Speculation - UAD2 Octo

[grooveminister]

Originally Posted by projektk

I would like to see an Octo UAD. hopefully its not double priced.

I don´t think that it will be double priced. At some point they need to adjust their UAD-2 lineup to the power of the new CPUs.
The Scope XITE-1 uses 18 Sharc DSPs, so a 16 Sharc "UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt" would be perfectly possible.

[work2do]

Originally Posted by grooveminister

A thunderbolt OCTO would be the most logical step - especially when considering the DSP load of some of their newer emulations.

Originally Posted by grooveminister

At some point they need to adjust their UAD-2 lineup to the power of the new CPUs.
The Scope XITE-1 uses 18 Sharc DSPs, so a 16 Sharc "UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt" would be perfectly possible.

Indeed. Nice to see one of the UAD diehards finally admit this instead of telling the rest of the users that we are totally off base on the underpowered issue.

[kgdrum_nyc]

I actually talked to someone pretty high on the food chain @ UA on Tuesday.
I have spoken to him many times over the last few years and trust him.
He said the 64bit update is getting much closer and it's in the testing stage.
I'm hoping in Oct. or November,I guess we shall see.
I also suspect UA will have the biggest card oriented sale since the summer of 2011 to kick off the 64bit update and regain momentum.
They usually have 2 big card/plugin sales every year(Holiday/NAMM & Summer)many users such as myself were surprised they didn't have the typical summer sale this year like the 2011 Quad card promotion that I took advantage of last year.
This was a great sale ($800 voucher combined with Ampex purchase gave me $1200 in free plugs!) plus I got the card for $1200, so for me it was a very nice sale.
I suspect they held off to have a massive 64bit Holiday sales launch at which time they will also hopefully introduce more powerful cards and some updated plugs like they did last spring with the 1176.
I do think they've heard enough gripes about the cards being underpowered relative to the newer plugs a that more powerful card update might be in order.
I for 1 would love to see reduced prices on the current cards but 1 thing most people who actually use their products can agree on,UA has some really amazing plugs!

[Clonkified]

I hope UA figures out some sort of upgrade for Apollo owners if they release new cards. Just like Metric Halo did.

[DCommand]

Originally Posted by Clonkified

I hope UA figures out some sort of upgrade for Apollo owners if they release new cards. Just like Metric Halo did.

What kind of upgrade do you have in mind?

DCommand

[Clonkified]

Originally Posted by DCommand

What kind of upgrade do you have in mind?

DCommand

When MH released their new DSP cards, you could order that and insert it yourself into their interfaces to upgrade older interfaces. It's nice that UA has the TB expansion slot in the Apollo, but I hope there is a way to upgrade the number of Sharc chips easily as well without needing to go buy a newer Apollo.

[DCommand]

Originally Posted by Clonkified

When MH released their new DSP cards, you could order that and insert it yourself into their interfaces to upgrade older interfaces. It's nice that UA has the TB expansion slot in the Apollo, but I hope there is a way to upgrade the number of Sharc chips easily as well without needing to go buy a newer Apollo.

I doubt it, Apollo is pretty new, but who knows

[choukette]

so the rumor is a new UAD octo dongle at 2500 usd,

what a deal !!!

It's a revolution

[mattyc]

Originally Posted by choukette

so the rumor is a new UAD octo dongle at 2500 usd,

what a deal !!!

I agree, sounds great if true
looking forward to picking one up !!!

[K-Slash]

Originally Posted by choukette

so the rumor is a new UAD octo dongle at 2500 usd,

what a deal !!!

It's a revolution

I have to agree...

Hope that one day they'll come up with a native solution, with just a custom "UAD Protection Key" as a dongle.

[kgdrum_nyc]

Yes we all wish the cards were less expensive and more powerful.
As it's been explained to me by my trusted inside source at UA,some of the newer processor intensive plugs like the Massive Passive or the 1176 are too demanding for most if not all current computers.
They test out the plugs natively in house before they release and I've been told they bring their most powerful systems to their knees.
Yes the cards as dongles have worked against cracks but they do take some heavy lifting off of our computers.
We can all moan that UAD charges too much $$ for the plugs and cards,we can also whine that the cards are underpowered but the simple truth is they must be doing something right,they are not hurting for business,their plugs repeatedly set the bar on how good a plug can sound,the updates always work flawlessly and tech support is probably the best in the industry.
There's lots of animosity on various forums towards UA but the truth is they're doing more things right than the majority of companies,their not the cheapest way to go but the best rarely is.

[K-Slash]

Originally Posted by kgdrum_nyc

Yes we all wish the cards were less expensive and more powerful.
As it's been explained to me by my trusted inside source at UA,some of the newer processor intensive plugs like the Massive Passive or the 1176 are too demanding for most if not all current computers.
They test out the plugs natively in house before they release and I've been told they bring their most powerful systems to their knees.
Yes the cards as dongles have worked against cracks but they do take some heavy lifting off of our computers.
We can all moan that UAD charges too much $$ for the plugs and cards,we can also whine that the cards are underpowered but the simple truth is they must be doing something right,they are not hurting for business,their plugs repeatedly set the bar on how good a plug can sound,the updates always work flawlessly and tech support is probably the best in the industry.
There's lots of animosity on various forums towards UA but the truth is they're doing more things right than the majority of companies,their not the cheapest way to go but the best rarely is.

Good to know, but how come they work on SHARC's and not on current gen CPUs ?

I mean, it's proven that the CPUs are way better at doing calculations that these SHARCs right ?

Anyway, I'm glad they're still raising the bar with their modeling and getting their old "classic" plugins up to their new standards.

Can't wait to hear their new LA-2A, and wishing for the Fairchild, Pultecs and 1073/1081 next .

[kgdrum_nyc]

Originally Posted by K-Slash

Good to know, but how come they work on SHARC's and not on current gen CPUs ?

I mean, it's proven that the CPUs are way better at doing calculations that these SHARCs right ?
.

No idea,I'm a musician not a computer engineer.

[pingaton]

Originally Posted by kgdrum_nyc

Yes we all wish the cards were less expensive and more powerful.
As it's been explained to me by my trusted inside source at UA,some of the newer processor intensive plugs like the Massive Passive or the 1176 are too demanding for most if not all current computers.
They test out the plugs natively in house before they release and I've been told they bring their most powerful systems to their knees.
Yes the cards as dongles have worked against cracks but they do take some heavy lifting off of our computers.
We can all moan that UAD charges too much $$ for the plugs and cards,we can also whine that the cards are underpowered but the simple truth is they must be doing something right,they are not hurting for business,their plugs repeatedly set the bar on how good a plug can sound,the updates always work flawlessly and tech support is probably the best in the industry.
There's lots of animosity on various forums towards UA but the truth is they're doing more things right than the majority of companies,their not the cheapest way to go but the best rarely is.

Sorry, but saying that "some of the newer processor intensive plugs like the Massive Passive or the 1176 are too demanding for most if not all current computers." is totally unbelievable:
1) UAD-2 cards use SHARC 21369 chips (4 of them in quad)
One SHARC 21369 in peak (at best) can do 2,4 GFLOPS (ref: http://www.analog.com/en/content/sha...hmaks/fca.html)
So the UAD-2 quad can do in peak (at best) 9,6 GFLOPS

PC with Intel i5 CPU do about 50GFLOPS, higher Intel i7 can go to 150GFLOPS, so they have from 5 to 15 times more power than UAD-2 quad card.

2) I can run several instances of Native Instruments Passive EQ developed by Softube guys (a really close equivalent to UAD Massive Passive) even on an old macbook, not mentioning my Mac Pro.

So if the UAD Massive Passive cannot be ported to native due to extensive processing demands, it means the UAD has some problems with software design of their plugins.

BTW. I am an owner of UAD-2 Quad and I think that UAD plugins are really great. However, I am more often annoyed reaching maximum instances on the UAD card, while having a lot of power left on my computer CPU.

Thus I hope UAD will make native versions of their plugs, even if it would mean another dongle.

[K-Slash]

Originally Posted by pingaton

Sorry, but saying that "some of the newer processor intensive plugs like the Massive Passive or the 1176 are too demanding for most if not all current computers." is totally unbelievable:
1) UAD-2 cards use SHARC 21369 chips (4 of them in quad)
One SHARC 21369 in peak (at best) can do 2,4 GFLOPS (ref: http://www.analog.com/en/content/sha...hmaks/fca.html)
So the UAD-2 quad can do in peak (at best) 9,6 GFLOPS

PC with Intel i5 CPU do about 50GFLOPS, higher Intel i7 can go to 150GFLOPS, so they have from 5 to 15 times more power than UAD-2 quad card.

2) I can run several instances of Native Instruments Passive EQ developed by Softube guys (a really close equivalent to UAD Massive Passive) even on an old macbook, not mentioning my Mac Pro.

So if the UAD Massive Passive cannot be ported to native due to extensive processing demands, it means the UAD has some problems with software design of their plugins.

BTW. I am an owner of UAD-2 Quad and I think that UAD plugins are really great. However, I am more often annoyed reaching maximum instances on the UAD card, while having a lot of power left on my computer CPU.

Thus I hope UAD will make native versions of their plugs, even if it would mean another dongle.

Well let's not forget that a computer CPU also does calculations for the other running programs in the background, as well as the OS, but still it's hard to believe that they couldn't make it work natively.

[kgdrum_nyc]

As I said previously I'm not a computer engineer,yes we'd all like more powerful cards but UA's business model must be OK on some levels, we both bought Quads and love the plugs.
Part of the cards are about taking some if not all of of the heavy demands of our computers,part of it is as a dongle.
UA has a successful structure in place,if they went to a pure dongle would that antagonize users who paid lots of $$ for the cards? Or would UA be compelled to raise the plugin prices to recoup the revenue they'd lose with out card revenue?
They certainly couldn't sell a pure dongle for as much as a card.
Again we all wish the cards were more powerful and less money but the fact that we both bought the Quad cards and a boatload of their plugs tells me UA must be doing something right.

[choukette]

Originally Posted by K-Slash

Well let's not forget that a computer CPU also does calculations for the other running programs in the background, as well as the OS, but still it's hard to believe that they couldn't make it work natively.

intel quad i7 manage it very well and since UAD cards need large audio buffer, the advantage compared to a pure native system with large audio buffer is clearly not obvious,

and since we are not even sure a plugin could run on several shark dsp, UAD-2 will be soon a limiting factor to enhance the quality of next plugins.

in fact when others native plugins companies will benefit from new more powerfull solution years after years, UA would still have to optimize more and more on their plateform and make compromise until they release another new over expensive DSP dongle solution.

[contramark]

im a computer engineer and migrating from an older to newer SHARC isn't such a big deal. The code is the same, its C written in VisualDSP most likely.

at work I have to design a new PCB that used a 10 year old dual-SHARCs, to the newer TigerSHARCs. and the picture they have its looks like a Xilinx FPGA in the middle, which makes perfect sense.

[mattyc]

Originally Posted by choukette

in fact when others native plugins companies will benefit from new more powerfull solution years after years, UA would still have to optimize more and more on their plateform and make compromise until they release another new over expensive DSP dongle solution.

Have you ever thought about having a sig that says you think that UAD cards are too expensive and merely dongles ?

With all the time saved from typing those words over and over again you could get a second job and save up enough money to buy yourself a new Octo :p

[San01]

So if i understand correctly, UA is going to release an Octo card, which will make their Apollo Quad outdated and underpowered just a few months after it's been released ?

[JFernandez]

Originally Posted by San01

So if i understand correctly, UA is going to release an Octo card, which will make their Apollo Quad outdated and underpowered just a few months after it's been released ?

[kreeper_6]

I really dig UAD, but as a businessman I see only one solution to deal with the major issue people have. They absolutely need a single DSP card solution at a reasonable price. The Octo is getting closer, but I know the new overhead will be gobbled quickly and I doubt it will be reasonably priced (Should cost the same as the Quad w/ new pricing structure). They need a Professional card that has the power of 4x Quads priced @$1500 IMO and a Hobbyist card with the power of 2x Quads priced @$800. They need to compete pricing wise with the Native CPU, simple fact. Not many would mind buying into the UAD platform knowing they have a truly reasonable amount of DSP overhead. You should not be able to max out a card on a professional mix by today's standard.

I have a Quad and I am a hobbyist, I don't mind the current pricing but the Quad is Limited already. I Max out my card a lot with track/Bus counts around 10-15.

[K-Slash]

Originally Posted by kreeper_6

I really dig UAD, but as a businessman I see only one solution to deal with the major issue people have. They absolutely need a single DSP card solution at a reasonable price. The Octo is getting closer, but I know the new overhead will be gobbled quickly and I doubt it will be reasonably priced (Should cost the same as the Quad w/ new pricing structure). They need a Professional card that has the power of 4x Quads priced @$1500 IMO and a Hobbyist card with the power of 2x Quads priced @$800. They need to compete pricing wise with the Native CPU, simple fact. Not many would mind buying into the UAD platform knowing they have a truly reasonable amount of DSP overhead. You should not be able to max out a card on a professional mix by today's standard.

I have a Quad and I am a hobbyist, I don't mind the current pricing but the Quad is Limited already. I Max out my card a lot with track/Bus counts around 10-15.

Amen to that !

[Johnkenn]

Originally Posted by DCommand

Would be intresting to know what you think the symphony does better, we have the latest hardware for our icon system, but we were impressed by the Apollo and its quality of sound, have you compaired those against each other?

Thanks :-)

Owned them both...had them side by side. The Symphony was better - as well it should be.

[ShadowAMD]

I'm still 50 / 50 about them, some of the plugs in samplitude's stock I prefer to UAD's stuff.. The ECOX for me is just so much better than any UAD offerings and so is Samp's Reverb..

I bought a core Flexi and only find myself using a few of there compressors, for the price of a card and plugin you can have a DAW and a Suite of plugins..

Sorry but, I just couldn't justify spending 2K on UAD stuff unless it was hardware.. and even then I'm 50/50 with distressors etc.

I just ran nearly 130 plugins, (Vcc) on every channel / compressors on most / EQ's, full mastering suite etc. without anything UAD.. CPU was at 35% and Memory usage was hanging about the same.. This is on an I7 with 32GB of ram using a 64 bit DAW.. There is no need for UAD cards so I'm not sure why they force you to buy them...

[contramark]

I feel 95% of most users dont need more than a QUAD for use during tracking. During mixing is another story.

[Category 5]

I agree the pricing on the UAD cards is higher than it could be, but then I still went ahead and bought two quads. As for the sound? After I went to an iMac and dropped my UAD1 cards I was convinced Waves had caught up, not to mention softube, soundtoys, etc. After getting a couple quads I am waiting for a good opportunity to get a couple more. Why? While the native guys caught up UA raised the bar again. The newer plugins simply have no equal to my ear (Slate digital aside - those guys are at the same level, although complementary rather than competing).

There is a reason these threads are all the same. UAD is overpriced dongle vs UAD is about as good as it gets at what they do. Guess which of those two sides own the product.

I've never seen any product line so bitterly hated that more people chime in EVERY thread to complain of their pricing and business model than simply go about their business. If they're no better than native counterparts why do they draw so much attention from non-owners? Comment on threads about products you DO own, or those you'd like to own.

Only on Gearslutz can you start a thread to talk about a new product, and it get filled with 75% of posts complaining of how good it isn't. Seems even the haters simply can't get UAD off the brain. lol

[mista min]

Originally Posted by Category 5

I agree the pricing on the UAD cards is higher than it could be, but then I still went ahead and bought two quads. As for the sound? After I went to an iMac and dropped my UAD1 cards I was convinced Waves had caught up, not to mention softube, soundtoys, etc. After getting a couple quads I am waiting for a good opportunity to get a couple more. Why? While the native guys caught up UA raised the bar again. The newer plugins simply have no equal to my ear (Slate digital aside - those guys are at the same level, although complementary rather than competing).

There is a reason these threads are all the same. UAD is overpriced dongle vs UAD is about as good as it gets at what they do. Guess which of those two sides own the product.

I've never seen any product line so bitterly hated that more people chime in EVERY thread to complain of their pricing and business model than simply go about their business. If they're no better than native counterparts why do they draw so much attention from non-owners? Comment on threads about products you DO own, or those you'd like to own.

Only on Gearslutz can you start a thread to talk about a new product, and it get filled with 75% of posts complaining of how good it isn't. Seems even the haters simply can't get UAD off the brain. lol

Sorry man, but I will have to disagree a great deal with your post. We have a duo, a liquidmix and a powercore with an 8-core Mac Pro in the studio I share with some buddies. The liquidmix and powercore cards are mine and the Mac Pro and UAD card belong to one guy. I am buying his Mac Pro and had the opportunity to buy the UAD card, but saw no point, since I tried out the plugs and didn't find them any better than what I already use. And I haven't heard better mixes coming from engineers that primarily used UA plugins when I worked on albums with those engineers... So if the entry price is higher, plugins are more expensive, IME dsp power is a joke (like all dsp cards outside of Pro Tools and Scope since they offer enough chips on their cards) and their mixes don't sound better than mine, so why invest?

All, the guys who praise UAD, including yourself have 1 thing correct Universal Audio is a great company that is faithful to customers.

[Clonkified]

I would have to agree - I don't think UAD is any better than native alternatives these days, but it is no worse and they do offer some unique options. That is really what you should be utilizing the cards for. I don't understand people who buy UAD Oxford or Cambridge EQs or the SPL TD for example - there are direct native alternatives. But, for something like the Lexicon 224 or the EMTs or the Massive Passive or the Fatso or the Space Echo or the Dim D or the Neve stuff, there is no direct native competitor. If you like those, then that makes the card worth it because you can't get it anywhere else. No harm in comparing of course - I've been trying out the 1176 collection and it is pretty nice - even though I have the Waves CLA compressors, I'm contemplating it. However, with the Ampex and Studer, I went with Slate VTM instead.

My 2 cents.

[DCommand]

Originally Posted by Johnkenn

Owned them both...had them side by side. The Symphony was better - as well it should be.

Can you describe the different you heard?