Compressors sound great. Unfortunately, UAD-1 is far from compatible with Mac G5 (the card eats all the CPU the mac has to offer--just the opposite of what a plug-in card should do), Digital Performer (MOTU's fault--no delay compensation like Nuendo--the latency issues will drive you crazy), and nothing is easy once you start adding cards to a PC. I've been waiting (eagerly) for about a year for a stable, low-latency, easy-to-use DAW system, and in that time I've spent about $25,000 building around my DAW with analog gear. Now I have all the compressors, reverbs, EQs, etc., that I was hoping to get from the UAD in the physical format. But this was not easy: I needed to add 20A of circuit to my studio. Sheesh.

Good luck if you decide to get the UAD-1.

Well I would have to disagree. You should not have to go out and spend 25 grand to replace your UAD-1. I just got my second card two months ago and they are rock solid. I will warn you though that it took a while to get my DAW optimized and now it works flawlessly. I am using Cubase 2 and currently have a project using 42 tracks.

UAD's comps are great and the guys seem to be going to the Powercore for the reverbs. My next purchase is going to be a Powercore Element, it is priced $100 US below the UAD-1 now.

I bought my first UAD-1 in Canada at the music store and paid $1100, with our dollar doing good now the second one I got from the US for $850 CAN, it was cheaper to buy from the US, that included GST, exchange and shipping. We are being ripped off by the stores here, now that our dollar is doing good, it is cheaper to buy from the US.

Before you commit, check out the: [="http://www.chrismilne.com/uadforums/default.asp"]UAD forums[/]="http://www.chrismil…"]UAD forums[/] for anyone who might be using the same PC hardware you are using. DAW setup is critical, your sound card, video card and motherboard combinations can cause grief. Some guys just have not got the right PC hardware combo and do not seem to get their setup working properly. The rest of us swear by the UAD-1.

Here is my setup:

Asus TUSL2-C mobo
PIII 1.2 GHz tualatin, 512k L2
512MB SD133 RAM
2 x Maxtor 80 GB 7200 ATA133
Matrox G550 Dual Video card
2 x Daytek 19" CRT mopnitors
M-Audio Delta 1010
M-Audio Audiophile 2496
2 x UAD-1

Win 2k SP2, Cubase 2, Wavelab 4, Reason 2.5, Kontakt 1.2, Battery

I run Win 2k in Standard mode to manage my IRQ's manually, and optimize the OS. [[url=http://="http://www.musicxp…"]MusicXP.net[/]="http://www.musicxp…"]MusicXP.net[/] is a great place to start if you want to optimize your OS. My DAW does not connect to the Internet and is strictly my studio PC. My PC setup was under $2000, so I did not have to spend $25000 to get all the working compressors, reverbs, and EQ's I needed, but then again, I am smarter than the average bear.

Again, the [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.chrismil…"]UAD Forums[/]="http://www.chrismil…"]UAD Forums[/] are a great place to research the UAD-1.

Well I would have to disagree. You should not have to go out and spend 25 grand to replace your UAD-1.

If you're trying to buy the analog versions of everything that comes with the UAD1, you could easily spend more than $25K doing that...1176's run about $1600 a pop, LA2A's about $2400, and now that the Fairchild is included...

I think it sounds great. I'm using it with DP 3.1 and have no problems with it. The latency compensation thing is a bit of a pain, but certainly not a huge deal.

-Duardo

Second what Audiofile says. I'm running 2 systems though with my server system(fxteleport) a 2.8g running the uad's. This is so far working well. I use XP pro instead of win2000.

Both machines are the striped down version(self striped) of xp and do nothing but audio. Rock solid. I was going to get a 3rd uad but am now looking towards the poco element(for the classiverb and tubifex).

Definatly check out the UAD forum and give a listen to Cass's tracks under the "The songs" part of the forum. This will give you an idea of how UAD is sounding.