#REC 4/2005 COVER - Universal Audio

®
VOL. TWENTY TWO
NUMBER TWO
NOVEMBER 2008
USA $5.99
CANADA $5.99
$5.99US $5.99CAN
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The version 5.0 software features a completely redesigned user
interface and new features such as L.O.D.E. (dynamic plug-in load
balancing) and Session Map (which maintains bi-directional session
compatibility between UAD-1 and 2 equipped computers), as well
as Load Lock and Live Track, both of which we will discuss below.
All version 5.0 plug-ins feature a new tool bar, but are otherwise
unchanged. As of this writing all but a few plug-ins have been coded and
ported to the new cards, and the remaining plug-ins are in the works.
B Y P A U L V N U K J R .
After more rumors, speculation and wishful thinking than
could be caused by a Led Zeppelin reunion tour, the wait is
over! The Universal Audio UAD-2 is here, and by the time you
read this, thousands will have already found homes in Macs
and PCs worldwide. Some early details were published in last
month’s Fast Forward, but here are our first test results.
What’s new
Like the original UAD-1, the UAD-2 is a DSP accelerator
card and is the necessary centerpiece for running Universal
Audio’s Powered Plug-in system. The UAD-2 is available in
three flavors: Solo, Duo and Quad, offering approximately
2.5x, 5x and 10x the power of the original UAD-1.
Each card is available in three bundles. All come with the Mix
Essentials II plug-ins (1176SE, RealVerb Pro, the Pultec EQP-1A,
and some good basic channel strip FX) and vouchers to buy more
plug-ins online. The card can be bought alone with a $50 voucher
(a good choice if you’re crossgrading from the UAD-1), in a
Flexi package with $500 in vouchers, or in a Nevana package
with $100 in vouchers plus one or more Neve plug-ins included.
Also new: version 5.0 of the powered plug-in software,
with increased configuration options and a snazzy new
interface, and new plug-ins to follow shortly—see last
month’s cover for a sneak peek at one of the new arrivals,
which were mentioned in that issue’s Fast Forward.
The hardware
The UAD-2 is a 1x PCIe card—the Solo is a half-height
short card (nice for small-form computers), and the Duo and
the Quad are full-height, short cards. All three cards make
use of between one and four Analog Devices SHARC processing
chips for their power.
As with the original, up to four cards can be used together
in one computer, and the new cards can be combined
with up to four original UAD-1s.
The software
The plug-ins come in VST and AU; Pro Tools/LE RTAS support
is coming soon. They are compatible with Mac OS X
10.4 and higher, and all versions of Windows XP and Vista.
Meter & Control Panel
Similar to the Version 4.0
meter, the new one (see
Figure 1) displays the DSP,
Program Memory (UAD-2
only), and Memory load for
Fig. 1
each card in the system.
Large blue buttons to the left
of each meter allow for quick bypass of each card.
At the top of the meter is a drop-down menu that opens the UAD
Control Panel with a choice of System
info, Plug-in info, Configuration, and
Help & Support pages.
Fig. 2
System Info
System Info (Figure 2) displays
the current software version as well
as a graphic representation of each
installed card. It features a numeric
breakdown of each card’s power
consumption and plug-in latency.
On the left of each card are
enable/disable buttons, which can
shut off a card completely when
clicked prior to loading a DAW
session or if disengaged during a
running session. This does not disable
active plug-ins, but only keeps
further plug-ins from loading.
Plug-ins
Plug-ins (Figure 3) shows all currently
available plug-ins, and displays
which ones are authorized
for your cards. For those that are
not, you can choose to start the
Fig. 3 14-day demo mode as well as
purchase and authorize plug-ins
automatically from this page.
If you have a UAD-1 and a UAD-2 installed, on this page you must
also choose which card will run each plug-in—plug-ins cannot run on
both versions of the card simultaneously. If no option for the UAD-2
is present, those plug-ins have not yet been ported to the new card.
The “?” Buttons are direct links to the installed PDF manual.
Configuration and Help
In this window (Figure 4) you will find configuration choices for both
the UAD-1 and -2. The UAD-2 section starts with a DSP load limit that
can be set to avoid processor overloads in your DAW.
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RECORDING NOVEMBER 2008

Universal Audio UAD-2
The next button, a new feature
called DSP Load Lock, is
best illustrated with an example:
A plug-in such as the
Neve 88RS channel strip is
made up of individual Comp,
EQ, and Filter sections.
Turning these sections on or
off changes its power consumption.
Say you have only
been using the EQ section
and you engage the Filters,
and your card is already
maxed out by other plug-ins.
You run the risk of overloading
the card’s DSP. Load Lock
solves this by loading each
plug-in at its maximum power
Fig. 4
level from the start, holding
DSP in reserve for when you
need it. The flip side is that
this can waste valuable processing power if you never use certain
features of a plug-in.
Another new button, Extra Buffering, adds an additional 64 buffer
samples for certain DAWs such as ACID, Vegas, and SONAR to run
smoothly. I tested this in ACID and it worked like a charm.
The UAD-1 section of this page also adds a DSP load limit section,
but is otherwise similar to the version 4.0 software. Here you
can also choose how the plug-in controls respond to input data
and mouse movements in your DAW.
The Help & Support menu offers direct links to the UA web site.
Tool bar and Live Track
The new plug-in tool bar (shown in Figure 5) includes card identification
(UAD-1 or 2), a help button, a direct buy link for demoed
plug-ins, a new preset manager (complete with copy and paste
functions), and the Live Track switch (UAD-2 only).
Live Track is one
of the most talked
about features of the
Fig. 5
new UAD-2. In simple
terms, Live Track
lowers the internal
latency of the card
to an imperceptible level, allowing realtime tracking or monitoring
through your favorite UA plug-ins.
Installation
Recording was provided with a UAD-2 Solo card just before the
product line was announced, and this was forwarded to me for these
tests. Since my old studio PC had no PCIe slots, and the UAD-2 is PCIe
only, this review made a nice excuse for upgrading to a powerful new
PC from ADK Pro Audio, my favorite music PC builder, and I installed
the UAD-2 Solo into an Intel quad-core PC running Windows XP.
Installation was a plug-and-play affair. Once the version 5.0 software
is installed and you register for an account at uaudio.com, authorization
is almost completely automated. You can also authorize your
card from another computer by downloading and installing a .reg file.
UAD-2 in the real world
On UA’s web site (see www.uaudio.com/support/uad/
charts.html) you will find a chart detailing the number of plug-in
instances possible on the new UAD-2 cards, which I found to be quite
accurate. On a Solo card you can get 18 stereo 1176LNs or 20
mono Neve 1073s or 4 stereo Neve 33609s, and so on.
Note that the “2.5 times the power” claim is a rough average.
While many plug-ins manage this improvement, you may notice
that other plug-ins such as the LA-2A or the Cambridge offer only
slightly more instances, and a few such as the Real Verb or the EX1
EQ/Comp offer the same or lower. On the flip side, other plug-ins
can actually run as many as a factor of five more instances on the
UAD-2. So your numbers will depend on what you use.
Bust my buffers
While a plug-in’s power lives on the card, the cards do have an
effect on both your CPU and your sound card’s drivers. Here are
my results for my ADK quad PC with a Lynx AES-16 audio interface.
In Cubase 4, at a very low ASIO setting of 64 samples, I was
able to load 10 stereo 1176LNs with my ASIO meter hovering
around 50%. Adding more caused occasional meter spikes and
audible glitches. Raising the buffer to 128 samples dropped the
ASIO load to 25% and solved the glitch problem. Filling the card
to its max brought the ASIO meter back to around 50% with no
spikes present, but I had to be careful when adding additional
native plug-ins or softsynths, lest they return.
Moving to “mix-standard” settings of 512 or 1024 samples,
my ASIO meter showed barely any activity above 10%, even
with a full card and a host of native plug-ins.
Live Tracking
To test out the Live Track feature, I did some vocal, guitar
and percussion passes through a mono 1176LN while monitoring
through the Plate 140. I experienced zero perceptible
latency. Put simply—it works. However, at an ASIO setting of 64
(common for low-latency tracking), this was almost all I could run.
Granted, the Plate 140 is one of the larger plug-ins. Without the
reverb, I could run 5 mono 1176s each with Live Track engaged. I
could also run 12 mono 1176LNs on a session, but with only two in
Live Track mode, before the ASIO meter pegged out.
So Live Track is fine for simple multi-channel tracking, but if you
plan to overdub onto a plug-in heavy session, you may need to disable
some plug-ins first. In all my tests my PC’s CPU load never
exceeded 10%.
Conclusion
Was the UAD-2 worth the wait? In my opinion, without a
doubt! The UAD-2 gives you more power with better load balancing
and plug-in handling, and is a huge improvement over
everything that made the UAD-1 the leader in its class.
Is it right for you? Stop by UA’s web site and have a look.
There are a few bugs to be worked out in some DAWs, and a
few items marked “coming soon”, but in the software world this
is an exceptionally complete and stable initial release.
If you already own a UAD-1, you can crossgrade all of your
existing plug-ins to the UAD-2 for free until the end of 2008.
After that, it’s just $25 per plug-in with a cap of $250, and
can be paid for with UAD vouchers.
A staggering final thought: on four Quad cards, you can
run 288 stereo 1176LN or 192 stereo Neve 1073 plug-ins,
or... you get the idea. This is going to be fun!
Prices (all MAP):
UAD-2 Solo: $499 alone, $799 Flexi, $699 Nevana 32
UAD-2 Duo: $899 alone, $1199 Flexi, $1499 Nevana 64
UAD-2 Quad: $1499 alone, $1799 Flexi, $1999 Nevana 128
More from: Universal Audio, Inc., 1700 Green Hills Road,
Scotts Valley, CA 95066. 877/698-2834 (877/MY-
UAUDIO), www.uaudio.com or www.uad-2.com.
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RECORDING NOVEMBER 2008