

- CM

[Khazul]

Not greatly impressed wih their modern reverbs. The vintange compressors/levellers are nice. Never really used on the guitar/multifx part of the plugin set.

 

The best bit is the precision series set of plugins - they seem quite good amd patrticularly like the K system metering on the limiter, so tend to use them on just about everything. The multiban comp seems easy to use. Not tried the new enhancer or bus comp yet though.

[P321]

Consider the UAD mainly for the compressors, although the reality is there's other native stuff that at least rivals those now (URS, Waves, PSP, Kjaerhus, Voxengo, Sonnox etc). To be honest, unless you really like a particular plugin or two, I simply wouldn't bother with the UAD platform Vs native. Not least when you've got 8 core processors on the way, compared to a fairly limited resource DSP.

 

Its main competitor is the TC Electronic Powercore. The Powercore outclasses UAD (and native) for reverb and (arguably, Izotope Ozone and Waves L3 are very good) mastering. It also has some other nice FX, and there's a very few synths available like a VST/AU Virus B. There's some huge bewares in regard to TC though.

 

Firstly, support is poor when it comes to their computer products EG The Powercore STILL does not have Vista support, and Vista 64 support isn't even on the radar yet. On the Mac side some plugins have been very unstable, and TC have been slow to fix. Certain motherboards have also had a lot of problems with their cards.

 

Secondly, they have an atrocious attitude towards customers. When stuff does go wrong the general attitude is far from helpful. Original Powercore and Element DSP card owners have also been left off the officially supported driver list, and AFAIK (I'd need to check) I don't think demos are forthcoming for newer products on these cards. Either way, the message is clear - upgrade your card, even if the one you've got is ok.

 

Forgiveable? But there's more. They expect you to send back the old card before they are willing to transfer plugins. So, in other words, you have to give up a perfectly good DSP card or they won't transfer the license for the plugins you've got onto the new one. Nice. There's been talk about a reversal of this, frankly crazy, policy. But it just shows you the general crappy way they think of customers when they're not giving you poor support. UAD is light years ahead in this department, which is is half the reason why it's become a more successful platform, the other being..

 

Price.. Be aware that whilst UAD plugins are competitive with native pricing, TC's generally aren't. They've done things like raise the price of their MD3 (mastering tool) from about $700 to $1200, for no other reason than they could, and keep other plugin prices very high too. Not unreasonable maybe? Until you're aware that when a 3rd party developer wanted to release his reverb, they FORCED him to raise the price. Their strategy is clear.. For some reason they've got the idea in their stupid Danish head that, to create the impression of being a premium product, it requires premium pricing. Thus pricing is held deliberately high, to the point of being obnoxiously expensive.

 

So your choices are UAD - a fairly customer friendly company with competitive prices, good community around it, but not necessarily any big advantage over native for anything any more, and TC - one with some advantages (reverb definitely, mastering arguably) over native, but that treats you like dirt, expects you to pay through the nose, and give them your DSP card back, never to be seen again, when you want to put a license on a different card.

 

I would stick to native unless you know of a plugin you really want.

[program_insect]

Thanks for the comments. I will test-drive some native products and see what I like. Unfortunately I use a laptop that doesn't have the beefiest CPU in the world, so the powered approach is appealing.

 

And I will definitely think twice before considering anything from TC Electronic. Thanks for the heads up on their crappy service.

[Awake77]

I've never used the UAD plugs, but another external DSP based plugin suite that gets good reviews is the focusrite liquidmix. Ive heard very good things about their comps and EQ's - considering the used price (~$500), it seems like a good deal.

[cram1960]

UAD plugins work great, sound great, and take a lot of burden off of my CPU. I have all except 3 of the plugins, and have 3 cards. I would skip the Nigel (guitar amp pkg, but it comes standard). I would also leave the reverbs out (except the Plate 140 which is FANTASTIC).

[program_insect]

Can anybody recommend their favorite native plugs for reverb? What about a good tape delay?

 

Btw I tried izotope ozone and it sounds really good to me. It's making me consider going the native route.

[OPEN OCEAN]

yap uad rocks for the price...

[cram1960]

 

Can anybody recommend their favorite native plugs for reverb? What about a good tape delay? Btw I tried izotope ozone and it sounds really good to me. It's making me consider going the native route.

 

 

This is a new topic and should be in its own thread.

[idiotboy]

UAD plugins work great, sound great, and take a lot of burden off of my CPU. I have all except 3 of the plugins, and have 3 cards. I would skip the Nigel (guitar amp pkg, but it comes standard). I would also leave the reverbs out (except the Plate 140 which is FANTASTIC).

 

My sentiments precisely. I've only got the LE versions of the EQ's and compressors that came with the "flex-pak", but, they sound pretty good to me. And another plus: very straightforward simple UI.

 

[P321]

Can anybody recommend their favorite native plugs for reverb?

There's 2 routes.. the standard algorithmic reverb emulations or convolution impulse based reverbs.

 

For convolution there's several options.. Waves IR-1 is ok, but way overpriced. Altiverb is ok but, like a lot of Mac software, sucks on the PC. I'd look more towards things like Sir 2 and Voxengo Pristine Space, or Wizooverb (a combo of algo and convolution, although they've since been bought by Digidesign.. ) Get the demos then just do a Google search and grab yourself some impulse responses from various machines and spaces. Remember - not all impulses are equal.. some give better results than others.

 

Actual algorithmic reverbs are much more tricky. There's still nothing native that's as good as the top end TC and Lexicon stuff. Lexicons own Pantheon plugin is poor. I know they're worried about harming their hardware sales, but they may as well have not bothered. An ok (but expensive) one is the Sonnox Reverb. Better for spaces and plates than lush and swirling maybe. The Princeton Digital room and plate reverbs are quite nice as well. Their algos are better known from the Eventide hardware, and pricing is somewhat reasonable. Others to maybe check are the Arts Acoustic and IK Multimedia's Classic Studio reverb. Korgs Legacy Collection also includes the multi-FX from the Triton, which includes reverb. It ain't gonna win any awards, but it's good enough most of the time..

 

Of course, all this is down to personal taste. Even freebie reverbs, and ones bundled with your DAW app etc. can do a surprisingly good job with the right tweaks.