Liquid Mix vs uad?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bulls Hit
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Bulls Hit

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Anyone tried/heard/played with the Liquid Mix?

Are the compressors/EQs emulations of real gear ala uad, or have they rolled their own?

I'm wondering if they sound anything like the uad 1176 or LA2A. 32 instances sounds pretty good, or I could go for another uad card...
 
Dunno about Liquid Mix, but have you heard the UAD 33609? I was screwing around with a mix the other day, nothing serious, and I wanted to try it out, so I just flipped it on the stereo bus and hit a preset. I just about wet my pants! JUST HOOK IT UP TO MY VEINS!!!!!

And that was a *preset*. I think I'm scared to turn the knobs :o
 
Well, I can tell you the very first BIG difference is in the on-board processing power between them! It appears that the Liquid Mix KILLS the UAD card! At 44.1, the LM gives you 32 channels of ANY of the eq's and/or compressors. As you up the sampling rate, you get less.

The UAD card will run about 6 or 7 instances of the 1176LN/Fairchild. Not sure about the new Neve stuff, but I have to imagine that it is going to be about the same as the other "good" emulations.

On the UAD card, you can run a lot more instances of the "lesser" plugins. I think one time we got around 30 someodd EX-1's. But man, the EX-1 isn't much better of eq/compression than I can get from the Sonitus plugin's that are stock in Sonar. So, I am NOT going to waste UAD power for marginal plugins!

You should seriously CONSIDER the Liquid Mix. I have never heard it, but the bang for the buck is much better than the UAD card IF the plugin's sound even 90% as good! That is a LOT of processing power for a mere $800!
 
Also, it is cool that they include ALL the plugin's on the base unit. On the UAD card, you have to pay a LOT of freakin' money to get all the plugin's! :(
 
Ford Van said:
The UAD card will run about 6 or 7 instances of the 1176LN/Fairchild. Not sure about the new Neve stuff, but I have to imagine that it is going to be about the same as the other "good" emulations.
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Oh man. It's awful. The 33609 takes almost half a card. What's there to be done? It's like complaining about the price of gas. No, it's like complaining about the price of crack :o :eek: Good thing I have three cards :o
 
Even the newer PCI-e cards are VERY anemic in CPU power. :( UAD is probably going to lose a LOT of business over this.
 
mshilarious said:
And that was a *preset*. I think I'm scared to turn the knobs :o
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LOL no I haven't tried the Neve demos. I have enough problems even getting the Precision MB to run.

That's what's attractive about the LM - 32 instances. Yeah the uad cards are seriously underpowered. In fact the only difference between the pci and pci-e cards is the connector. There's no more horsepower for the extra $100.

My only concerns about the LM are

1) would it work alongside the uad card. Apparantly the latency is quite high - 2056 samples. Would delay compensation take care of that?

2)would it work OK with the firepod, or will that add more latency?
 
The Liquid Mix should work with the UAD-1 and it should work with the firepod, but every system is a little bit different. Thus, you should really try and buy both, use them side by side, and then return one (or not).

I havn't tried the Liquid Mix, but own 2 UAD-1 cards and they're awesome. Sure, I can't run 32 instances of the 1176ln plugin, but hey, I wouldn't want to do that anyways.

Sometimes less is more.
 
mrbowes said:
I havn't tried the Liquid Mix, but own 2 UAD-1 cards and they're awesome. Sure, I can't run 32 instances of the 1176ln plugin, but hey, I wouldn't want to do that anyways.

Sometimes less is more.
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When available, I will use 4 or 5 instances of it, and that chews up about 80% of the cpu on the card. :( Which means I don't have much card left to maybe run some of their other killer plugins.

The point is that the UAD is very anemic in cpu for the money! The LM is $800 and includes EVERY plugin, and NOT demo's! If they add a new plugin to the list, you get it for free! The Expert Pak by UAD is freakin' $2300!!!! That is 3X the LM, and the LM will run MANY MORE TIMES the instances of plugins!!!

I love the UAD card, don't get me wrong. It is just overpriced. I refused to buy a new one! I just scored a used one with the LA2A and 1176 included for $300, which is fair enough for me. But there is NO WAY I would have paid the new price of $700 for the same thing when for $100 more I could have the LM!
 
the only thing that kinda sucks about the Liquid Mix is that it doesn't have any reverbs (or anything else besides EQ and Comp for that matter). but i guess you can use a Powercore or even go native for reverb or delays and stuff and do everything else on the LM and it would still be pretty power efficient. i never even considered the LM until reading this thread, and after checking out what it can do it looks like a pretty nifty piece of gear, especially since it has its on hands-on control surface which is nice for making detailed tweaks.

i just wonder if the LM plays nice with Reaper? for $800 i might take one for the team pretty soon and find out. dammit there's too much crap i wanna buy!

but if the LM did EQ, Comp, Reverb and modulation type plugins, it would be a dream come true, and like Mr. Van said, worth the money even if its 90% as good as the UAD1.
 
Ford Van said:
The point is that the UAD is very anemic in cpu for the money! The LM is $800 and includes EVERY plugin, and NOT demo's! If they add a new plugin to the list, you get it for free!
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In fact JRRShop are selling it for $700. It does sound like great value for the coin. There must be a downside...
 
Bulls Hit said:
In fact JRRShop are selling it for $700. It does sound like great value for the coin. There must be a downside...
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the downside is that it is sorta limited to two basic functions....EQ and compression, although there looks to be plenty of different flavors for those two functions. i guess the jury is still out as to the actual quality of the plugins, but they gotta be at least decent i'm thinking. they are convolution models.
 
Ford have you been using your UAD-1 with reaper? Cause it no worky very well on my system, so after I thru a fit Justin asked for my card to see what he could do about CPU munching, where tracks can take upto 20-30% of your CPU power (not UAD-1 power, your CPU, CPU power) when running one or just a couple UAD-1 plugs. I guess besides sonar less then a month ago just got it working ok, and Cubase it has always worked. But every other DAW application has or had problems, and UA has never been helpful to any of them.
 
zed32 said:
the downside is that it is sorta limited to two basic functions....EQ and compression, although there looks to be plenty of different flavors for those two functions. i guess the jury is still out as to the actual quality of the plugins, but they gotta be at least decent i'm thinking. they are convolution models.
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EQ and compression is what I'm after in a mix. I've still got the uad for Plate reverb and the precision mastering plugs. I love the Pultec and 1176/la2a, but in a 26-30 track mix it's a constant battle bouncing, bussing, freezing and submixing tracks to free up the uad plugs. If I can get 32 pultecs/1176s of of this thing, that would be superb. The real question is, will they sound as good as the uad plugs?
 
well....only one way to find out! :cool: :D ;)



but hell even if i try a LM and like it, i haven't personally used any of the UAD plugs so i wouldnt be able to offer up that much of a comparison.
 
Typically second hand information is not what I like to put forth, but as of right now, it is all I have to go on. From what my sources have told me, the liquid mix finally sets up and runs well, but the plugins just do not sound very good. I agree with all of the sentiment here that the UAD stuff is pricey, and could use a little more horsepower, but at least what they do sounds top notch. If the Liquid Mix however does not sound very good, than you are really just paying for another toy. Plus, if it does not sound very good, it could do 600 instances for all I care and still would be worth the same.
 
xstatic said:
Typically second hand information is not what I like to put forth, but as of right now, it is all I have to go on. From what my sources have told me, the liquid mix finally sets up and runs well, but the plugins just do not sound very good. I agree with all of the sentiment here that the UAD stuff is pricey, and could use a little more horsepower, but at least what they do sounds top notch. If the Liquid Mix however does not sound very good, than you are really just paying for another toy. Plus, if it does not sound very good, it could do 600 instances for all I care and still would be worth the same.
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i wish they had a free demo version of the LM. :o
 
I would need to hear more demo's than this to decide if they are worthy. Indeed, the SSL has much of the same flavor as the hardware. The FET compressor sounded pretty damn good too!
 
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