UAD-2 Solo

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antichef

antichef

pornk rock
I picked up a UAD-2 Solo card and software last night - just the stock plug-ins. I have a macbook pro running Snow Leopard and Logic 9. Installation was very easy, and everything works. This is my first-ever UAD thing.

I read that nobody uses the stock plug-ins, but I've decided to force myself to try them out and get used to using the card before I check out any of the demos for the other plug-ins, to make sure I don't waste the demo periods by not knowing what I'm doing. Also, I plan to wait for specials to purchase the plug-ins, because I can't point to an immediate cost-benefit win for getting them right away.

That said, perhaps predictably, I'm a little underwhelmed with the stock plug-ins when compared with Logic's native plug-ins and the Stillwell Rocket compressor plug-in that I got a license for (for 1/10th of the price of the UAD2-solo - even Logic Express itself was significantly cheaper) - except I do like the UAD Realverb Pro plug-in already, I can say.

Also, it seems like I hit the DSP ceiling pretty quickly when I start adding the plug-ins to channel strips all over the place - seems like a safer bet to use them sparingly on aux channels that group tracks together, or on the output channels. But the presets mostly seem to be aimed at single tracks (like one for toms, one for bright guitar, etc.), which encourages you to sprinkle them all over the place and run out of DSP space on the card. Seems like I can go more nuts with the native plug-ins (maybe thanks the macbook's nice processor), which kind of makes the Solo seem a bit like a license-enforcement dongle as well as a co-processor -- but it is nice to be able to use both the UAD and native plugins together at a collective density that is greater than the native plug-ins alone.

Anyone using one of these and grooving on it? I'd love to hear your story.
 
I've got the UAD-1 stuff, two cards I picked up cheap. I used to run at 96khz and couldn't get many iterations or plugs, but I switched to 44.1khz and I have yet to max out my cards. I use the 1176se for vocals and it works well... at least I think so. I also use that or the fairchild 670 on bass. I'm still working on it. I think the EMT140 is a wonderful reverb plug.

I definitely think it's an order of magnitude better than what I was using before which was basically the plugs that came with Cubase or the Kjaerhus Classic series. I never used any other premium plug before.
 
If you run at 96k, you will only get half of the number of instances. I'm not sure which plugins come stock, but the 1176 and la2a get used all the time around here. All the verbs are pretty good and people seem to love the pultec.

The channel strip is kind of lame, but useful sometimes. I'll use it on a buss for leads, acoustic guitar, etc... anything that just needs subtle eq, compression, ambience...
 
That makes sense, Farview - I must have had the reverb (the most demanding stock plug) up more than once, which isn't something I'd want to do anyway. I probably "bypassed" it in Logic in some places and then added it elsewhere, without realizing that the bypassed instances still count. I just saw their instance chart, and for the most part, those look like numbers I can work with no problem.

I'm wondering if it will support even 1 stereo Fatso instance at 96khz - I guess I can just activate the demo and find out. Everybody seems to like the Fatso plug.

The stock plugs included the Pultec (but not the Pultec Pro) and the 1176SE (but not the 1176LN) - I assume these are "lite" versions. They're not bad, by any means, just not a set of plugs I would have shelled out $500 for - I guess now I have a reason to try the other plugs :) - not a bad business model (seriously - it does seem like a cool company)
 
Just following up - I'm liking the card more and more as I learn how to use the plugs and try out some of the demos. When I put the fatso on the stereo output at 96khz, it uses about half the card's capacity, which is fine (and the fatso is cool! - very noticeable improvement to many of my mixes). I also found a setting that wipes the plug from DSP-space if you bypass it in Logic, so things are much better now.
 
you bater work in 48, if you whant to work in 96 buy the uad quad
 
I've got multiple converters that I use from time to time, and for some reason they only clock together well at 96. The other thing is that UAD doesn't plan to release a dual or quad for laptops, which is what I got.

BTW, I enabled the Fatso demo, and I'm able to have two stereo instances, which is more than enough, since I only want one.

I think I'll be happy with the capacity of the card for a while, based on how I plan to use the plugs - I still use non-UAD plugs for a lot of things (and generally try to just not use plugs if I can avoid it), so I should be cool.
 
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