UAD-2 Satellite

[andygabrys]

those MONO cases are fab. I have the producers bag or whatever they call it. bombproof.

[ckbarlow]

I did note Mazz's earlier comment that the Satellite would consume a lot of the FW bandwidth. That leads me to maybe a portable TBolt enclosure for my sample lib.

[mazz]

Re: mobile setup. I don't have a dedicated area for working at home so its pretty much tear it down cause its time to cook dinner every time.

I've not had super great experiences with FireWire audio interfaces and once a hard drive was added things got really weird reality fast. I prefer desktops and pci cards for the heavy lifting. Ill be a dinosaur soon!

[ckbarlow]

Re: mobile setup. I don't have a dedicated area for working at home so its pretty much tear it down cause its time to cook dinner every time.

Gotcha. My stationary studio is in the guest bedroom, and it does make a huge difference that everything is set up such that the only things that come out of the backpack typically are the laptop and its power cube.

I've not had super great experiences with FireWire audio interfaces and once a hard drive was added things got really weird reality fast.

But don't you have a MOTU interface? Not FW though? Interesting. I've had no problems chaining FW HD to interface, and I've got the original (OLD) MOTU 828.

Anyhoo... down the road, I'll probably get a TB drive or a TB enclosure for an existing drive to put my lib on its own bus.

[mazz]

I have motu pci interfaces, most are older than the 828. Rock solid. They connect to the pci card with regular FireWire cables even though the protocol isn't FireWire.

[ckbarlow]

So continuing on this topic, I'm interested in hearing what people's fave UAD-2 compatible plug-ins are.
(Should I start a new thread for that?)

Whichever Satellite model I buy will come with the Analog Classics bundle + any 3 of my choosing. So I'm asking what those 3 should be, based on the following considerations.

I tend to do:

• smallish projects, on the order of 10-15 tracks
• combo of live and MIDI instruments (those built into Logic plus several EWQL libraries, incl close-mic'd orchestral)

Note: I'd thought of going for the Satellite Quad Custom, but an honest look at the Instance Chart vis a vis my typical project profile makes me think a Duo Custom would suffice. Do you agree? Instance chart here: http://www.uaudio.com/support/uad/compa ... chart.html

I feel like I'm lacking in:

• a truly polished sound at final mix, likely needing greater finesse w/compression and time/spatial fx
• really great-sounding individual instrument parts, which (beyond a good recording, of course) points to EQ.

Some recent examples are posted at http://www.ckbarlow.com/proj/index.html - an embedded ReverbNation player will appear if you give it a moment.


Thanks much!
CK

[mazz]

I use the Pultec Pro EQ a ton. Love it. Not a surgical EQ, more for tone shaping and warming.

I use the LA2-A a lot as well.

Same with the 1176. Go-To.

On the master I always put the SSL Bus Compressor, even if I barely move the meter. It just adds that certain "something" to the mix bus.

The Fairchild is my "go to" drum bus compressor. I haven't used it much on the mix bus, but it would probably work really well there too.

For spatial effects, I love the Roland Space Echo. It's expensive for a one trick pony, but it sure sounds great, nicely vibey.

I'm a huge fan of the EMT 140 Plate reverb. Great on drums and percussion, very nice on washy organ parts, yummy.

Moog Filter. What can I say? Great on drum loops, great for spicing up bland synth pads, love it for "drops" to add that band pass filter vibe.

I don't have the UAD Precision Mastering compressor but I hear it's really good. I do, however, use the Precision Maximizer and it works great, particularly with a lighter touch, although it can certainly take things into that super punchy electronica/dance realm pretty nicely.

I have more I could mention but I don't want to sound like a pig........ I love my UAD plugins. I also love that they don't hit my main CPU. Great stuff!!

[ckbarlow]

Great, Mazz - thank you. Some of those would seem to slot into my "lacking" list for sure.

[andygabrys]

If you are getting the custom bundle - I would spend that money on the 3 most expensive plugins in the linup

probably the Roland Space echo, the Ampex, the Studer, the EL7 Fatso - stuff like that.

get your moneys worth. The included plugins (pultec, la-2a, 1176 etc) cover a lot of bases.

Every month UA has a sale on a part of their line up. Usually the stuff on sale is about 20% off. And often when they introduce a new plugin, they let you bundle other plugins at up to 30% off (but full price for the new plugin). And several times each year they give "loyalty" coupons of $25 to $50 off a new purchase.

After getting the unit, but before you buy the extra plugins you get on the Custom coupon, I would used the 14 day demo on a bunch of these and figure out what they do, and whether or not you feel it makes enough of a change in your sound to use it immediately. Usually the demo period is reset for all the plugs each time you make a purchase (but I don't know if buying a plugin on the coupon resets the demo period.)

good luck! good fun trying 'em all!

[Len911]

I think the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor sounds attractive, the Sonnox eq if you need a precision eq, the spl transient designer - many times just adjusting the transients makes a world of difference in a "problem" piece that otherwise might require a lot of compression that you don't really want or necessarily need. The emt 250 reverb which includes Delay, Phasing, Chorus, Echo, and Space, the emt 140 is better known for vocals, though the 250 is the more versatile imo, especially for instruments.
I don't have the uad-2, I just have the sonnox eq plugin and sonnox transient mod, and emt140 and emt 250 ir's.

Some of the other plugins would be nice also, like the studer A800 tape recorder, but those are mainly for color, and sometimes color you might necessarily not want in every case, I mean you might not want that '70's sound on something contemporary. Although the shadow hills mastering compressor has a lot of color options, "By switching the selected transformer type in and out of the signal path, you can hear the different frequency response, distortion characteristics, and transient limiting of each transformer — going from “clean” (Nickel), to “colored” (Iron), to “dirty” (Steel).", plus a couple of different compression options, optical and vca type.

I would do what Andy says though and audition them if you can before choosing, because I am sure the ssl and neve compressors and eq's are very capable, and though they might not have a lot of versatility of say the shadow hills, they may be just the sound you are looking for and function in conjunction with the included plugins.