Liquid Mix vs. Duende (vs. UAD-1)

[BackHand]

I thinking of buying either de Duende or the Liquid Mix. I have two UAD-1's and I've heard great things about both of them !

Is there anyone here with any experience of both of these? Are they the same class as UAD-1 or is this the next level ?

I could just expand with more UAD-1 cards...but both of these also has more power than the UAD-1.

The liquidmix can run 32 mono compressors + EQ's at the same time and the duende kan do 32 plugins at the same time.

SOS reviewed the Liquid Mix as the top product of the year, Duende ?

[Reza]

I would take the Duende over the Liquid mix 1000 times over.

Product of the year or advertiser of the year???

[songman]

I have no opinion as I have neither, but I just read a thread on the DUC. Worthwhile to have a look over there for some completely different opinions!

[BackHand]

Originally Posted by Reza

I would take the Duende over the Liquid mix 1000 times over.

Product of the year or advertiser of the year???

Why is that?

[tamasdragon]

It will be better to hear some user comparison. Just because duende is ssl, it doesn't mean that it's automatically better than any other.
Regards Tamas Dragon

[giraf]

I have UAD-1 and like it a lot. I recently brought both Liquid Mix and Duende to the studio to check them out. The Duende stayed and Liquid Mix went back. Although the LM is cheap i would never have found any use for it. I didn't like the way it sounded at all. In any of the emulations of comps and EQs. The Duende however is sweet.

Probably a matter of taste, but i honestly don't think the two are comparable.

[Barilla]

Like Giraf, I went with the Duende. After having used a fair bit of SSL outboard in the past, some friends and I tested each unit and found the Duende gives you the SSL sound - it's a class act. Liquid Mix doesn't, although it's fun to play with I guess.

[guitoffee]

I have Duende and 3 UAD cards. I am going to buy a forth UAD card. The new Neve comp and EQ are insane and worth while. I am aso a big fan of the precision tools. Precision EQ and Multiband is the bomb. You can use this stuff on busses or tracks and it sounds incredible; it really adds life and sheen to a track.

Duende and UAD card work together, however you can't use both on a track; it's either or. If both plugs are on a track, you will get a pop/ click during mixdown. I audition both plugs on a track and often times go for the UA stuff.

In terms of compression, the Duende comps aren't all that. I only use them in sidechain mode; however, the UA Precision Multi-band is much better at D-essing.

Not to mention, any firewire plug boxes are troublesome. Duende doesn't work with certain FW audio interfaces and most FW hardrives. I have to drag my projects onto a separate internal drive to use Duende.

Before buying Duende or Liquid mix I would buy a used magma extenson chasis and buy two more UAD-1 cards and purchase as many of the plugins as I could. I know UA offers a flexi pack that sells for $699 and gives you a $500 voucher in their store. Right now they are also offing an additional $100 if you register a new card. Investing in UA will come out a bit cheaper than Duende.

The plugs I feel that are worth having are:
Precision tools
fairchild
plate 140
Neve comp and EQ
Pultec pro
LA2A

Before using the plugs, do yourself a favor and read the quick PDF on how to use them; as you will maximize your use out of them.

So you are probably wondering why I have Duende? Duende's Eqs are great for subtractive eqing. And, the Buss Comp is good when used subtlely. Otherwise, for tone, Compression and EQ all around, the UA stuff is hard to beat. I find myself using Duende to cut mud out of a track.

Since I purchased some ADAM monitors, I can really hear the difference.

Good luck.....

[warhead]

We have Duende now because of an extensive loaner we've had going on from them. We had the Jam Room Studio next door using it for weeks on mixing sessions with a PT HD rig, and one of the engineers there has SSL experience and loves the Duende for its sound period. Great sounding box!

War

[dementedchord]

dfegad

Originally Posted by JuanPabloCuervo

HTTP://SCOPE.CREAMWARE.COM +sonictimeworks.com ?

ok i'm game... you've resurecting 2yr old threads and adding just links to current ones...WTF!!!!!! have ya got something to say or do you just want to get back under the bridge????

[Barilla]

Originally Posted by dementedchord

dfegad

ok i'm game... you've resurecting 2yr old threads and adding just links to current ones...WTF!!!!!! have ya got something to say or do you just want to get back under the bridge????

Every post of his links to creamware. Hmmmm!

Jules?

[T_R_S]

The software on Duende is not very stable compared to Liquid Mix. I got rid my Duende and kept my Liquid Mix.

[Gigolo Tony]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

The software on Duende is not very stable compared to Liquid Mix. I got rid my Duende and kept my Liquid Mix.

you need a PCI firewire card for duende, than you will have no problems anymore...

[gsilbers]

i heard that all the different compressor and EQs of the liquid mix sounded the same.
they all sounded like the liquid mix.

i personally would go for the TC electronics, just because of the Virus plugin. i heard the masterx is also good and several others. but havnt heard too many good things of their plugins. i heard their good but heard more about duende and UAD,

all in all, i still heard what other ppeople are saying about it. whish there was a way of trying those cards.

[preben]

I have the Duende and the UAD-1 and I would buy both again in a heartbeat if I had to.

FWIW I also have 2 Lacie FW HD's and a Powercore FW connected to my G5's own FW port and everything is working swimmingly.

[Gigolo Tony]

Originally Posted by preben

I have the Duende and the UAD-1 and I would buy both again in a heartbeat if I had to.

FWIW I also have 2 Lacie FW HD's and a Powercore FW connected to my G5's own FW port and everything is working swimmingly.

really? lucky guy. i have also powercore FW, G5, 2 UAD1 and i had 2 FW lacie HDs running with duende, it dosent work. duende freeze :(
since i gave Dunde a own port, no more problems.
i change the PCI FW with the Powercore Unplugged, becauce i need Duende. It sounds so good!

[skygod]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

The software on Duende is not very stable compared to Liquid Mix. I got rid my Duende and kept my Liquid Mix.

demoed them both. both somewhat stable at 16 bit /44-48 range but not at 16/88-96 range or 24 bit/88-96 range. Platform makes all the diff as well. Mac vs Apple? You need a PowerMac for firwire folks with both 400 and 800 slots. Too many Intel issues. Forget Vista. I loaded Vista on a computer w/ 4GB RAM and what a fukking nightmare! Nice OS but driver issues galore, and a slow MF'ing OS w/ way too much overhead. I call it Metheuselah. Think 4Sure I'm gonna scrap it and go back to SP2 that was ok ...

Liquid Channel: I've used it on reamping a lot of stuff on projects for the past 6 mos and it rocks w/ appropriate high quality outboard PEQ sidechain.

I'm working on an album done exclusively w/ LiquidChannel and low grade dynamic and condenser mics just for the heck of it. I'll do versions of the mixdown one OTB one mix on an high console of choice, the other on a low console of choice and another ITB Nuendo and well see what comes of it. I'm just as curious as everybody else. Its a low priority personal project among the other front burner stuff that I'm totally swamped with, so its gonna take some time until it gets done. I'll try to cover as menay genres as possible on the album for reference comparison (straight ahead, fusion, pop, blues, blues-rock, hard-rock, hair-metal and if space permits some neoclassical shred) and promise to post lots of stuff from it and you all can judge the diff -

cheers -

~skygod~

[barryjohns]

I've owned all three. The Duende, sounds great, but jus didn't work. I did everything under the sun to get it to work properly, it's own FW card, disconnecting all FW devices, Drivers, you name it. Could get it to work in Logic, but not Protools or DP5.11. Even in Logic, it was inconsistent. There are many users who have not had issues, but mine was horrible. I will say, when it worked, it sounded fantastic, however, I still read threads with people have loads of issues with it today. Took it back and bought Waves SSL.

Liquid Mix, is a great deal. People here will trash it because it doesn't emulate the hardware exactly and completely miss the point; it sounds very good and is very powerful. Who cares if it's an exact emulation, the question has to be does it sound good, and it does. I sold mine only because I have replaced it with the real thing, hardware.

UAD, King of plugs, cards are poor performers in today’s market. IMHO, the very best plugs you can buy. I love them so much, that when I sold my G5, I sold the cards and then had to buy new PCIe cards for my new Mac Pro, which has enough juice to run any plugs I want, but nothing rivals the UAD plugs.

[skygod]

Totally gave up on duende at higher bit and resolution rates.
Total grid lockup and frustration. Makes making music NOT FUN,
and when I'm not having a good time doing this I tend to get pretty fvvking cranky ...
especially when I'm NOT making money while unscrewing somebody's technical marvel. Knowwhatimean?

Looked all over the Internet for clues or ideas from others who are using it and came across this before I totally dumped it realizing it was a hopeless case:

YouTube - SSL Duende Pirate Version

Holy crap. Is this mutha bizarro nuts or what?
Does he work for SSL?
God help us ... or them .. or both?
fuggedaboudit!

~skygod~

[brutze]

I have the Duende and UAD cards running together perfectly at 2496.
WITH an RME ff800 (separate bus!!).
And I can use them both on the same tracks with no pops or drop outs.

[reinvention.of.man]

IMO.. It all boils down too..

1.) Quantity: Liquid Mix - For the money you'll get a nice variety of plug-ins.

2.) Quality: Duende - I love the sound of this thing. Unfortunately, I'm still using PT 6.4, which has no reliable support form Duende.

3.) Reliably: UAD series - The well known PCI card for all system.

[BackHand]

I had two UAD-1 but sold these short after I had a run with the Liquid Mix. In my opinion the main difference and disadvantage of the LQ compared to UAD-1 is the interface. I personally think that's were most users get carried away thinking more of what they see and interact with than how it sounds.

The UAD-1 and Duende both have interfaces that looks like the real thing. When you set a UA 1176 you set it just like you would set the hardware, I did the same thing when I set the 1176 using my UAD-1's. In some way that's not the case with the LQ. Since the LQ uses the same interface for every emulation the user never get the opportunity to visually learn(/or use already learn t information from experience) how to set the settings of every piece of gear.
That's what I miss the most of switching from UAD-1 to LQ.

Sound wise I think the LQ are well up to the same level compared to the UAD-1 and at the same time the LQ adds a much larger palette of different kinds of compressors and EQ's. This on the other hand also has the disadvantage of largely lengthening the user learning process of the LQ campaired to the competition. Since a good tool is only as good as how it is being used learning 5 or 10 different tools compared to 60 is a big difference.

Summing up:
+LQ has a larger sound palette
-LQ has a much longer learning process because of the lack of visual feedback compared to UAD-1 and Duende.

That's my experience.

[peeder]

I have all three and the UAD plugs are the best sounding plugs in the world by a very large margin. The Duende bus compressor is roughly at the level of one of the UAD plugs. The Duende classic channel is roughly at the level of the Liquid Mix channel, although the Liquid Mix channel is much more versatile for the dough. The Duende channel is somewhat sterile and lifeless and the compressor isn't satisfying to me. The LM channel has a bit of graininess going on underneath and is a bit clumsy to work with, but offers a cool controller.

The UAD plugs are the cream of the crop. The Duende add-ons are competitive with the UADs as well but are incredibly overpriced. UAD-2, should it ever arrive, will make these discussions moot and force all the competing plugins to be repriced.

[Nightwatch]

I've 2 Uad cards and still thinking what to get...extra UAD.. or Duende (the new PCI-e card) or the Liquid.

Didn't hear the Duende but hear good stories about it.

Worked with the LM, don't like the interface of the LM, and will never use the Hardware knobs, think they should also make a PCI-e card without the external box.

But at the moment the UAD is the thing for me