UAD-2 PCIe DSP Accelerator Cards

As an engineer with many years of analog recording and mixing experience, I have to say that UAD plugins have gone a long way to helping achieve satisfaction from recording and mixing digitally.
Emulations of hardware I am experienced with using have proved to sound familiar and behave as expected when added to a signal path. In this respect I can mention the 1176, LA2A, Neve 1081 and EMT140 amongst others.
Other emulations of hardware that I have not been fortunate enough to use in the analog domain have also proved extremely satisfying and useful. A few would be the Neve 33609 which I am very fond of as a buss comp, the Helios EQ and the Fatso plugins.
As a recordist I try as much as possible to print sounds that are close to what I envision as the final result. When I mix I find a little processing goes a long way. UAD plugins are versatile and I have found that I can get a lot of benefit from subtle use. They affect the sound in a positive way when used very gently, yet can be pushed to extremes if necessary.
My only real complaint is the cost of the newly released plugins, which seems to be ever-rising. This is the only reason I do not own more emulations than I do presently. On the other hand, UA has frequent promotions and sales, they just don't always coincide with my ability to take advantage!
I have no hesitation in recommending UAD for anyone looking for top quality ITB processing. They never let me down.

My Quad is great! One of the most important pieces of kit in the studio.
Even though it is completely digital at its heart it adds the most organic and emotional
input to all my mixes.

Pricing for the plugins used to be more compelling and I've slowed down a lot on buying new ones due to price but I can't fault them for quality..

Thanks for a great product but if the prices could top out at $250 then I'd be buying may more of them.

My UAD-2 system is integral to all my mix and mastering sessions. Since moving to a UAD-2 Quad from my earlier multi-card UAD-1 system, everything has functioned much smoother and more efficiently. While I have quite a few of the plugins, a few stand out for me for their sound quality and usefulness. The Precision Limiter is strapped across all my post-production mixes and music masters. It is far more transparent than the Waves limiters I used previously, and the K-System metering offers excellent and meaningful visual feedback. I frequently use the PL in bypass mode just for the meters. The EMT 140 plate reverb is my most-used plugin verb. I have compared it against my Lexicon 300, and the plugin loses nothing in terms of depth, richness and smooth decays. The Cooper Time Cube is my favorite short delay, plugin or otherwise. It has an intuitive interface that responds as one would expect, and somehow everything that this plugin touches takes on a bigness that is hard to describe. I've found the slight warming vibe of the LA-2A particularly useful on sources that have digital harshness or edginess, such as sampled strings. The dbx 160 is the baddest plugin compressor for aggressive bass. And the Transient Designer wears many caps in my work. I frequently call on it to provide ambience reduction in post work, while also using it for extreme drum envelope shaping in music mixes. While I have a zillion plugins from many providers, all in all I'd say my UAD-2 suite is most responsible for shaping "my sound."

Sometimes I need more memory. Got to be creative on that issue. I you can afford it buy a dual or quad core. For me the solo works fine, got to bounce the tracks, especially using the fatso or EP-34the. Sounds great though and keeps my cpu running.

Complete miss understanding.
I thought I get a review from you.

But in general - try get TC's reverb and delays on your platform. Out of my perspective TC is on these points’ miles ahead from your sound quality (also third party) for reverb/delays. TC sounds more natural. UA sounds more artificial.

Another point - I don't like your business model of buying additional plugins in your online shop.
As a musician I get usually discounts from my local/online music shop. It is a long time ago I paid street price/ list price for equipment. So the investment in UA plugin stuff is on the end of my list. Because I have to pay in relation the highest price for UA plugs.

I like very much your product quality. I need a few clicks to come to good result.

Sometimes you use special words/expressions in your descriptions which can't really good translated in German or French (I know this from French friends). Please have look on this and try to find other words. Product videos on youtube in German, French or Spanish would be great!

The/my rating is maybe wrong - because in EMEA we use other rating systematics. Or better - I do not fully understand your rating systematics. As a EMEA citizen this is to me non logical.

Everything's fine, except a little annoying thing.

It's seem unfair to me, that me as an old customer and UAD user who had almost all the plug-ins, I don't get any introductionary offer for the new stuffs. The special offers usually don't satisfy my needs.

But your plug-ins are great anyway!

Muy buena calidad de plugons, pero vienen pocos y si quieres comprar mas son muy caros.

Hi!

+ Very helpfull tool, 80% of my mixes done on UAD cards
+ great plugIns (LA2A, 1176, Fairchild, especially NEVE...)
+ worth every cent I paid (except Harrison)

- Dual&QuadCPU overload & spikes in Nuendo 4.3
It's unacceptable that I have to manage CPU affinity in TaskManager every time I start Nuendo. Expecting this to be solved.

Best regards!!!

The UAD-2 quad is just an amazing piece of art ! The UAD LN1176 is still the best compressor available, whether it is software or hardware !

I'm realy glad to be user of your products, But I think UA should not just focalise on vintage hardware because the reputation of UA is already respected. But the future is not only just in the past. You can not only reproduce quality of earlier vintage product in a world who is in constant evolution. You are America, so in a customers vision around the world: "If you are also the future of sound, and not only the past..
You should look forward and check what does other inovative company do too...
To not loose the challenge to be there tomorow ( in the future ).
So of course, don't let the past, with all the vintage stuffs who are realy good for sound, but develope in paralel a line of intelligents and inovatifs product in the design but also in the way to show what we hear. Because of course, what we hear is the most important. But you are not working only for very experimented engineers any more..
Izotope understood it well...take advantage of your competence and knowledge of doing the things well...

(I Still proposing the idea of a good visual metering system)

precise metering for compression, phase metering with the reverb...

Kinds regards

The UAD-2 is a very nice sounding and flexible DSP system.
Installation is easier compared to the UAD-1. No more removing the card when one wishes to do a fresh OS install of the computer. Authorisations can be updated/imported using a built-in mechanism that directs to the UAudio website.

The UAD-2 system is very stable, it has never crashed on my system. Actually, I can't even remember having any problems at all with the UAD-2.

The plugins themselves are very good, I personally use them quite a lot. I really like the sound of them and the easy of use. But, three functions/options I would really like to see added to the platform are:
1. (True) Sidechaining.
2. Available/Used DSP resources shown in the menubar of OS X.
3. Ability to hide plugins that have not been authorized/bought.

Dear UA.
I got this product a couple of days ago and I'm already in love with it..... THANK YOU!!!!

The only thing I can think of is this:
When using your plug-ins on a bus/aux, there's a latency problem, wich is such a shame... I'm using Logic 9 by the way and as far as I can see all my latency settings are correct.
But apart from that: Amazing job!

Shouldn't you be doing just as amazing emulations of old synths? ;)



All the best,

Simon Hermansen aka Gettic.

www.soundcloud.com/gettic

I fel in love with the UAD Cambridge EQ and the UAD LA2A Compressor while I was working at another music studio. After starting my own studio I knew I had to buy and UAD card. I bought an brand new Mac Pro and ordered an UAD-2 Duo. After properly installing the card I quickly ran into the 32-bit / 64-bit problem. The card was not working...
After contacting UAD about this problem it became clear that the card would only run on an 32-bit operating system. My new Mac Pro booted in 64-bit mode by default... After a few months UAD was kind enough to release a software update that enables the UAD-card to run in a 64-bit operating system. But I soon found out that the plugins were still 32-bit and they still are today.
This means that I alway have to boot my sequencer (Logic) in 32-bit mode. Or boot it in 64-bit mode and use an 32-bit bridge. THE drawback of all of this is that I cannot access all my memory which I so desperately need when working on big projects..

Besides all the trouble I have with the UAD-card I really love it! The plugins do a wonderful job making your sound much richer and easily editable. Thanks to the UAD card my production level has massively increased!

Generally: the plugins are the best I have worked with. Tried pretty much all the native plugs out there.

1. Cambridge Eq: would be great if it would get a update with analyser and an improoved algorythmn

2. I would love a faster card than the current quad. I won't buy another card before something faster is out as the quad is out for nearly 3.5 years now.

Dear UAD Team
i'm a long time Fan
i'm using for my work every day : ITV edit
the fairchild very easy and clear result
emt 240 reverb discret
spl transient designer very effective
trident A -Range direct to the point
sometimes :
the pultec and the neve 1081

for fun with old gear as moog prophet dx and others in combination with real analog FX :
the cooper cube
ep 34 echo

i did not regret the plugs i bought but since your released the Manley the studer and now the lexicon 480, for me these plugs are too expensive.... maybe with a 50% coupon ?
anyway
to the all team have a nice
bernard filipetti from paris france weather will be today very nice here

Good gear.
But please, give usefull names to your presets. Presets are supposed to help us, cause we lack time. The preset list on the Tape echo are not usable.

U-audio has made incredible good sounding plug-ins. The drivers of the Uad cards have always been very good and stable. The support is also perfect!
I have to say that I don't think DSP cards are a plus this time, higher latency and limited DSP power but because of the high quality of the plug ins and the good drivers/support I'm still very happy with the product.

Excelente producto. La mayoria de los plugins son verdaderamente útiles. Algunos plugins requieren demaciado dsp y una sola tarjeta se queda sin poder.
Tanto las emulaciones de equipos analógicos como las herramientas de mastering son de muy buena calidad.
Compra recomendada.


Excellent product. Most plugins are actually useful. Some plugins require way too dsp and a single card runs out of power.
Both emulations of analogue and mastering tools are very good quality.
Buy recommended.

Sorry for my English

I think for this being 1/2 of what a Quad is, the price should be half the cost of a Quad card, not marked up almost $200 more.

I still have my UAD-1s (4) and like using them for four instances of the 33609 (or the Nigel, which still gets a lot of use here).

I will be adding a Quad in the near future. I own the Studer but can't use it on all tracks on a typical session and would like to be able to do that from time to time.

The UAD plugins are the best without a doubt. They are the ones I go to when I want the true character of the emulated hardware.

My only gripe is that I cannot use UAD plugins in an everyday environment as a producer without dealing with latency. I have the fastest Mac Tower made, and it's tricked out to the max for the best performance, but latency is just a part of the design when hardware is involved.

I unfortunately find myself needing my Audio Unit or RTAS plugins for everyday use, because I don't have time to setup all the Delay Compensation plugins, because I use a lot of plugins!

Perhaps Universal Audio can take an idea of mine, and port out the plugins to Native, and then with a switch, engage the UAD-2 cards when it's time to Mix, or at least when "we" are done tracking.