More Power to Your Processor?

Universal Audio UAD-1 Card and Powered Plug Ins

Review by Glen Clark, AbstractFriends.com

Pop quiz hot shot! Your PC is running heaven knows how many VSTis at low latency and you need to insert a bunch of effects and processors but your CPU just cannot take any more. What do you do? Actually, beating the PC to a pulp with a baseball bat might be less than appropriate and possibly overkill and it won't improve things much. Instead maybe you need to think about adding to your capability by purchasing some addition power in the form of a digital signal processing (DSP) card.

So first of all the hardware. The UAD-1 is an full length card which takes up a single PCI slot. Bear in mind, it is a full length card and takes up a fair chunk of space. It has no connections at all to the outside world, because it takes all its data and power from the PCI bus on your computer. On the card there is the usual mish-mash of electronic wizardry and a passive cooling heat sink because UAD-1 cards do get quite warm in operation. One computer can run up to 4 cards, so say.

Installation in my Pentium 4 PC was relatively simple, I followed the instructions and installed the drivers prior to the card and all was well. Apparently, it doesn't work properly if you install the card then the drivers, why take a chance - do it the way they say. Current version of the software is version 3.40. The basic version software includes three, time limited but fully functional, demo versions of plug-ins, the Cambridge EQ, the Dreamverb and the Fairchild 670, their latest release. There is a new version of the software available called "StudioPAK" which includes the full version of all the plug-ins.

Operating system and host type support is quite broad, Windows (all versions from 98SE onwards) is covered with VST and DX versions, Mac OS9 is covered in VST and MAS, OS X is covered in VST and AU. You need 50MB of disk space, 128MB RAM (but 256 MB recommended) and a screen resolution of 1024x768 minimum. AGP graphics are recommended, and Macs have to be G3 or above. UA do not support PCI expansion chassis or processor upgrade cards. Full specs and requirements can be found on their website www.uaudio.com. You also, obviously, need a host application which supports one of the formats above. Mine runs in a P4 PC with 1 GB of DDR RAM, an RME HDSP 9652 soundcard, and has been tested in three host applications, Sonar (versions 2 and 3) (the one I use for my audio work) Cubase SX (version 1) and Wavelab 4.

So to operation. On the website you will find a document which lists known faults. I urge the prospective purchaser to try to borrow one, or get one on approval, because EVERY pc is different, no matter how alike it looks to the next one. The known faults, listed by application, apply to most, but not all. There are also some inexplicable glitches which apply seemingly randomly. Spend a little time on either the official UAD forum or the unofficial (and better populated) one run by Chris Milne on www.chrismilne.com and you will see some of them discussed. Some are solved by each new software release, but it sadly seems like new ones also pop up. Nonetheless, operation is seamless. The plug-ins behave like any native plug-in. You drop them in and away they go. The VST version works fine, the DX version (actually the VST version with an internal wrapper) works fine. They seem to function reasonably well under both ASIO and WDM drivers on my machine and in all my host applications.

What about the plug-ins themselves? Well, they can be grouped into four main groups, specific dynamics, general dynamics, effects and utility. In the first category, specific dynamics I put the 1176, the LA-2A, the Pultec EQ, the Cambridge EQ and the Fairchild 670. In general dynamics I put the CS-1 channel strip. In effects I put the Nigel Guitar Processor and the RealVerb Pro and the Dreamverb. The final category has a delay compensator plug-in and the control panel, which is not a plug-in but part of the core software. Rather than go into detail on what they all are, which would take a long time and is readily available on the website, I will simply say what they are in overview:

Specific Dynamics

The 1176 and LA-2A are both compressors, the 1176 modelled on the Urei 1176 blackface and the LA-2A on the LA-2A limiting amplifier. Both classic compressor limiters. The Pultec is a classic EQ unit. Unlike some of the original units all the plug-ins are capable of stereo or mono operation, a major problem in the past if one tried to link two 1176s together to achieve a stereo compressor line. These are all nothing short of excellent plug-ins. I think they are great, I haven't come across anyone who doesn't think these are about the best dynamics plug-ins around. Smooth outputs, close emulations of the original unit (even down to operation) and very nice sounding. They have the odd quirk, sometimes the buttons jump a bit, if you are using a mouse to move them it's not surprising, but they are very good indeed. The Cambridge EQ is good for some things, not so good for others, a lot of people say it is great for surgical EQ but less good for creating an overall sound. I tend to agree that it is limited and have not bought the Cambridge after trial. The Fairchild 670 compressor emulation is nice, but I think I have been spoiled by using the 1176 and LA-2A for a time. Very good processor, but I am not certain as yet that I will put my hand in my pocket for it in addition to what is already there.

General Dynamics

The CS-1 is a simple channel strip covering EQ, compressor, delay modulator and a reflection engine. All these can be called up individually as well, so you can use them in a different strip order if you want. It is a workmanlike set of tools, not as intensive as the specific set, but very usable with reasonably uncoloured transparent output.

Effects

Nigel Guitar is a modular effects unit, quite nice and usable, but not outstanding in my view. The components are a Gate/Compressor, Preflex (a gate/compressor/amp simulator) Phasor, TremFade (tremelo and fade) and TremModEcho (tremelo, delay mod and echo) All usable individually or a one big processor. The RealVerb pro is the achilles heel of the outfit. It claims to be an industry standard room emulator reverb plug-in. It's not good at all. It sounds like mush and I don't like it. The Dreamverb was like a breath of fresh air, much more standard, better sounding, but an unwieldy interface and, sadly, still nowhere near as good in my book as mid range hardware. I no longer use the reverbs in UAD-1 my TC PowerCore Firewire goes on instead, and frankly I would prefer to use the Lexicon Pantheon in Sonar 3 than use Dreamverb. I appreciate these may be my failing, but why waste time struggling hard to get a good sound when I get instant gratification from my TC box?

Utility

The delay compensator plug in is used to compensate for delays. State the obvious huh? Yes indeed. But the source of the delay may not be known to some. There are two sources of delay in the UAD-1, first, the latency of you system, because audio is having to come out of the host, down the PCI bus and into the UAD-1. It gets processed and whizzed back again. The second is the time it takes for the plug-ins to do their sums and any look-ahead processing they use. Most hosts incorporate what is known as ADC or PDC, Automatic or Plug-in Delay Compensation. These mechanisms take the values reported by the plug-in and automatically adjust the audio into line. So you don't have to worry much. Well yes you do, because not all the hosts have full path delay compensation. Sonar, Nuendo 2, Cubase SX 2 and Samplitude do, but SX 1, for example, only has PDC on track inserts. So the delay compensator can be of use still. The control panel is relatively simple and allows you to adjust the buffer settings and some deeper level functions if necessary, most of the time it isn't.

So to the last question does it work? Well, that depends on what you ask of it. Let us look at some of the quirks:

Memory and processing capacity - it's a computer like it's host and it can only cope with so much. How much I hear you cry, well that depends. All the plug-ins have different memory and CPU power requirements, when it is used up that is it. Unless you are really plug-in happy one or, at a stretch, two cards is enough. The 1176 plug-in has a shortcut version which doesn't sound quite as good but is still good and uses a lot less UAD-1 energy. Load it with lots of insert processors and reverbs and it will get full, then you may need to have two or bounce some of your effects down using whatever freeze or bounce facilities you have to free up the UAD-1.

Buffers - its buffer handling is somewhat rigid which leads to a particular fault in Sonar in that looping doesn't work properly and gets progressively out of time or drops out completely. This is caused by a clever mechanism in Sonar that truncates buffers and uses only part of a buffer at the end of a loop. UAD-1 expects a full buffer so drifts or falls over.

Lightening the CPU load - yes it does. There have been odd quirks which have caused high CPU loading on various software releases, but general it does lighten the load on the CPU considerably. But don't be fooled, speed of processing is not necessarily the result. Load up a UAD-1 and do a non-realtime bounce and you may well find your track takes LONGER than realtime to make it's bounce. If that is the case there are free digital plug-ins such as Tape-it, which allow you to realtime bounce in the digital domain, if your soundcard does not have the facilities to do that for you.

Does it work with more than one card - yes. There is many a happy user out there with more than one card. Would I get two - no. My view is to widen the armoury if you want more power and get one UAD-1 and one PowerCore (as said above I have the Firewire version of the latter). If you do that you have great dynamics AND great reverbs - a powerful combination and they sit alongside each other happily.

Ease of use - probably the biggest downside. You have to know how your application is going to deal with the UAD-1, once you do, you don't look back, but it can take a time. For me, because of the impact on realtime mixdown, I have a tendency to only use the processors as channel inserts and bounce them down. This takes the UAD-1 out of the chain on mixdown, but allows you to retain all the settings if you want to go back and tweak. The other point is that, because these are hardware emulations you don't get a compressor graph to look at, or an EQ graph on the Pultec, which some people find detracts from easy use. What it does do is encourage you to use your ears!

Summary

For about £500 for the standard card, this is an exceptional purchase. If you get one and get it working happily, you will probably think it is one of the best purchases music-wise you have made. I still think mine is. It does add to your armoury and it is very good quality. On the downside, third party written plug-ins are thin on the ground, more so than with the TC offering and having the power does not instil the discipline so you are free to be plug-in happy. But take heed, do get one and test it out in your system if you can before you buy. My view, go get one - you know you want to.

Glen Clark bio

I am 36 based in Cambridge and whilst I have always been a music lover, came to recording and performing quite late in life. I have appeared on stage in a variety of amateur productions and over a period of time have assembled a respectable, if small, studio set up and have learned the basics of recording and production. In the process I have had my fair share of technical mishaps which have been a valuable learning experience.

I play the piano and keyboards (badly) and do vocals of varying kinds, which is how I started as a performer on stage. Now I write and compose my own songs as well as assisting others in setting up their recording set ups.

You can write to me about anything on my reviews at glen@abstractfriends.com I am happy to take questions on them and happy to discuss and advise on any aspect of recording. Visit my website www.abstractfriends.com under the "services" heading for more info and for more details about my small studio set-up.