If Universal Audio is wondering …

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

UA has been very gradually adding plugins to the native platform, and they recently gave away a free LA2A plugin from their Classic Leveler Collection (which you can still get up to October 31st). I trust that’s to generate interest and buzz and get people to subscribe.

 

But if they are wondering what the tipping point is (for me anyway), it’s getting the Lexicon LX480 over to the native platform. They have the 224 on there already (and it’s very CPU efficient in native format), but no LX480 yet. They just added the dbx160 compressor this week but that doesn’t excite me. 

 

But the LX480 is the one … Get that on the native platform and they’ll have at least one new subscriber. 

 

I have Relab’s LX480 Essentials plugin (which is very efficient and quite good), but I tend to like the UAD version. But it occupies so much of my PCIe card, I can really only run one instance. I’m hoping the native version (when it eventually comes out) gives me some more bandwidth. 

 

The other gem I’d like to see migrated is the Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555 head. From the online demos, this seems to produce a good range of guitar tones I like.

 

Anyways, I look forward to more plugins running on native CPUs, but it seems to be a really slow transition.

 

Todd

[Greg Mein]

The most recent interface I bought was a little Apollo Solo with TB3. I didn't want to buy another expensive interface only to have the connector type quickly go out of style (FW400/800, TB2). For what I do the Solo works just fine. I opted for the UAD not only because of the sound quality but also I had some plug-ins I'd bought long ago when still using a UAD Solo Laptop express card thingie in an older MBP.

 

UAD can be annoying however, when you do an update it causes the UAD Meter & Control Panel to automatically load at startup and the only way to stop that is too edit a plist file buried in the library directory. Another thing that annoys me is that updates load every last plugin that they have rather than just the ones you own. The obvious ploy is to get you to try them out but when you do and then not purchase you'll be hounded about the free trial period being expired.

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Greg Mein said:

The most recent interface I bought was a little Apollo Solo with TB3. I didn't want to buy another expensive interface only to have the connector type quickly go out of style (FW400/800, TB2). For what I do the Solo works just fine. I opted for the UAD not only because of the sound quality but also I had some plug-ins I'd bought long ago when still using a UAD Solo Laptop express card thingie in an older MBP.

 

UAD can be annoying however, when you do an update it causes the UAD Meter & Control Panel to automatically load at startup and the only way to stop that is too edit a plist file buried in the library directory. Another thing that annoys me is that updates load every last plugin that they have rather than just the ones you own. The obvious ploy is to get you to try them out but when you do and then not purchase you'll be hounded about the free trial period being expired.

IK Multimedia does the "here's all of our plugins deal". Not sure about UI but with IK I went to my account and made a list of the plugins that I own. I used that list to delete everything that was not on it. On a Mac using Waveform I was able to go to my plugins folders (and yes, they also loaded AU,, VST and VST 3) and I just deleted ALL of the VST and VST 3 IK plugs, then I went to the AU folder and deleted the ones I don't own. Then I did the plugin load up ritual on Waveform and only had the ones I owned. 

I'd prefer not to deal with it at all but at least they are all gone. 

[Anderton]

3 hours ago, Greg Mein said:

Another thing that annoys me is that updates load every last plugin that they have rather than just the ones you own. The obvious ploy is to get you to try them out but when you do and then not purchase you'll be hounded about the free trial period being expired.

 

Many DAWs these days have a blacklist option. I use the one in Studio One to make the UA plugins I don't have disappear, but they're still installed in case I want to try out something.

 

It's also good for an esoteric issue. VST3 amp sim plugins don't seem to handle MIDI program changes well, but the VST2 versions do. Of course, a DAW will default to loading the most recent version. But if I blacklist the VST3, then it's forced to load the VST2.4 version.

[RABid]

I started to change to native bot only 20 percent of my UA plugins had been converted. For me it is not worth it to deal with two formats of the same plug. Hopefully when I need a new audio interface they will have most of the plugins converted.

[Sundown]

17 hours ago, RABid said:

Hopefully when I need a new audio interface they will have most of the plugins converted.

 

I’m hoping the same. I don’t intend to get an Apollo any time soon (I like my RME front-end), but I have thought about buying a used UAD-2 Quad PCIe, or dropping a grand on a new Octo card. I only have a duo and that doesn’t go very far with some of the latest plugins. But if they are going the native route en masse, I don’t want to waste a grand either. I like UAD a lot, but a grand buys *a lot* of other plugins from other manufacturers.

[KuruPrionz]

There are lots of inexpensive or free plugins that sound fantastic, including the plugins that most DAW software provides.

Waveform comes with around 30 plugins, many of them are useful. Mac OS has a large selection of good sounding plugins included. 

Most of my plugins beyond that are MIDI driven sound libraries or guitar amp sims. 

As always, spending a little time getting the best possible sound before tracking pays off in less time spent on the mix or adjusting plugins. A variety of microphones can be much more useful that multiples of the same mic - having a palette to choose from can make a big difference. 

 

Currently using a MOTU M6 which has 4 mic/line inputs and 2 1/4" TRS inputs, plus 2 headphone outs. For a small home studio it is all I need, others probably have different needs. 

[Anderton]

On 10/27/2023 at 4:24 PM, RABid said:

Hopefully when I need a new audio interface they will have most of the plugins converted.

 

I could be wrong, but I think some of them would require lots of CPU power. That's a red flag for complaints from people who don't understand how things work..."I put a Manley Massive Passive on each background vocal track, and my DAW crashed. UA sucks." People complain about amp sims sucking up CPU power, but there's really no way around it if you want decent sound quality.

 

I guess UA could always include a disclaimer, like "after you get the sound you want, render the track." Not that anyone actually reads the documentation... 😆

[Sundown]

On 10/28/2023 at 11:09 PM, Anderton said:

 

I could be wrong, but I think some of them would require lots of CPU power. That's a red flag for complaints from people who don't understand how things work..."I put a Manley Massive Passive on each background vocal track, and my DAW crashed. UA sucks." People complain about amp sims sucking up CPU power, but there's really no way around it if you want decent sound quality.

 

I guess UA could always include a disclaimer, like "after you get the sound you want, render the track." Not that anyone actually reads the documentation... 😆

 

I’m actually pretty optimistic, Craig … Granted, my UAD-2 PCIe card is just a Duo, but with my 11 year-old CPU, the native UAD plugins run much better on my host CPU than they do on the dedicated card. Whether it’s the LA-2A or the Lexicon 224, Boy they run much better on the host CPU than the dedicated chips.

 

Maybe a 480 will be different (and much hungrier), but based on my experience to date, I’ll take my chances with native versus the hardware.

 

Todd

[Anderton]

I think that the Manley Massive Passive went native, so it seems the UA alchemists are hard at work.

[KuruPrionz]

On 10/28/2023 at 8:09 PM, Anderton said:

I guess UA could always include a disclaimer, like "after you get the sound you want, render the track." Not that anyone actually reads the documentation... 😆

Or understands what they have read!

And to make it even more fun, I've encounter some fairly cryptic instructions here and there. There are pluses and minuses to hiring super-bright people.

[Sundown]

On 1/5/2024 at 4:12 PM, Anderton said:

I think that the Manley Massive Passive went native, so it seems the UA alchemists are hard at work.

 

Yep - I don’t recall exactly when that happened, but it was before I bought it in November/December. The Vari-Mu is still DSP-based, but Massive Passive is now native.

 

I bought the AMS RMX16 reverb in December, and holy cow, that’s another one I’m eagerly awaiting a native version of. On my UAD-2 Duo, I can get maybe 2 or 3 instances but that’s it. It’s not as hungry as the 480 XL, but it’s hungry.

 

The RMX16 isn’t a do-all reverb, but the sounds it does do are amazing. The Hall, Non-Lin, Ambience, and Reverse programs are wonderful. And the Chorus and Delay programs are quite good too. I’m working on a track right now and I could happily use four instances for variety, along with using a short/modest hall for the mix reverb. I bought it on a whim for $49 and it’s been a stunner.

 

Todd