Avid and UAD - DSP Is Dead!

On my Imac 27" 2015 I'm very happy to have 22 UAD DSP processors in my studio (apollo x8P , apollo twin/x quad , satellite octo and satellite quad)

rubbish still alive !!!!! HDX has 0,7 ms latency . And you need all the power you can get when using acustica plugins. And you always want to bump up the sample rate higher if possible.

So when do I buy the next UAD interface in 2023. Want to switch to Luna from PT.

I think you just saved me €1500. Thanks.

I use a rme digiface as my interface with a latency of round trip of 2.5ms and I use waves and other plugins when I monitor I have no noticeable latency mind you I’m running a intel i7 10700 I have never been worried about running out of power to run my plugins ! So yes I do agree with you DSP is dead no longer needed! I still have a pcie UAD card the only plug-in I use is the emt 250 and the tube tech comp .

Thx for saving me some cash.

Don't forget the ability to record through plug-ins just like Hardware the Apollo software if not to be taken lightly especially for people who can't afford much outboard gear not to mention the free plug-ins that comes with it. I have outboard gear but I love the fact I can take my laptop and do the same thing without having my gear with me.

Mac Studio 20 core M1 Ultra costs less than one HDX card. UAD have best in class reverbs and modulation, but it's the matter of year or two until it's all available native.

UAD now has a Native subscription option. Done!

Hello what is the difference except price between a focusrite Clarett+ 8Pre and a
Focus rite 18i20 3rd gen .

I've been researching and I'm stuck and need some help... I'm using a PC with a Ryzen 9 5950x, 64gb RAM and NVME storage, this PC is a beast. Is this comparable to the Apple computers he's talking about? With my current setup I still struggle with crazy latency when trying to monitor real time with VSTs (unless I disable all other VSTs in the project). I am however using a very old Presonus Audiobox USB 2.0 interface which may be my weak link here... If I upgrade the interface, could I have a project with VSTs loaded on 20+ tracks and still be able to route my microphone through a track within the DAW and use VSTs for real time monitoring with no noticeable latency?

DSP was dead when the Core2 CPUs came out.

Apple M2 PRO CHIP.... all you will ever need.😊 THANK YOU SO MUCH.. YOU ARE 100% CORRECT!
We returned the Apollo Twin X , $1600.00 dollars 2 channels, not foot switch jack for Presonus Quantum 262e ar6.
26 in 26 out. faster amps , tons of free plug ins and Studio One.
Easy to use... LUNA is not as simple.

THANK YOU! GREAT TRUTH! We just got a Mac mini M2 PRO chip.. IT IS POWERFUL.
ALSO , we purchased an Apollo Twin x quad core. NEW still in the box. So GOD , our brains and you caused much thinking.
We called UAD, and no one answers the phone.
So we sent an email and was worried about a few things.
They suggested we get a refund via email.
So we did.
GOT the $1600 back, Great,
The PreSonus Quantum 2626has less latency. and many features.. only $850 new.
Tons of plug ins, tech support great .
Great company and gear.
QUESTION;
Is China or others stealing our songs? and info?
Did you know the owners of UAD are a dada company in Fla and the box said "Made in China".
SO... YOU ARE 100% RIGHT AS LIGHT!
THE NEW M2 PRO MAC CHIP is the fastest chip on Earth.
We ran 200 tracks with 7 plug ins and only used 30 % ...
CUSTOMER SERVICE and having great support is the most important.
THANK YOU. YOU ARE A GREAT HELP,

WE PRAY ALL MUSICIANS RECORD AND RELEASE. PEACE SONGS
SO MAYBE THE WAR MONGERS CANHEAR US!
WE NEED PEACE.
GOD BLESS YOU.
PEACE.!

That is sooo f…. true. …and I am (actually) still a happy UAD Apollo user. The only issue with M1, M2 is plugin and software native !!! compatibility. Cheers Fritz

The reality is that we haven't needed DSP since at least the early 2010s
Highly specced up PCs could easily run hundreds of plugins back then
I think Mac users have just barely found out about this because the Apple's M1 chips have finally caught up and even surpassed the most powerful Intel/AMD chips
I am believe this was the main reason why UAD has neglected PC users for so long because DSP has been irrelevant in PCs for years so it made selling DSP to PC users more trouble than its worth
Now that Apple has finally caught up to powerful Intel/AMD chips, there is no need for DSP anymore on any platform
So its no surprise that UAD is now going native and they are now working harder to support PC users in their software and hardware
Also GPU Audio's new innovations will probably allow us to run not just hundreds but thousands of plugins in the near future

As a rhythm player anything over 3ms latency doesn’t work for me. I can feel it at 4 or 5 ms takes away from my performance, maybe others can do it but I can’t

Glad to see someone with more experience in music production tech than me saying the same thing that I have been observing for a while. I'm a retired IT professional but I haven't had much time to dig into this part of IT tech until now. I've had this hobby kinda on the back burner for decades while I was working at times 24/7 doing architecture for huge mission critical systems. But the same mindset that's needed for those projects pretty soon revealed the discrepancy between the hype around the perceived need for dedicated DSP systems and the raw processing power of a modern high end consumer grade CPU, combined with the price of RAM and Nvme SSDs. Which makes a high end modern PC overkill for DAW work and it only gets challenged a little bit by really huge movie editing projects. The amount of horsepower needed for sound processing stays mostly the same as it was when DSPs were needed, while processing power has multiplied many times over since then. We probably both remember when you needed an 80287 floating point coprocessor for doing calculation intensive work, like running Auto CAD. That was the trial of fire for a high end workstation. For decades now you have been able to do CAD work on an ordinary laptop computer. It's mostly the gaming industry that has been the driver for more and more powerful pcs. With the movie industry moving in as pcs have become powerful enough even for their needs. Compared to that running a DAW and well written plugins are trivial tasks. Universal Audio has obviously realized that too. As we can now get their plugins without buying their hardware, and just run them directly on our computers.

So what converters and preamps should one use? The unison system and emulation of different preamps is nice.

Are you considering running multiple virtual instruments during a session?

Good to know

I see so many of you talking about 256 buffer being low enough for cutting. Not in my pro world. I can still feel drag on my fingers playing bass or guitar or keys at 256... And with vocals I have (and heard complaints from clients about) a terrible doubled vibe in my(their) InEars. But 128 for instruments and 64 for vocals - sounds like 0 latency. Most drummers tell me they need 64 too before the 'flamming' sound in their ears goes away. So I'm not sure how y'all are cutting at 256. Does the overall speed of your native system matter. I'm still on MacPro Late 2013 (trash Can) with 64GB of RAM and FocusriteRed Pre native into ProTools 2022. Is 256 the SAME on all machines? Or is 256 buffer on an older mac different than let's say 256 on M1? I thought 256 samples per buffer is a fixed constant. Am I wrong? If it's a fixed constant.. then I can't understand your being able to cut live at 256.

Just wait until you see what GPU audio is doing, which will end the need for any box, as your video card will be the processor for audio.

I'm running a Intel 12900k and I don't need any DSP. PC is handling everything I tell it to do. Best I managed was 20% CPU usage on FL studio

I would say there is a need for an even lower latency recording as a vocalist than 32 on your DAW, but interfaces will solve that problem most of the time
but DSP or FPGA for processing is definitely not needed anymore. totally agree

That`s not quite true!!! I still would buy an X8 or even X16, just because of that it is an interface, for the Line-Outputs / Inputs and it's extensibility and the bonus of knowing to have some freed-up RAM with the DSP-Plugins. Even though I already have a Monster of a Workstation, with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU - 24-core and 256gb of RAM etc.. So it's not a Problem anymore for me to have multiple Tracks in a DAW with Plugins and Parallel Processors, but if you want to integrate some Analog Gear, even just something like Synths, Drum Maschines & Guitar Amps through some Mics etc. into your music, then later or sooner you'll need something like this, if you don't want to plug & play with cables all the time if you need a new track with a different synthsound. And we are actually still not talking about those people who
would need this aswell, because they'd like to try to incorporate hybrid mixing & mastering techniques into their workflow, with analog gear like compressors, eq's and effects-gear etc.!!!

What’s your take on waves soundgrid

He's right.

Avid x Uinversal Audio x Antares should form one company.

You love posting crazy videos LMFAO. You would replace an X16 with a new Mac w/M1? What in the GDF are you talking about. Did you forget that their hardware also includes incredibly high end mic pres, DACs, studio quality electronics. It's a cohesive architecture that when combined with their software is a more economical and efficient solution than piecing things together as you are suggesting. Of course all your sheep are here lapping this nonsense up and missing the point.

But I hate apple and I wish I would get that latency on a windows PC :(

Apple is so anti-consumer. They don't let you upgrade ram or even SSD.

Great video! I mostly agree. I do a lot with virtual instruments like Omnisphere and the like. Playing a session with a bunch of those at 32 sample buffer with effects causes clicks on my M1 Pro MBP, which isn't the point of this video. But I find if I need to dub in a vocal or drums with a heavy session of audio and virtual instrument tracks, easier on system to use UAD console where Logic Pro is sent to virtual channel on UAD and I load up any effects to monitor drummer or vocalist in the UAD console. Trying to do that in DAW has a bunch of latency. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but that is my experience. I also like to audio from computer like Apple Music through a virtual channel on the UAD console and put on a tape plugin or other to sweeten music.

What I dislike most about DSP is that the market for non-DSP interfaces seems kind of meager right now. Like… just give me an updated thunderbolt version of RME Babyface for example

Yup. Intel's and AMDs newest chips also have pretty much a 4+ - 5+ Ghz clock speed, in addition to their 15% ish IPC increase... low latency recording is easy nowaday's. I feel like DSP systems will still be used by UAD to sell their hardware and plug ins, with no justification for it aside from selling those things. But that's ok, I don't need to support UAD. We live in a world with amazing plug ins, whether it's iZotope for mixing/post, Neural DSP for incredible Amp/Cab sims, Cinesamples ... I mean, there's a billion high quality plug ins out there that don't require proprietary hardware. So, if UAD wants to play the game of "well our plug ins require our hardware" then ok, have fun with that. Pretty soon only major studios will use you, you'll become more greedy just like AVID because your consumer base keeps shrinking, and eventually you'll have some major issues. Or all of these companies can admit we have incredible processors and compute power these days to run their plug ins, and that they can sell more of their stuff by opening up the gates. And by all means, still sell DSP systems, just don't make it mandatory.

I dumped my apollo and UAD for this exact reason

First, I am impressed by the quality of your videos and really like your channel Barry.
That said I agree on your points one after the other.
Even with my iMac I7 from 2020 I can playback Dolby Atmos film mixing sessions with 300+ tracks down to 64 samples in Pro tools.
So as you said, for the price of a HDX card you can get a Mac studio (can’t even imagine the upcoming M2) with MASSIVE power.
And it is for the best for creation, freelances and studios. Soon we can see appear hybrid studios where the engineer just plugs in his MBP laptop, loads the local io setup and done…
Avid really has to go in deep introspection because their range is collapsing and the only high end products they will offer will be S4 and S6 coupled with MTRX systems. And at the point nobody will be willing to spend 30+ K just on automation buttons and 16 plastic faders…

Right, so I got my Ryzen 9 3950X, a 16 core chip, in early 2020. And my job is to write computer software. Nothing to do with audio, and it's at an abstraction level high enough that it's totally irrelevant on what kind of architecture it runs. And there's network latency, looking things up in a database, etc. As long as it's not too slow.

With audio, things are a little different. You need reliable real-time processing speed, and DSPs are good at that. They also tend to be cheaper than general purpose CPUs, and use less power for the same task.

However, something like a Ryzen 9 is an order of a magnitude faster than a DSP. And while you cannot compare MIPS (million instructions per second) between general purpose CPUs and DSPs, there's no denying that a CPU with 8, 12, 16 or more cores completely blows a DSP out of the water, performance-wise.

There is also the issue that writing software in general is not that easy, and the closer you are to the bare metal – say, when processing real-time data such as audio – it becomes more difficult and therefore more expensive. Also, you need special tools such as integrated development environments (IDEs) and compilers. On Windows, they nowadays even come for free, even from Microsoft. But for specialist environments such as DSPs, where you cannot leverage the immense user base that the Windows. iOS and Android platforms have, these tools can be pretty pricy.

Let's take another example. In the late 1970s, the Cray-1 supercomputer was introduced. This thing was used to calculate the flow of air over the wings of the Space Shuttle. It was a truly impressive feat of engineering, but the mobile phone in your pocket is at least 1000 times as fast as that Cray-1.

CPUs are not necessarily becoming twice as fast every 18 months, as was long the case; instead, they keep adding cores, and different kind of processors. Graphic processors are vector units just like the Cray-1, and don't necessarily lend themselves very well for audio processing, but with 16 cores, you can run an awful lot of things in parallel.

So, is DSP dead? Yes, absolutely. From a software development point of view, it's a dead end: the market is too small for such bespoke designs. Also, moving to the next generation of DSPs is not going to be as straightforward as getting a faster CPU, so there will be much more time between new editions.

I just got a Mac book M1 pro, I’m waiting for my interface to come in. But I worked out of an intel i9 10900K and I still had issues recording at low buffer lengths. But when I added the Apollo twin dsp, it was incredible. Definitely worth it in my opinion. I’ll see what this M1 pro can do. If I can get the same quality without the dsp, I’ll return my Apollo

Click on another tab and I swear your listening to Michael Rooker

I think UAD’s solution is their new Spark plug-in subscription service. Spark allows all UAD plugins to run native on your Mac. I think that this is a much better solution than how they’ve done things in the past. I have an Apollo x8p, Apollo 4, and Satellite Octo. I still run into Code error -38 with all of it. And, tbh, it’s the satellite that creates this error.

Well, a year ago I bought the Apollo Twin X (Heritage package [extra plugins]) for about $1200. Since then, I've been hoovering up plugins, spending about $1450 on them alone. All were bought at sale prices and all but one had $25 or $50 coupons, average of $81 per plugin/collection.

I had been dreaming of UAD/UAD-2 for about ten years, originally scanning eBay for used PCI cards. When the Apollo line came out, I switched my aim for the $600 device. Then new versions were released and with it a new price that kept climbing, until I would pay double what I initially wanted to spend.

When I got it, there were connection issues with Windows 10 Pro, for system audio it would work only for a second upon turning it on, then stop. It worked fine in the DAW, though. I found out that I could disable and re-enable the device to get it working, but then the inputs were all messed up.

After growing tired of power cycling the device, I finally called in to their incredibly small support window. The guy helping me was new to it all and didn't even have a device of his own. He said he'd enter everything in to a ticket, but that never happened.

Then one day, I realized that it worked perfectly if I was in Hitman 2, turned it on and it didn't stop working. For months, I'd start the game up anytime I needed to use the Apollo.

Recently, I believe I found the real issue. Windows kept showing a microphone icon when I'd turn it on in the start bar. I disabled the audio input support and everything started working perfectly.

Even with all this nonsense and the hassle of the plugins being coupled with a piece of hardware, I have thoroughly enjoyed the output I've been getting from using it. I've got an Alesis ADAT HD-24 that I can run in and record 8 channels from the ADAT in as well as the 2 inputs all at the same time. It's a bit messy, but it works.

What I like, I do not have a lot of money and so the computer I build is a bit outdated. I've got an i3 Intel (Kaby Lake) processor, and I use the system for many other things (have 20+ tabs open in Chrome, other software running, mining crypto too) that can suck up memory.

This leads to the one benefit that I see, those that have older systems and already have an Apollo, it's great to have the DSPs to handle a lot of processing.

What I do find, though, is that it's easy to exhaust the DSPs. This then has me using the legacy LA-2A and 1176s to lessen the impact. Some plugins, like the Lexicon-480 or Capital Chambers, will eat 50% of the Twin's DSP power, making them pretty much useless unless you want to bounce it out.

All in all, I can't refute the argument of what is to come. What I can say is that even with all the headaches, I love this thing to bits. Do I have regrets getting it? No, I wanted it for so long and am proud to own it.

Man, that is one background that doesn't need any bokeh.. ;)

Apple should run this as an ad

Just bought a Mac Studio and upgraded to a Burl Interface

Glad I watched this, I was on the fence of getting into UAD Hardware. But I’d rather just upgrade to an M1

Agreed.

Spark