Are new and more powerful UAD PCIe accelerators ever going to come? We need better.

For the record, I own the Octo Satellite USB and I'm honestly disappointed with how only a few plugins will bring it to its knees. A lot of newer plugs will have a limit of just 8 or 9 (!) instances in total before reaching the limit. Meanwhile, most people here might not know this but for the price of $1000 (which is the price of an octo UAD2 PCIe card) you can buy a 10-core (!) Intel 7900X CPU that would run TONS of these UAD plugins without any issue. The UAD2 accelerator technology is horribly, horribly outdated and overpriced and they make bank on selling such outdated processing power.

It's honestly shocking that UAD is charging $1000 for a device that processing wise is weaker than current $200 Intel and AMD processors, and we all keep buying it. It's a sham - price should be drastically lowered or the performance needs to go way up. I truly hope UAD will come out with stronger performing accelerators, or drastically lower the price in the current microchip market. Anybody who follows this year's CPU market trends will realize this.

No one would disagree....but...think about this. We all love the plugins and don't really care about the DSP. But the plugins don't have great resale value. And the DSP holds it value well. So I guess it's worth something.

Start running all your sessions in 44.1k and you will get more bang for the buck.

An OCTO is a really good card....

YYR123 said:

An OCTO is a really good card....

Click to expand...

You clearly don't understand the microprocessor market. Did you read the thread? The octo is vastly overpriced and incredibly weak performance wise compared to any modern CPU these days.

I truly don't get this Stockholm syndrome some of you have here - I love a lot of the plugins but the accelerator hardware is overpriced garbage. If you understand how digital audio works and compare processing power to modern CPUs it's clear as day how hopelessly outdated these cards are. I truly hope they will release a much better performing one next year - anybody spending $1000 dollars on the Octo hardware is getting absolutely ripped off.

calimike said:

No one would disagree....but...think about this. We all love the plugins and don't really care about the DSP. But the plugins don't have great resale value. And the DSP holds it value well. So I guess it's worth something.

Click to expand...

I think a lot of us do actually. The fact that a $1000 accelerator unit can run only 8 instances of modern UAD plugins speaks volumes about how weak and grossly overpriced the hardware is. Some of my bigger projects require a lot of plugins and with native plugins, I never feel constrained (given I have a good modern 8+ core CPU that can handle a ton of plugins) but with UAD forcing me on using their hardware, I don't have any other choice.

Hell, one thousand dollars nets you a Ryzen Threadriper: a 16 (!!) core CPU that absolutely destroys any UAD2 accelerator hardware. It's absurd how little value you get with the accelerator cards.

I love the plugins, but the hardware is laughable. It's a bad deal for customers and they need to either price it correctly or update their hardware. There's an odd level of stockholm syndrome regarding the hardware on these forums... but asking for decently priced hardware is very fair and necessary at this point.

It's a strange struggle. If they were much less expensive uad would start to lose its status. Look at Waves and Slate. Both are now beginner marketed.
Most plugins were $500 each when I switched to daws around 1999 or so, probably. When uad came out a couple years later it was the quality that stood out. It was okay that the plugins were INEXPENSIVE, because you bought and ran in on their hardware.
Somehow everyone now thinks plugins should be free and cheaper plugins like uad are now the "expensive" plugins.
Uad is priced about right. You piss and moan because you're cheap and entitled. People that do this for fun instead of a living pissed and moaned about Digidesign card and plugin prices too.
Guess what all the pros used and still use? Digi and UAD. Why? Because they do what nothing else can, be it performance, latency, and/or quality.
Pros use what they think is the best tool for the job. Uad is it when it comes to hardware emulations, so we use it. And it's a pretty good value really. Yes it has restrictions. Not restrictions like hardware though!

Would you rather pay hardware prices for CPU heavy software you can run natively or average plugin prices for the best plugins available that have limited instances but don't eat up CPU? Unfortunately piracy makes that question academic but you get my point.

reckless21 said:

You clearly don't understand the microprocessor market. Did you read the thread? The octo is vastly overpriced and incredibly weak performance wise compared to any modern CPU these days.

I truly don't get this Stockholm syndrome some of you have here - I love a lot of the plugins but the accelerator hardware is overpriced garbage. If you understand how digital audio works and compare processing power to modern CPUs it's clear as day how hopelessly outdated these cards are. I truly hope they will release a much better performing one next year - anybody spending $1000 dollars on the Octo hardware is getting absolutely ripped off.

Click to expand...

Is that really true in the instance of running UA plugs in with their oversampling etc. ? I read opinions like yours often, invariably someone who really knows the sharc chip typology chimes in and explains why it is particularly well suited to run ua plugs in and why direct comparison to cpu processing are somewhat misleading ?

I do agree they are still overpriced, but every time UA drops its prices it further depresses the used market: not that it seems to care at all about that.

Pro said:

If they were much less expensive uad would start to lose its status. Look at Waves and Slate. Both are now beginner marketed.

Click to expand...

Yes, the price of your product certainly plays a role in the percieved value of it. But you still need to provide enough value to back it up.
Look at what is happening to Gibson now for example. And not to mention how many professional who are switching from Mac to Windows because Apple can't provide enough value to their pro line of products. The difference with UA is that they are currently serving such a small part of the market, and if they don't update their DSP hardware it will shrink to an even smaller part.

The gap between cheap and expensive in terms of audio quality is so small these days. That's why you see more and more pros using cheap hardware and software to a larger extent. If you are somewhat business minded you will realize that if you can get the tools for 1/10 of the money and still get as good of a result you will have a competitive advantage over those who think they need to buy expensive tools just because they are "professionals".
As good as UAs plugins are, I think their main advantage these days is their reputations as a solid company who provides good support. That is certainly a reason to pay more for a product. But they still need to be able to cater a large enough market.

Let's face it. Their top of the line DSP product is not enough to run a full session. You'd need at least two, preferably three. And then you are looking at $3000 + the cost of the plugins. It's becoming encreasingly more difficult to justify that kind of investment considering how good the competition has become and how powerful CPUs are.

reckless21 said:

You clearly don't understand the microprocessor market. Did you read the thread? The octo is vastly overpriced and incredibly weak performance wise compared to any modern CPU these days.

I truly don't get this Stockholm syndrome some of you have here -.

Click to expand...

Listen CHAP, I’m not the one with issues here am I? , you wanna cry about them not using a intel XEON to run the Plugs? Really?, go get a digigrid and get over yourself.

It is what it is, UA will use what they want to use, accept it and move on...its about the music and the sounds....go make music.

If the performance of the card doesn’t make you happy then sell the card and go be someone, somewhere else!!

Your words are worthless and no one cares, especially not anyone from UA.

We all feel some of what you are saying, but we all got over it and like the plugins enough to just put up with it. grow up and get on with it....

I'm sure UAD will drop new cards, but something recently dawned on me. Their biggest market is Mac users. Which current PCIe equipped Mac would they use to test new cards on if they were to make them now?

That's right. There is no Mac available that fits the bill. They already experienced the mishap of their previously designed QUAD, DUO and SOLO cards being incompatible with the trashcan macs via a thunderbolt chassis. I'm sure they won't want to go through that again when Apple drop their new modular Mac Pro next year.

Also, if they were to make a new thunderbolt Satellite, would they be wise to use T2 or T3?

I personally understand why they would stick, rather than twist at the moment. Apple messed up a lot creatives with this Mac Pro fiasco and I'm sure card manufacturers like UAD, who rely on Mac Pro sales, are feeling the pinch as well as we are.

I am currently squeezing the juice out of my laptop in wait of a new Pro and debating whether it's worth jumping on a trashcan in the interim. Erring on the side of waiting.

I feel UAD are currently squeezing out the juice from us users with these new plugins, deals & sales, and new users with Apollos, in the interim whilst waiting for the right time to re-enter the card market.

I absolutely expect new higher spec DSP based cards, and Satellites, to drop shortly after the new PCIe equipped Mac Pro lands. I'd be very surprised if they play any of their cards, pun intended, before then. In some ways it would be unwise to do so.

if they dropped in the new dual core sharc chips, which have the same footprint as the current sharc chip, why would they not work in current pci-e slots or chassis ?

Kcatthedog said:

if they dropped in the new dual core sharc chips, which have the same footprint as the current sharc chip, why would they not work in current pci-e slots or chassis ?

Click to expand...

I don't design cards so I couldn't tell you. I imagine they might be going for even more power than we imagine at a premium price with a slightly different chip design, or more chips than the current 8. Who knows? It's all speculation. Whatever it is, I see the sense in waiting for the new T3 and PCIe equipped Mac Pro's to test all possibilities.

I ain't mad at them for waiting either, if that is actually what is going down of course.

It is a very easy issue. When octo was released could handle, I guess, 32 of his most demanding plugs. Today 8. 25% of its original performance. What else there is to say?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The performance hasn't changed, it just hasn't grown to meet the same demands that the newer, higher DSP plugins use. Fortunately, the DSP is scalable and holds its resale value pretty well.

J said:

I don't design cards so I couldn't tell you. I imagine they might be going for even more power than we imagine at a premium price with a slightly different chip design, or more chips than the current 8. Who knows? It's all speculation. Whatever it is, I see the sense in waiting for the new T3 and PCIe equipped Mac Pro's to test all possibilities.

I ain't mad at them for waiting either, if that is actually what is going down of course.

Click to expand...

8 dual core chips would double the processing capacity.

Kcatthedog said:

8 dual core chips would double the processing capacity.

Click to expand...

Yep, true, but it wouldn't surprise me if they dropped a daddy PCIe dual core 12 or 16 chip card to end the argument, sold it at a premium, and just lowered the price of the existing pieces slightly.

I'm not sure what UA will be releasing in terms of an enhanced processing architecture, but I imagine it will be based on a more powerful processor to meet the needs of ever more complex algorithms.

The most recent emulations of electronic circuits for the Distressor and SSL E channel are closing in on being indiscernible from the real thing. I think the next frontier will be the ability to reproduce the complexity of physical systems the likes of which OWS is a first attempt. Also, I think there will be a need for reverb emulations of the quality of the Bricasti, and beyond.

Also, in terms of the modelling of analog circuits, many of the latest emulations sound great within certain tolerances, but don't react like the real thing when pushed beyond those limits. To get that kind of response from the emulations may mean much greater algorithm complexity and consequent dsp overhead.

- Richard