Universal Audio UAD-1e Express Pak

I bought the pci express card pci more since I qq months and I was very happy (qualities of plugs). and I wanted more power.
I do not think they have much in the way, I went in 24bits/48kHz to be more.
But with two cards is better.

UTILIZATION

Installation: good galley which the fault does not return in part to the DSUs.
the first was installed pci card with no points. PCI Express is something else:
1. to its BIOS, because I had a motherboard have pci-e ports but that did not work! but after updating the BIOS (what about the time when I bought it!)
2.ensuite here thickens: The pci-e is known at the expense of the first, in this case we must place each card in the slot, respectively, as high as possible so that the two do not conflict and are well recognized .
Surprises when 3.qq also updates the permissions in the registry: Cubase can not find the plugs! I had to start one after the other site amenities and permissions! Finally it works.

GETTING STARTED

Very good latency, very high quality plugs, especially the last Neve 1073, which blew me away demo, where purchase. With all the pannel, (I have a pack Ultra plus Neve and the multiband compressor), it was sth very versatile. And it does not sound dull!

To use two cards is a bit random because sometimes there is no optimization of DSP resources, so if the plugs last charge is heavy, it saturates when changing the order of the last two to ie less greedy last, resources are redistributed differently and here goes ... a bit odd, we have to think, it should be automatic.

OVERALL OPINION

In summary, the plugs are of such quality that you forget the rest, it is also the purpose of the map!
With two cards, preferring to 48kHz 96kHz sampling that is opened twice as many plugs!

Good quality / price ratio (especially as I accumulated three specials that $ 300 voucher on plugs), and above all it sounds really!

I spend on tedious data sheet. I can only say that the card is rather small, so no worries in the tower! I use it on a PC with dual processor Athlon 3200 + nVidia nForce4 Chipset 2Gig of DDR2 RAM + Motu Ultralite all under XP SP2.

UTILIZATION

Install: No worries! First you install the drivers, then off we plugue the card and on again.

Authorization: Very well screwed from Universal Audio! You manage your authorization and the whole shebang from your account on their site. If your PC is not connected to the Internet (audio on a PC, it's safer!) Pb not either, the permissions are not machine dependent. You can also transfer the permissions on another PC ... etc.. In short they have everything included!

GETTING STARTED

Stability: impeccable! No crash!
The interfaces of plugs are mostly near-photographic reproduction of the real machine: superb! The fluid level meters also is there!

The Big One: THE SOUND! Whaouh! How to say? I have good preamps, tapping correct and I worked with the best softwares plugins: Waves SSL, Waves API EQ URS ... etc
UAD-1 drives it all gently, without forcing ... It's not the slap spectacular, just that it sounds like good stuff hardware! This is the floor above, what ...
The Precision Limiter sounds the retreat of the Waves L2 and L3 (which is saying something, considering the quality of these!), Each plugin has a sound all his own, and always recognizable as emulating the musical gear to x thousand euros!

The black dot: the power. But this will not affect my rating because AU is very clear on this point: on their site you will find a chart that clearly explains the number of instances possible for each plug, so full transparency of the brand! Others should take a leaf!

OVERALL OPINION

This prestigious brand has everything included! Surprising to see how they were able to position itself on the software with as much talent, professionalism and creativity they have always had the hardware stuff!

I'll pay for a 2nd double the power because I 'imagines a mix voice, bass, drums, or a master without those plugs!

Total favorite!

- What characteristics have motivated your choice?
The use of DSP resources to alleviate my processor and quality plugs that we hear much about it.

- For what purpose?
Mix in home studio

- What is your config (Motherboard / CPU / Ram / Disk ,...)?
PC, Core2Duo E4600, 2Gb of ram.

UTILIZATION

- The installation is done it without problems?
nothing to report

- Have you experienced any incompatibilities?
Not with me, but you can find cases of incompatibilities on the net

- The general configuration is easy?
Simple to configure and understand

- The manual is clear and sufficient?
The English manual is very comprehensive.

GETTING STARTED

- The drivers are stable?
no problems to report at this time

- Are they often updated?
updated since the release of new plugins

- What software do you use most often?
CS-1, precision goddess transient designer

- What you get lag?
latency obtained depends on what the sound card.
if the latency of the sound card is 256 samples, the UAD will add its own latency, which would be 512 samples.
if the latency of the sound card is now 1024, the UAD add its latency 2048.
low latency, AU plugs use the CPU quite heavily on my PC, but high latency, it does nothing quality.
It is therefore useful to reduce the CPU at high latencies.

- How many tracks do you manage to record / playback simultaneously?
everything is said here: UAD Charts ( https://www.uaudio.com/support/uad/charts.html )

OVERALL OPINION

- For how long have you been using it?
I use it for 8 months

- What thing do you like most/least about it?
what I like most is the excellence of some plugins like goddess, plate140, the Transient Designer, Precision bus comp and the 1176LN.

what I like least is that some plugins are rather gadget pretext of vintage emulation, while they are at the same level as native plug-ins much cheaper or even freeware. What is great is that we are not obliged to buy them.
For my part, I overlook some with no regrets: EQ Harrison LA3A, maximize accuracy and limiter, Precision EQ, Precision enhancer fairchild, pultecpro, DreamVerb.

- Did you try many other models before getting this one?
I tried many freeware and native plugins (Voxengo, Kjaerhus, nebula3, OhmForce, DDMF, Bootsie, TBT ...)
I always use native plugins that are irreplaceable.
and I fell on some UAD plugins I found great.

- What is your opinion about the value for the price?
in my case, it was excellent.
€ 100 for a UAD-1 to OCCAZ
€ 100 for a new UAD-1e with $ 100 voucher.
plus some plugs enjoying good promos.
the price of some plugins is really too high.

- Knowing what you know now, would you make the same choice?
This is very useful in general with plugins UAD is having simple tools with little adjustment and quickly get a meaningful result, and also the fact that they use almost no CPU resources.
it is a good complement of native plugins that I use every day.
I do not regret my choice.