UAD-2 Satellite Firewire

UAD Octo Card.

I have now finished the HDX upgrade. I bought a UAD Octo card to have as many plugs as I could because UAD is such a great sounding product. So, nothing wrong with the product but, the delay on some of these plugs makes it impossible to use as a recording tool. Mixing yes but from a musicians viewpoint,far to much latency as musicians play in time and plug ins don't. It seems I am stuck with the usual politics between Avid and other brands. After asking many questions about what to buy, it seems that I should have bought an Apollo interface to save latency but of course, this takes away a lot from the idea of having DSP. I feel like I'm stuck between a corporate cross fire here. To sum up, great card, bad politics.

Love the plugins, though way too expensive for the amount of DSP

While I love the sound of the plugins, it is very disappointing how quickly the DSP is used up. The SHARC processors used cost next to nothing and when you compare to the kind of computer you could buy for a couple of quads it is quite astonishing. Would be great if they could also make use of your computers native DSP.

UAD-2 Satellite Duo

The biggest challenge in upgrading my recording studio computer was trying to budget not only for the new computer, but to make sure that I had enough money to upgrade my UAD cards. For 7 years I stayed with my aging Power PC 2.7 GHz, Dual Processor G5 because I had to get the right system with UAD cards.

Thank God for the engineers at UAD who created in 2011 the UAD-2 Satellite platform. This allowed me to purchase a mac mini 2.0 i7 quad core sever and the UAD-2 Satellite for under $2000. This allowed me keep all of the plugin I had grown to depend. My favorites being the EMT Plate 140, Pultec Pro and EQ1, LA2A, and the Neve 88 RS channel strip.

All I can say is thank you UA for another exceptional product. :)

The satellite itself works fine and seems to perform very stable.
The biggest issue is the price for all the plugins. Way too expensive compared to native alternatives.

Thanks to the awesome UAD-1 trade-in deal, I can now use all my powerful UAD plug-ins on my new iMac with this incredibly solid device. Installation was a breeze, and it works fine and gives me access to even more top-of-the-line plug-ins!
The Satellite unit also enables me to put more emphasis on software instruments, since the CPU is relieved by the firewire driver.

Once again, thanks to Universal Audio for bringing out the best gear in business!

As a UAD-1 (two cards) owner with a G5 I was a little skeptical at first about updating to a Macbook Pro and UAD-2 Satellite Duo system with latency performance concerns over firewire. After getting the new system that fear is long gone, it performs beautifully. More than surpasses my old system. Works great with my firewire 400 Tascam FW-1884 audio & control surface with no issues, does not effect plug-in count or performance. I have a full UAD powerhouse that is truly mobile finally. Great job UAD!

Jamie Downing
Gallery Of Voices
www.galleryofvoices.com

unstable hardware

i've found the satellite to be very unstable. Constant error messages if i dare use more than 3 or 4 plugins. Once the errors occur i have to remove all plugins from my project and start again after a full shut down and reboot. The latency on the firewire is too high for tracking too. Shame there is no port for updating the hardware,

I would recommend the pcie cards as i've used them for years. I've found support to be slow though so hopefully you don't have any problems!

Moving to the satellite has been very problematic. I no longer use it and have found native alternatives.

Well I am sure the plugins are great but you should write on the label in big letters; FOR MIXING AND MASTERING ONLY!! NO LIVE TRACKING! Tell me how one uses and Echo on guitar without intuiting the way it sounds... not something you want to add on as with a lot of the plugs. After crashing several times, reinstalling several times, I finally found somewhere deep in the manual that it is recommended for mixing and mastering.
That's just great... I unplugged everything and now it is a nice desk ornament.

When and if you get a thunderbolt interface, I hope you acknowledge all of us who bought (a lot of money) your mixing and mastering program.

I don't care to have my name made public in this review if it is posted.

I think its to early to have a solid opinion about the product. But I can say the plugins sounds really good, specially Pultec Pro and Fatso Sr.

I got a crash once or twice, just by opening some instances of Fatso. Which was quite weird, because it was a small project... actually i was only making some experiences with the new plugins.

Well, if I can, I would like to make this review in a few weeks. Probably I'll be more aware about this great device.

Dani M.

Surprisngly robustness considering the FireWire !

I already own a Satellite Thunderbolt Octo that I love and I bought the Satellite FireWire Quad to run on an iMac late 209 (core 2 duo) for smaller projects or experiments but with some caution regarding the bandwidth. I reached today the number of 50 plugins on a project without crash nor downturns nor real latency issues by setting the buffer at 1088 samples at 48khz. UAD2 Accelerators ROCK !!! Hope to see resizable gui's and better presets management in a future plugins update.

Surprisngly robustness considering the FireWire !

I already own a Satellite Thunderbolt Octo that I love and I bought the Satellite FireWire Quad to run on an iMac late 209 (core 2 duo) for smaller projects or experiments but with some caution regarding the bandwidth. I reached today the number of 50 plugins on a project without crash nor downturns nor real latency issues by setting the buffer at 1088 samples at 48khz. UAD2 Accelerators ROCK !!! Hope to see resizable gui's and better presets management in a future plugins update.

Surprisngly robustness considering the FireWire !

I already own a Satellite Thunderbolt Octo that I love and I bought the Satellite FireWire Quad to run on an iMac late 209 (core 2 duo) for smaller projects or experiments but with some caution regarding the bandwidth. I reached today the number of 50 plugins on a project without crash nor downturns nor real latency issues by setting the buffer at 1088 samples at 48khz. UAD2 Accelerators ROCK !!! Hope to see resizable gui's and better presets management in a future plugins update.

wonderful

love those plugins :)

Exellence

It sounds incredible ! I'm recommending it to all my producer friends in Argentina

Excellence

It sounds really incredible, I'm recommending this gear to al my producer friends in Argentina

Back in UAD Heaven

Got my UAD Satellite back from repair (actually received a replacement unit) and with the Apollo interface and UAD-2 card I can mix with my favorite plugins again!!! Thanks UAD and Sweetwater for making this happen. More plugins, here I come!!!

Great product (And just as good as Thunderbolt with converter)

I make electronic music and need to push my samples hard to get them loud enough to cut through. Using Waves or other VSTs just didn't work. Everything always ended up in a digital mush. Not so with UAD. Everything sounds natural. V happy!

Plenty of Firepower!

Added the extra processing firepower I need to mix due to my infatuation and love of all of the UAD plugins.

Access UAD powerful plugins

These plugins are a must have in the audio production process. Discover what your mixes are missing with the tools to make critical listening decisions. With the quad satellite you get a comfortable amount of headroom. A must have !!!!

UAD-2 Satellite FireWire

very efficient tool for mixing and sound design, thank you uad!!!!