UAD Fatso worth having?

I used to really dig the plug-in. Is it native?

Pick a track part, that you think you would like dirtier/edgier, through on fatso and play with its distortions.

For $39, I’d say it’s a good tool to have, not for everything, but once you get a feel for it, bet you will reach for it regularly.

I use it as one of my parallel drum bus enhancers to blend in some weight and thickness. It's a compressor that adds a bit of saturation similar to what tape adds.

I say it's nice, but there are certainly a TON of other options these days that are probably more straightforward in how you use it and knowing what you're getting. I'm sure I have a dozen other things to choose from right now. But I have a setting in my template that I know what it does, so I keep it in there. I really wish UAD would make it native.

Doubt we'll ever see it native. UA has announced that they are slowing down on native ports of existing DSP plugins because the "heavy lifting" is mostly done and they've already ported most of the most heavily used plugins in the DSP catalog.

Well they were never gonna port the 3rd party stuff, and that's like half the catalog or something. Which leaves about a 100 or so DSP plugins that UA directly developed, 50 or so of which have already been ported to native.

I guess UA sees the remaining ~50 as less important to port, because they get used less. Also, there a significant number of those remaining plugins that are either pretty old, are plugins like those in the Precision line (and therefore not in high demand to be ported), or are otherwise stunted by licensing issues, such as what is going on with thr Neve and SSL stuff.

So, realistically, there's probably a fairly short list (<20) of UA developed plugins that remain which are both desirable for UA to port and which they actually even have the ability to port. Hence the slowdown. Sounds like we'll maybe see a trickle trickle of a DSP port to native every few months, at best, going forward and, even then, there just isn't that much worthwhile and available low hanging fruit left for UA to port.

If you want access to the full library, DSP will continue to be the only way to go. That said, I do think a new Apollo has to be around the corner. We'll see if UA finally upgrades the chips to ARM or something. If they release a new Apollo without an upgraded FPGA and DSP chips, I'm gonna have to really think about my continued investment in UA. I mean, I already am, but that might be another nail in the coffin.

this 100%. The real one is better sounding than a distressor

The workflow is the only thing that keeps me around. But even the workflow isn't without it's problems. The limited routing on the Apollos is kinda shit. It's the number one thing I want to see improved in the next gen Apollo, even more than the DSP chips. The current FPGA is a real bottleneck for routing. But some more higher powered DSP would be welcome too.

I just built a few of those controllers for the ones we have cause we needed them to be rack mounted since there was no convenient place to put the box that EL makes. And I made 3 of them for about what theirs costs. The folks at EL were nice enough to sell me their knobs so it would look pro and make it easier to identify what it’s for, so kudos to them for being cool about it!

The controller is very helpful, lets you have some control over compression vs saturation. I added a switchable 150hz high pass filer to it as well!

It like so many tape substitutes wows at first, but after a while you realize it’s just saturation and distortion. You put it next to the Ampex and realize it’s not really the sound of tape.

Had the hardware years ago and it was great on a drum bus, elec guitars maybe. The plugin isn't as smooth or dense IMO and as result it just ends up sounding ham-fisted and gritty to me. Even at $39, no thanks. The UAD Distressor, on the other hand, is fantastic IMO (if you like distressors). 

I love it as my parallel compression go to. You get the squish while also being able to darken it down a little so it adds the thump without anything pointy coming through.

JMH