I use it with console one, and for me it’s only OK, I need a second monitor to take the full advantage imo, get the manual control and still have the visual feedback of the plug.
Really like the whole environment tho. Amazing guitar amp sims and old school effects!
It depends on a few things.
I use it in console, and it’s good with the caveat I noted above.
It’s really good if you use a daw it can be linked up with properly. It’s great in studio one.
The included channel is really good, and I got another one too that’s also good. And you can then mix and match with uad plug ins when you want.
So for mixing in a supported daw it’s great!
For using with console it’s pretty good.
It would be even better if I had a second screen.
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Does anyone know if the Marshall Super Lead is a big step up from the Marshall that comes bundled with the Arrow?
the tweed is great. I prefer the marshall jmp over the super lead, which is a step up certainly from the classic freebie
I’ve come real close to diving into the Apollo/UAD system multiple times.
An old production partner of mine had one of the UAD PCI-E boards and we’d use those plug-ins during mix down and they always sounded great.
But each time I’ve seriously considered it, I’ve just ended up buying a much faster computer and sticking with native plug-ins instead. I mostly blame Waves, as their API bundle and CLA compressors add zero latency and sound great. Their J37 and Kramer Tape plug-ins add about as much latency as a UAD plug-in would. These have all been my go to.
I know that the UAD Neve products are top notch, and while the Waves Scheps 73 is solid, it is the UAD Neve offerings that I am most attracted to.
But when I price out an interface, at around $2,000, I can’t help but tell myself that I could stay native (lean on my Kush Omega N for the Neve vibe) and the $2,000 could be spent on a refurbished iMac (2015, 4ghz i7) from Quality Macs in San Diego, and that is twice as fast as my current iMac.
Ahhhhh. the struggle!
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the struggle is definitely real.
for me i can’t decide between buying a nice mixer or buying another apollo for more i/o. I know the tactile control a mixer offers is indispensable but the space saving from another interface and a small control surface / midi controller is pretty attractive.
my PC is far more capable than my 13" macbook pro but of course the PC is running a much older chipset that doesn’t natively support usb 3.0.
it looks like windows support will continue to grow from UA. check this out @AdamJay https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/215731443-Apollo-Thunderbolt-Windows-Compatibility
It’s a tough sell on any of the beefy macs when I can build a monster PC/windows based rig for a fraction of the price. Going to have to do some research when I upgrade.
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fwiw they are offering the UAD complete neve bundle for me for 175€ this month (I own a few neve plugs already and they gave a -25€ xmas coupon). I have been tempted in getting em all no doubt.
But I do understand your point completely UAD is an aquired taste. Although to be fair, waves do have their quirks too, like the cost of WUP adding up once you have enough waves in your plugin collection. This is actually why I generally try not to buy waves myself…
Getting into UAD makes little sense financially, unless you need an audio interface as well. If I was starting now, I’d probably still consider an Apollo twin quad (bought during a campaing that gave you free plugins along with the box) a pretty good investment. Going UAD has postponed getting a new computer twice during my years with em, which also has merit unto itself. That outdated DSP can do wonders as a sidecar for an aging computer.
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Cheers. I am deciding whether to use their introductory offer to upgrade to the Super Lead.
Computers are too fast and native plugs way too good to justify UAD anymore imo
Nope, their guitar amp sims are so much better imo that those alone warrant getting into it. Head and shoulders above guitar rig or the bias fx plugin.
I used to have a pretty non commital attitude to uad, but I got an Apollo 8 used at a really good price, and it was an eye opener how awesome it is.
Running my MacBook Pro at a relatively high latency (256 samples), but it doesn’t matter as the guitar amps take no latency!
I’m glad you brought up latency, @VDB
Any idea what the plug-in latency, when hosted in a DAW, from a Thunderbolt Satellite would be?
Universal Audio doesn’t really publish this TB Satellite latency information.
They just say that Thunderbolt is less latency than their firewire Satellite accelerators, and that there is no latency when using Unison capable plug-ins with their Apollo interfaces.
It’s quite a lot
I had 2 UAD octo thunderbolt satellites, UAD Apollo quad, and UAD Apollo twin running simultaneously all on thunderbolt from Mac at the end of my time with UAD.
At one stage I was writing a track within maschine and had shitloads of UAD plugins on a stack of channels within maschine.
I couldn’t understand why the track sounded completely out of sync.
I worked out that as maschine doesn’t have PDC the track just fell to pieces due to the lack of compensation, and the increased latency introduced by the UAD plugs.
To test the theory I loaded a dummy maschine project with about 50 UAD plugs, and then the exact same project but just replacing the UAD plugs with their exact native equivalent, which there are quite a few. Brainworx ones I think they were.
Anyway the native plugin maschine project played with much tighter sync than the UAD project due to reduced latency of the native plugs.
I was mainly writing within Cubase at the time, and as it has PDC it wasn’t a big issue when using the UAD system within there.
What is “a lot” ?
10ms? 20ms? 50ms?
Can’t remember sorry
That’s on maschine tho, PDC is part of any real daw. So it’s not an issue for mixing.
Maschine isn’t viewed as one in NIs eyes from what I understand and they figure they don’t need to implement PDC.
Not that I remember, maybe that’s changed, don’t know.
The uad demographic imo is more a musician/ engineer side as opposed to beats producer maybe?
Where as NI and the groove box market is a different demographic imo.
I don’t use it that way, I couldn’t say.
The thing with uad interfaces is the latency free tracking in console.
Once that’s done, the use of plugs in a daw, the latency isn’t an issue anymore for me. I set my sample size to 1024 and mix.
So it actually makes you kinda commit to some stuff on the way in, so it kinda makes you a better engineer, maybe.
I like it a lot. I’ve always liked committing stuff to audio.
Yes of course
Just answering the question regarding latency, and the maschine example exemplified the point.
Maschine is an absolute joke to still not have PDC
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I guess, I think tho from a groovebox paradigm it’s not a huge deal, that said I am not a maschine user.
Have you found a difference in switching away from uad? In terms of quality of other plugs?
I use mine in soft une console one, so it’s not either or for me, just a choice, up until my satellite chokes lol.
I sold all my UAD about 5 years ago I think.
Around the same time I started selling all my hardware.
I switched to RME and haven’t looked back.
Native plugs are at least as good and my computer doesn’t break a sweat.
Like you say, i can understand it still has a place for their latency free effects on hardware plugged into Apollo within console
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trying to monitor through UAD DSP w/out Console the latency adds up fast. If your DAW buffer is 256 out and 256 in, that will introduce at minimum 512 samples of latency when monitoring through UAD DSP via a DAW. Then each plugin either adds zero samples (most of the classic, older plugins or SE versionsn) of latency on top of that, a small amount (neve plugs for example), or rather large amount for plugins like the Ampex tape deck. At least that’s how it was when I used the PCI-E cards. I’ve gone full apollo now so don’t ever monitor through DAW. I would only use a satellite, be it firewire or tb, for mixing probably. Apollo Console is where it’s at if you like these plugins and want an almost PTHD like workflow.
Unison plugins are not zero latency btw, even with Apollo. Near-zero. But not zero.
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