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Post by wiz on Feb 28, 2020 15:11:50 GMT -6
I have a Apollo X8 coming to try out.
The iridium, made me think about how much has changed with digital modelling.... and also the selling off of my real drums, and moving to E Drums and Superior Drummer 3 has reduced my outboard requirement.
So I thought, why not give the UA universe a try, and see if it works for me, and I can trim down my studio setup.
So, what plug ins nowadays (former UAD1 owner a long time ago) are the ones to have, or more importantly the ones to stay away from.
Which of the Unison plus/preamps are good, or not good
Those of you using outboard reverb during tracking, how are you achieving it?
It will be interesting.....
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by indiehouse on Feb 28, 2020 16:20:17 GMT -6
Very curious to hear your opinion, especially coming from a Motu 16a.
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 28, 2020 16:39:02 GMT -6
I like a lot of the UA reverbs; especially Ocean Way, Capital Chambers, and their Lexicon 224. I am actually planning to ultimately ditch my apollo interface (twin) and just keep my satellite. I don’t really use the unison features that much.
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 28, 2020 17:22:05 GMT -6
You recall you have a 14 day demo of each ua plug in ? Don’t be shy about trying them out!
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proxy
Full Member
Posts: 28
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Post by proxy on Feb 28, 2020 19:51:02 GMT -6
Big UA user and fan here.
I was using their amp sims and enjoying them for a while until I got OX, which is the best of both worlds for me.
Reverb-wise I like their capitol chambers one and the AKG plate for vibe. I track witch Lexicon as a general verb, but often use Logic’s Chromaverb for mixing.
Standout plugs overall for me are ATR and Studer. Honorable mention to Oxide.
I use the tape delays everywhere for vibey delay.
Standout comps are SHMC, API 2500, DBX160. Honorable mention to Dynamite.
I also love the Vari-Mu, and usually it’s the tube stuff that doesn’t wow me as much, but I find this emulation quite nice. Not the same as the real thing, but very useful. Honorable mention to 33609 and Fatso.
EQs are all very good, and I use them, but I prefer outboard generally for that.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 28, 2020 21:14:05 GMT -6
Wiz, I've been using an Apollo since the first week they were introduced. The ATR-102 has been on my 2 bus since day 1 and never left. You could use that and nothing else and get a whopping good and big sound. The 30 IPS mastering and Smooth Vocal presets are all you need. The Oxide tape sim is the only tape sim that ever fooled my ears. I know it's a simplified version of UAD's other tape sims, but something about it sounds more real than the others.
Having used the LA2A a lot, it doesn't really make me happy, but it's as good or better than any others. I could live with the MJUC, some of the Waves or Renaissance compressors or Apple's excellent Logic compressors and wouldn't miss UAD's LA2A.
I have the Relab XL480, it was my main reverb for 4 years until I got the Liquid Sonics 7th Heaven which supplanted it as my # 1. So UAD's s probably equal or a little better. I use the XL480 as a sort of widener now. Just a pinch and you feel the far left and right walls expand. The EMT-140 is beautiful. It doesn't work on everything, but that thing it does is gorgeous on stringed acoustic instruments. That said, I could live with Sound Toys Little Plate and never miss the EMT-140.
Of all the Unisn preamps, only the Helios sounds interesting to me. It's highly colored, but if I didn't have an preamps, I'd happily use the Helios.
I haven't tried the Capitol Chambers yet, the demos are amazing, but it seems like a one trick pony. Want to sound like Nat King Cole or Sam Cooke, well..there it is.
I'm very interested in the new 176 compressor. The 176 is my 2nd favorite compressor and if the UAD is right, I'd be thrilled. I'll demo that next session.
Good luck Peter, keep us posted on your progress.
One thing, the Apollo's just work, day in day out, year after year after year.
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 28, 2020 21:38:55 GMT -6
Oh yeah, other cool plugs I have are the galaxy tape echo and the Ampex ATR 102 tape
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 28, 2020 23:22:45 GMT -6
The 1176s are still the best sounding ones available if you ask me. That would be my first buy. I think the Helios is the best unison plug. Felt like the 1290 was thicker than the 1073. The 610 is actually pretty cool too. I love the EMT 140 and 250. Have the 224, RMX16, 480...those three are great, but don’t get used every mix. Same for me with Cap Chambers. When it works, it’s great...might be good for your style though, Wiz. The 224 with the mids cranked and low and high pulled back is really nice. I like the BX20 a lot too. If you need a spring - that’s it. I dig the RE201, but delays are their weak spot to me. Love the 176, but I really really wish they had included a side chain HPF. Don’t always want to crush my kick on the drum bus. It’s great on anything though. Speaking of crushing the drum bus - love the Chandler Zener as a parallel drum bus comp. SSL Bus Comp is great. Sold my HW. Use the Manley VM on every master bus. Mostly for the M/S capability. I’ll use the Fairchild on stereo sources that I want dual mono. Use it on Acoustic bus. Oh - love the dbx 160. I mostly use FF for EQ duty, but I’ll use the 1073 on Kick and Snare. Helios on acoustic. Always forget about the Harrison - but it’s really good too. Recently got the APIs - and they are used with electric guitars. There’s something they do that other EQs don’t. I like the ATR102 occasionally. Sometimes it makes things better. Sometimes worse. I’m sure I’m leaving something out.
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Post by sirthought on Feb 29, 2020 0:29:42 GMT -6
If you go the UAD interface route, you're going to buy plugins eventually, so it's smarter to buy early into one of the larger bundles and get them at a reduced price per plugin. You'll pay a large amount up front, but save on time not having the goods and likely spending more to buy the same things you want in the end.
It's also smarter to wait for the biggest sales (November/December 12 days of UAD Holiday season) (June or July midyear sale) when they offer extra plugins thrown into the larger bundles. I think if you buy the 10 plugin bundle they throw in three or four extra, which is really a savings and can set you up nicely. Buying single plugins really doesn't make sense with UAD.
I think the plugin recommendations really depend on what sort of sound you try to give your recordings. Some people try to add as much vintage sounding color as possible, while others are going for clear and clean. My personal take is UAD does the vintage vibe thing better than other developers. Maybe it's the GUIs working on me, but I think if you know classic gear then this is the company to lean on.
That means the Analog Classics Bundle is really the most UAD thing to get: Fairchild 670, Pultec EQ Collection, LA2A Collection, 1176 Collection, and a UA 610 B. Great color and covers much ground. Next are the reverbs, which compete with the top verbs in the market. EMT 140 and 250 are excellent and reliable. I'm still learning the Capitol Chambers, but my biggest issue is I always seem to like every setting and don't know where to stop. I have never tried the Lexicon, but I'm guessing they'll work for anyone. If you grabbed the free Arturia Plate recently, it's not as nice to me as UAD, but also not so bad as to say the UAD version is a must, only because the price on this stuff is so high.
If you want clean and quick vibe the SSL E strip can be used with about everything and if your funds are limited might be the easiest goto. Taking that even further the AMS Neve DFC strip is newer to UAD and less talked about, but it's the exact same code AMS uses with their post-production hardware, it's lighter on DSP than a lot of UAD stuff, and it sounds great. So, those two I'd say are great for economy.
The tape stuff is really nice. I don't have Studer, but wish I did. AMPEX and Oxide are really great in mixing and I use both on every project. If I had Studer I might not need Oxide, but Oxide is helpful. My mixbus is always starting with AMPEX, Vari-Mu, Pultec, and Fairchild for color.
I bought the CL 1B and still haven't felt a grove with it. It sounds good, but I sometimes still reach for the LA2A legacy stuff just because it's easier to dial in. UAD really has a lot of great compressors, so it just depends on what sort of one you prefer.
If I did it all over again, I'd likely think about a FabFilter bundle and then just get some UAD reverbs and the 1176 and/or Distressor for more extreme sounds. But I do love using the Unison plugins for tracking...an opinion that's not usually shared on this board. I use VoxBox, API, 610 and Neve 1073 quite a bit. The Helios less so. They do each sound different to me and it's neat technology for someone who hasn't invested in a lot of nicer outboard preamps. Guys who have lots of preamps usually don't care and I get that.
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Post by indiehouse on Feb 29, 2020 6:29:52 GMT -6
My experience: buy native when you can. Save the UAD DSP for stuff you can’t get anywhere else. For instance, you can get plugin Alliance channel strips today for $29. Same for the Shadow Hills comp, Pulsar Mu for the vari-mu is cheaper, there’s a less expensive Pultec (can’t remember the name) that’s supposed to be just as good. And so on...
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Post by mike on Feb 29, 2020 6:42:08 GMT -6
^^^^^ This ^^^^^
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 29, 2020 7:09:50 GMT -6
GOod idea for another thread actually: UA plugs that have strong alternatives ? The pullet I think is Noise Ash: Rul tech ?
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Post by indiehouse on Feb 29, 2020 7:55:44 GMT -6
GOod idea for another thread actually: UA plugs that have strong alternatives ? The pullet I think is Noise Ash: Rul tech ? Yeah, Rul tech. Man, there’s just so many native options these days that are just as good as UAD. Makes me want to consider selling everything and start over with just a handful and pocket the difference.
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Post by mike on Feb 29, 2020 9:00:11 GMT -6
GOod idea for another thread actually: UA plugs that have strong alternatives ? The pullet I think is Noise Ash: Rul tech ? Yeah, Rul tech. Man, there’s just so many native options these days that are just as good as UAD. Makes me want to consider selling everything and start over with just a handful and pocket the difference.
That's what I did last year, I sold out of my UA and went Native. I have allot of respect for UA and the quality products they make, but the combination of their policy of you can't sell any of their plugins you bought unless you sell them All with your UA device (which works great for UA, not so much the consumer) combined with the increase of quality native plugs from competitors over the last several years led me to opt out. While it's true UA's often higher priced list plugin cost can be reduced by waiting for vouchers, bundles and sales, the same is true for most of their competitors at what is usually a cheaper price than UA's comparatively. I'm glad UA is in the game and look forward to how the evolving landscape prompts future products from them, but their current plug resale policy combined with increasingly good plugin competition has me out until something changes.
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Post by lando on Feb 29, 2020 9:00:33 GMT -6
Capitol Chambers is extremely good and has a quite unique sound. 1176 and LA2A are very good. Fairchild(s) are best in class imo.
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 29, 2020 9:46:55 GMT -6
@ indie, ya I sold all my UA stuff now about 2 years ago for the normal reasons ( see above) and it flirting with a subscription model, which like many who had invested $1,000'sI, thought UA would be idiotic to even consider. I certainly respect UA and its products, but bottom line for me was at the time I had like 73 plugs ins and regularly used maybe 10. It is great to have a big ua toolkit for sure, but I barley got .30 cents on the dollar when sell gin and I thought if UA launched a subscription model, like with slate it would undercut the used market even more, so cut and run.
Ua still struggles to create value for its longer term invested clients, yam I know new hardware and luna, but if it let people sell plug ins, that would have kept me, as I got to the point where I just wasn't prepared to buy more knowing how many I wasn't using already..
Back to thread, UA plug ins are great so Wix demo away but there are good alternatives too.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 29, 2020 9:50:40 GMT -6
My go to reverb is the Liquid Sonics 7th Heaven, next in line, the Soundtoys Little Plate, after that, the Relab XL480, these are in my template on Bus 1,2,3. Not to mention the very good Logic reverbs and the Waves reverbs I almost never use. I have UAD's EMT-140, but rarely use it these days.. The Soundtoys Little Plate was free or $29, I forget, and works better in a mix on my tracks than the UAD EMT-140 because it's a little bit less dense. The UAD plate can be very thick, which is lovely on solo acoustic stringed instruments, but not a first choice for many other things.
UAD's compressors are as good as any, but I haven't found any plug-in compressor that I truly like yet. The MJUC could easily fill in for the UAD versions though, and strangely enough, the Waves CLA 1176 does a better job of taming acoustic guitar strums than UAD's. It's obvious when you put them both on the same channel and compare.
The Ocean Way plug is unique. I've heard some tracks that made me think they were done in a real studio when they were really Ocean Way. I haven't been able to achieve that effect though. I think it's partly because you have to get deep not the re-mic thing to get it right.
So, although I did my album mostly on an Apollo, I could easily live without UAD's plugs now, although to me, the ATR-102 by itself is almost worth getting the whole package for.
Then there's the DSP usage aspect. To do what you want when mixing, hassle free, you typically could use a satellite.
I like my X6 a lot. The console format is excellent, it's reliable, sound quality is very good, but I wouldn't mind a bump up to the next level if only I could afford to.
I think you'll be happy Wiz. I'm reevaluating my needs lately too, and can do what I need with an Apollo.. for now.
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Post by nick8801 on Feb 29, 2020 10:39:07 GMT -6
The LA2A and 1176 comps are my favorites and get used on every mix somewhere. I have all of the tape plugins, but I could live with just Oxide. The others have some nice options, but they aren’t necessary. The AKG spring is my favorite reverb they make, but I also use the original Lexicon and the Pure Plate as well. Pultec collection is great, but it makes me the real thing. I love the original 1073 eq too. I use it on every mix. Not really into amp sims or mic pre sims. I do really like the simple eq on the 610. I never bought any of the other channel strips as I got that old 88rs free years ago. It works fine and can really do stuff to the audio if that’s what you’re looking for.
Some other good plugs that I use a lot but wouldn’t necessarily show up in every session....Fairchild and Distressor are great comps. The echo plex and galaxy delay pretty much got replaced when I got the Soundtoys bundle, but I will still use them if I’m looking for that specific sound. The Ampeg SVT I got for free is cool and sometimes works in a mix. The Cooper Time Cube does something really cool to vocals when I want to widen them a bit. Very useful. I also like the Dimension D on background vocals.
Stuff I rarely ever or never use.....Culture Vulture, Ocean Way although it has saved a mix or two, Elysia Aplha, EMT250, Dynamite, API Eq, Moog Filter, MXR, and I’m sure there are a few others I bought that I forgot about! I wish I could go back and save some dough, but I guess I had to try stuff too learn! Two weeks isn’t really enough for me to determine whether or not I’m really going to use something.
Definitely wait for sales and coupons and look native when you can.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 29, 2020 11:40:36 GMT -6
I actually prefer the UAD 1176 over 90% of the HW I’ve used. I prefer the way it breaks up when pushed...the attack and release. And I can use 50 of them. I love to use every IAD plug I can to take the strain off my computer. Less freezing.
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 29, 2020 12:04:49 GMT -6
Sure but a new computer would fix that problem too !
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Post by sirthought on Feb 29, 2020 12:58:35 GMT -6
I think I recently priced out that if I bought a larger bundle today I'd get 24 plugins at $44 each.
You can argue about Rule Tech or Pulsar or something being as good But if you are in a huge mix and then need to overdub yet something else... That's where the DSP is likely going to help you over the computer. It's nice to have the tools there for you
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 29, 2020 13:35:34 GMT -6
Sure but a new computer would fix that problem too ! Why would I pay another $2000 for that honor?
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 29, 2020 14:09:29 GMT -6
Wasn’t being critical, In away that’s what we all do when we buy UA, as we need their dongle/cpu to run their plugs?
The hybrid system works well with the host and native cpu, but eventually most of us get new computers anyway and they’ll always be more powerful than our last one?
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 29, 2020 16:18:25 GMT -6
Wasn’t being critical, In away that’s what we all do when we buy UA, as we need their dongle/cpu to run their plugs? The hybrid system works well with the host and native cpu, but eventually most of us get new computers anyway and they’ll always be more powerful than our last one? I didn’t think you were.
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Post by wiz on Feb 29, 2020 17:19:28 GMT -6
Thank you everyone for taking the time to help me out by posting about your thoughts and experiences.....it really is cool.
I am trying to work through what happens upon registration (cause I might return this thing within 30 days) whether or not there is some sort of registration offer when you first register, etc etc... its all clear as mud.
I see UA have changed their customer service hours since UAD1 days to just a few hours a day, which is a real pain for me being in the completely wrong time zone... so I am searching around furiously trying to find out whats what before this thing gets here tomorrow.
I am looking for a simpler easier setup. I like the idea of the X8 and if the plug in versions of the outboard I have here, do the job, then I can move that gear on.
I own a 1073 preamp (BAE DMP) and a real V72 so I am interested in comparing them... though I can't imagine they sound as good...maybe?
I also have LA2A and 1176 and DBX160 hardware, and I really keen on trying the later versions of those UAD plugs against them.
cheers
Wiz
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