UAD-2 Satellite

[ckbarlow]

For those that are considering the UAD satellite (I am guessing cause you are using a laptop), there is another possibility that is worth checking out (if you have the bucks):

UAD-2 Octo core in an external thunderbolt chassis. $1499 plus $399 from Sweetwater. Twice the power of the Quad. less latency than the Satellite.

Did not know about that! So, this guy:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UAD2Octo
plus this:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EchoExpSE/

That is a chunk of change, though...

[andygabrys]

yeah. true. $$$

there seems to be lots of stuff right now that can be hosted in those Thunderbolt chassis.

like this http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe ... lsior/RAID

still pretty expensive for the 1 TB size, but all this stuff is going to get cheaper - and having one of those would probably let you have a ridiculous sample library set on a portable system.

[mazz]

I have 2 uad2 solo cards and I rarely run out of processing. Granted I'm not trying to run an entire 32 channel Neve console on my mixes!

The plugins are not inexpensive as well. Keep that in mind. But they just sound so damn great!

Latency doesn't bother me because I don't record through them although I'd love to jettison my motu interfaces and get an Apollo! Yummy!

[andygabrys]

I'd love to ....get an Apollo! Yummy!

[andygabrys]

found a couple other Thunderbolt PCI Chassis as well while we are blowing smoke on this topic:

space for 3 cards - http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt naturally 3 x the price of the ones that hold 1 card

space for 2 cards - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%2 ... ECHOEXP2F/

space for 1 card - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20 ... HELIOSTB1/ or http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EchoExpSE

[mazz]

But the computer already has to have thunderbolt.

[andygabrys]

True - its not for everyone or every system. For a while I was wishing that somebody would make a PCI card that adapted to T-bolt - which would be great for older Mac Pros and open up possibilities.

I was saying that if people have relatively current Mac-tops with T-bolt, then instead of getting a UAD-2 Satellite, you could buy a PCI version, and get a chassis - and again the only reason to do this would be getting the OCTO-card and having a little lower latency than FW 800.

For older laptops, the the Magma chassis have been available for a long time with Express 3/4 connections as well.

so yeah, for somebody like me who owns a mac pro that is getting antiquated, no good at all (and you can put the PCI inside anyways - moot point) - but for somebody with a recent iMac, or Macbook pro - then there are more options for building your system.

Just interesting to me, and at this point I am considering getting a mobile rig to completely replace this MacPro setup, so I can work anywhere. But I always felt like you couldn't get enough power and options on the MacBook - too few discrete drives to stream from if you are doing video etc.

Its all changing right? Now you can put two 6gb/s SSD's inside the MacBook Pro with the data doubler from OWC, get 16 GB of ram from OWC, connect with T-bolt to various PCI cards, and still run FW800 stuff, and USB 3.0. getting cheaper by the month too.

anyways, just blowing smoke. not running out to buy one today

[ckbarlow]

Yep. Lots of things to respond to there...

The Apollo - oh, yeah. Can you imagine how awesomely perfect that would be for Out of Context (the band I'm in where I do live sampling of the 10 other band members (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12TmWT_FzkU))? Do the live sampling through those outstanding compressors? Ee, yi yi....

But we only rehearse once a month and perform out once or twice a year at most. At home, where I need at most two simultaneous ins, the Apollo is just waaaay overkill, otherwise I'd go that route. Although... I guess since I have *occasional* use for that many channels, maybe I could justify it.... LOL....

BTW, since getting this MBPro (2.6GHz Core i7, 8GB RAM, 240GB flash drive) I haven't powered up my old G5 desktop. Other than to transfer some project files. My sample lib is on a FW 800 external drive. The laptop is so fast that there've been processes that I thought it failed on. Nope. It's just that fast. Incredible.

[mazz]

As much as the mobile thing appeals in theory, for me in reality, when I'm away from the studio, I'm in "taking a break" mode. I work so much, that I'd rather just leave the work at the studio. It's not that I don't think it's a good idea, it's just that right now, when I work, I do it at my studio where I have everything I need.

I have a small mobile setup at home and I use it occasionally, but the setting up and tearing down of USB cables, external drives, etc., is kind of a buzz kill.

I can see going on a writing trip to get a new perspective and a mobile rig would be great for that, but again, vacation should be just that, IMO, recharge the batteries.

As usual, opinionated!!

Great stuff!!

Mazz

[ckbarlow]

Well, I use my setup to teach those music tech classes at UNM.

Laptop + AKAI MPK Mini. Optionally, Apogee ONE if I feel like it + FW drive if I need to demo big VIs.

Walk/bike/bus with it all in here: http://www.monocase.com/mono-efx-kondensor.asp

Get home, and everything's connected in seconds: USB hub for dongle + Axiom Pro 61 + full QWERTY and Wacom tablet; FW for full libraries and MOTU 828; TBolt for second display that sits directly above/behind the laptop display. Really not that bad.