How Many Plugins Can a UAD Quad Satellite Run?

[@Dustrauma]

Excellent video! The data references of core potential have been immensely helpful towards a considerable purchase of UAD Accelerator power. Many thanks!

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

thanks dude, glad it helped

[@rickydee2152]

Great demonstration, thank you!

[@benhaim2098]

THE BEST DSP DEMO EVER ON KZbin!!!

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Thanks Ben

[@JackMajor]

This is the video I needed for making my decision in buying a Satellite. Thank you so much!

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

You’re welcome

[@higltypig]

UAD had their day. They should figure out how folks can run their plugins with out the card in the future for recall

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Don't think they will ever do that tbh. The only way the can guarantee audio integrity & quality is to control it end to end with the hardware and software working together.

[@jayhamn6032]

@@BenHartwellGuitar this comment didn’t age well !

[@Arthur_My_Dear]

@@jayhamn6032 LOL

[@simonsmith2642]

We run our interface in live scenario. So this would be the perfect solution, to eliminate quite a bit of hardware for 2 vocal chains, an electric guitar chain, and acoustic chain, and analog synth chain. It seems like this could eliminate a lot of gear, by running everything in the box. We use an Apogee ATM and this seems to have a massive amount of on board DSP, but comes with a price tag. But the hardware we can eliminate on stage, my goodness. Priceless. I may sell my Audient setup and the Apogee. Just for this no latency work flow, to be used live. And of course some near zero latency we could throw on sends. We could eliminate amps, vocal processors, time for an upgrade! It never ends does it.

[@MKD371]

So with a quad core card, you could run about 8 neve channel strips. So if you had a simple 24 track session or even just 16, it would become a analogue summing mixer in effect. There would be no way you could have a neve on all channels, bussing and routing would be needed. Less maybe more, but for that amount of money this isn't flexible. That said, with grouping and summing, it might be the way forward, however, given that a neve desk as 48, channels or more, this seems seriously limited.

[@YOLO-pj3hh]

I just going to buy the satellite because I want to get the Neve Bundle and some plugins that are not available in Native version.

[@jdigital1]

Great Stuff, Thanks For Doing This!

[@alexlugogr1]

Hey brother great video but not sure if this using real world scenarios? I was convinced that a quad may be enough for my needs because I just use a few plugins but after seeing your video I’m concerned I could only do a few. After these many years; do you regret getting the quad and not the octo?? Have you ever run out of dsp for mixing?? I have an Apollo twin and tracking is not a concern but now I’m not sure quad is enough after watching this video. I have a home studio and mainly record for myself. I don’t think I’d be using plugins on individual tracks as I rather route to buses… thoughts?

[@charlychalton7743]

Nice one 👍 ,much better than the uad dsp usage table .

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Cheers dude!

[@robsacre]

I’d like to get into uad stuff but the price point vs instances isn’t quite there imho…

[@CybreSmee]

Wow. I run 24 stereo bx_console E4000 across, plus 8 channel bus and master channel on my PC - might use around 30% DPS. Not a new system either. These USD units are for idiots with too much money.

[@shayneoneill1506]

Oof. Was looking to get one of these as my CPU tops out at about 40 plugins. If 4 instances top it out, I'd need 10 of these, just to break even against the CPU. Bad value.

[@MattCess]

With the advancement of technology and processors they could make the plugins consume much less resources, but it is a business to buy more dsp processors. It seems too much to me.

[@gitarman666]

Agreed, we also see only modest processors being used on high end gear that is on the lower end of what is available in the tech market today I have a band mate who is an engineer with intel as their biggest client he is helpful at keeping me less than impressed with my gear My AxeFx 3 uses Two 1.25 GHz, floating-point “Keystone” Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) a downgrade from the sharc processors they used to use The Apollos use the sharc But the specs for the exact modules leave lots of room for needed expansion so they have us buying more While offering Luna as a free DAW that eats money So after dropping $3000 - $5000 on an X interface you still need more out of the box So satellites or additional daisy chained interfaces to the rescue So sure it’s about the bottom line My iMac was the last intel iteration before the MI silicone it’s maxed at 3.8 mhz with turbo with 11 cores 128 gb ram I’m curious how many UAD2 plugs could run if I had the option to choose that power over the dsp count in the apollos Most of my cores are barely moving the meter but my sessions are bottoming out at my current 8 Apollo processor setup and that’s before adding a satellite

[@gitarman666]

Additional note the sharc+ tops out at 450 mhz each so that’s 1/7th the power of the one iMac 5k chip

[@MattCess]

@@gitarman666 crazy. 450 Mhz is a intel pentium 2 procesor... Big funking business have UAD with they plugins and dsp

[@robertjuarez3675]

Awesome video! Can you use satellite, without the apollo?

[@billesposito2112]

44.1 Uses less DSP . I can't hear any difference and I listened close between 44.1 , 48 ,96 . The difference saves just enough for me to use the Vocal chain that I like.

[@unitedmogulmediagroup]

I wish you would have done this in stereo as well, the numbers change.

[@iliravdyli4109]

DSP but the fan noise on my macbook still hits the limit when using luna.🥵

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Yeah fan noise is a killer for me too. Im upgrading to M1 as soon as UAD get things working. Macs Fan Control is good for slowing the fans down in the meantime, helps when recording for sure.

[@musicmediaproductions]

Great video! Can you tell me why my DSP is at 6% without having anything on it? Also, why would you load all these instances of one plugin on 1 channel? Why not load these plugins on separate channels? No one is going to load up a channel strip 3-4 versions on 1 channel lol So would the DSP react differently if they were on separate channels? We have the apollo twin X and looking to invest in the satellite quad so we can run our SSL plugins At the moment we are only able to run like 3 SSL channel strips! Have a great and thanks again for the amazing video!

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

yeah no one is gonna load 4 SSL strips on one channel lol. it was just the easiest way to show what each core was doing. I don't think that the DSP would react differently if they were on more channels I would have to try it. Yeah I've wondered about the small % with nothing loaded, my system does it too. Definitely go for a satellite, its saved me multiple times. Its great to just have a few more cores when you need them. Cheers dude!

[@musicmediaproductions]

@@BenHartwellGuitar Thank you so much! The octo seems like a good investment! Glad you did this test and good to know they dont operate differently if you was to load different channels! Im glad im not the only one with that %, I thought I was alone and was like give me back some of that (DSP PLEASEEEEE) lol It might just be 6% but I need it! lol Cheers to you as well and Have a great day and wonderful weekend!

[@Arthur_My_Dear]

Some DSP is needed to run the Console even with no plugins loaded

[@kpnutz52]

Could you perhaps do some examples of mixes that maybe have small track count to large track count?. Also without using the same plug in repeated multiple times. More a realistic use. And also consider that people might have used plugins for tracking and committed. So maybe a channel strip will not be needed during mixing?..

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Yeah, I tried to do it the most logical and fair way I could. I did some combinations at the end of the video to give a more kinda real world use. I. guess there's no perfect way to do the test, everyones use is gonna be different.

[@paayoub]

Thanks

[@bill4510]

Can you run More UAD plugins in Luna VS say cubase or logic?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

I'm not sure, gonna have to give that a go

[@bill4510]

@@BenHartwellGuitar Thanks

[@streetscapesounds8802]

you pointed at the download button, not the subscribe button

[@jimleveilleur2510]

thanks a lot ! can we couple many satellite ? there is a limit ?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

I think you can have multiple satellites yeah. Drew from UA is quite active on social media maybe he would know.

[@ignorantboxing]

How many plugins do you think i can upload an OCTO Satellite with an apollo x4 ? I dont really need all that i just want to have it.

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

im not really sure, I don't have an x4. But it will be a fair few. that's 8 cores so should be roughly double what this satellite does by itself

[@senselesscreations]

The problem lies in their uotdated DSPs units - they are 7-8 years old, in that period CPUs went much more powerful. I can't see anything but some deliberate strategy from UA in that - they (for one reason or other) don't want their SHARCs to be more powerful. Nowadays you can get an STM microcontroller with DSP, AI and whatnot capabilities for 50$ - c'mon UA stop cheating us!!!

[@hearmenow909]

It might encourage people to buy more plugins if they used better processors. They're missing a trick. Mind you, they wont even bundle a Thunderbolt cable with the Satellite, which speaks volumes.

[@Redgreezy]

Hey, hope all is well I have a quick question ? Can I use this with a Apollo solo as well ?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Yeah adding a UAD SAT will give you for more cores plus the single core in your solo

[@sam-no5qb]

You think I’d be better upgrading my Apollo twin x to a quad or get a satellite?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Either way is a good upgrade. You would get more cores getting a satellite. Or you could get an x4 and get 2 more cores and 2 more mic pres

[@conrow1157]

Thanks for the great video. I've read that Firewire has its limits and then again reduces the number of usable plugins. (As of v6.2.0, UAD-2 FireWire devices (Satellite and Apollo*) have a maximum limit of 58 stereo or 116 mono plug-in instances, and counts for these devices are subject to these limits. These theoretical limits are based on a 44.1 kHz sample rate with a FireWire 800 connection and the UAD Bandwidth Allocation set to 85% in the UAD Meter & Control Panel.). But since I will probably not use more than 58 plugins anyway, the only question remains, what is your experience with regard to latency? Do you get along well with the new system in your DAW? Thunderbolt 3, for example, should be much faster. But does that affect the latency or just the usability of the number of plugins? The DSP is limited on the quad anyway. Thank you!

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

thanks dude. For me I don't notice any latency when using UAD plugins. I only start to get latency issues if I use 3rd party plugins, Ozone 9 especially. This may be just because of the way Luna works, but I can track through (as I understand it) any UAD plugin with pretty much zero latency in ARM mode. Can't really speak about Firewire as I only have experience with the newer interfaces I'm afraid. Its a bit beyond me on how the units vary, but I do know that you can daisy chain up to I think 4 Thunderbolt units to get more DSP and inputs. As for the new DAW, yeah I love it. If you have a Mac and some UAD hardware I would highly recommend giving it a go.

[@conrow1157]

@@BenHartwellGuitar Thanks a lot Mr. Hartwell

[@lootlilpig402]

Will I be able to benefit from a Quad Core Satellite along side my Apollo Duo in Pro Tools in terms of mixing?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Yeah for sure. The Quad SAT would give you another 4 cores to use during mixing. So you'd be able to run loads more plugins like compressors etc because of the extra DSP

[@miklee87]

Can also non-UAD plugins run on the satellite? Like eg fabfilter?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Unfortunately not, only UAD stuff can be used with the satellite. everything else uses the CPU in the computer.

[@wakinglife7065]

Thank you so much

[@samsonlovesyou]

How did you get 5 inserts on each channel? My Console only seems to allow 4.

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

its in Luna, when you fill up the available slots it just adds another one.

[@racializedkanadian]

will there be a difference if the satellite is run using FW800 ? i've got a silver apollo quad running via TB1 card.

[@racializedkanadian]

my satellite is a quad as well.

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

possibly, I'm not sure I've never used one of the FW ones.

[@kingsle]

how can you mix anything with such limits? or do you just use these channels to track?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

limits are good, forces you to make decisions

[@SXTWLVE]

@@BenHartwellGuitar true. Qq. Does tracking through uad plugins sound as good as real compressors?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Tbh I don’t have much experience tracking with real ones, the UAD ones sound great tho. There’s a few videos on here where people have done side by side comparisons I think

[@musicnonstop1945]

Can I run UAD plug-ins on Satellite without UA interface?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

I think so yeah

[@MartinMartin-yi9to]

40% of a core for ONE single EQ. So......UAD is useless. Thank you.

[@Getyourknowledge45]

Hey, thanks for such an informative video. Question: do you happen to know if the usb satellite is considerably different than the thunderbolt/firewire versions? My laptop is windows and it’s quite powerful but it doesn’t support thunderbolt (in fact I can’t really find too much options yet for thunderbolt on pc) and so I was wondering if I should wait until I upgrade to a thunderbolt system. If there is no difference between systems then I might consider buying the usb version. Let me know if this is something you could answer as the UAD support hasn’t responded. Thank you

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Sorry dude I don’t know. I would have thought that they would be the same in terms of DSP power just a different connection. Hopefully UAD can let you know. Drew from UAD is pretty active on Facebook, you could try contacting him

[@floker4952]

can I use more than one satellite at the same time?

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

I think so yeah, I think you can use up to 6 TB3 UAD devices at once. Don't quote me though

[@MisticDW]

Thanks for this, this has convinced me not to buy into the UAD world, The DSP's are weak and only cost about $49 each, UA are taking the piss

[@sammythebull116]

How can people work with this?!? I dont understand.... 2 maby 3 plugins and its game over and spend 1600 euro for a apollo card.... How many cards do you need if your session have 50 tracks and want only uad plugins loaded in?!? Do you need to spend 50.000 euro or what?!🙈🤷‍♂️

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

I think people are missing the point with UAD stuff. Its effectively like having indistinguishable versions of many hardware pieces for recording not just mixing. For example lets say you wanted 4 real Neve 1073 channel strips to record with, that would cost £1500 per 1073, then you need to AtoD convert it and get it into the computer, or £1500 for a UAD interface with unison pre-amps that emulate the 1073 as close as is currently possible, with the advantage of being able to swap them out for API or SSL or whatever. That's what really sells it for me. But I get that people feel its expensive

[@jer7255]

What if I’m not using these UAD plugins in the console, what if I just want to mic with them in Logic Pro. Will there be a dsp limit? I want to use LA2A, 1176, SSL Chanel strip, Pultec Eq, Maag Eq 4, La 3A,

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

It should be the same DSP. The 'host', Logic or Console shouldn't make a difference, I think

[@thisbridgehascables]

Extremely subjective topic. Are you adding them before or after printing of the recording. I would suggest using them in unison mode .. then the sound gets printed, if you are worried about the sound getting printed, run your riff or lead through a loop pedal into the interface, craft the sound, then record the performance not the loop. This should minimize DSP usage. Be strategic with the plugins, or use some analog gear in the path.. this is basically replicating a analog method of recording.

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Yeah I always use unison when recording. They just sound soooo good!

[@inspiratmedia5984]

the UAD platform uses an ancient DSP hardware SHARC 21369 DSP , it was developed in 2004 and for that time it was good , but now is totally obsolete. All the "we use dsp so you don't overload your computer "is pure nonsense .... my windows computer uses a i9900k with 588 GFLOPS , versus 2.4 GFLOPS witch is a UAD DSP chip .. so that means my processor is equal with 245 UAD chips .

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

Doesn’t matter how powerful a CPU is, it still can’t run UAD plugins ;)

[@inspiratmedia5984]

@@BenHartwellGuitar because Universal Audio doesn't want to . for example in Luna DAW oxide tape is native .. so it is possible

[@BenHartwellGuitar]

@@inspiratmedia5984 yeah its probably possible, but you wouldn't get the same AD/DA and you wouldn't be able to track in real time with zero latency. that's the biggest plus for me

[@omarnomad]

@@BenHartwellGuitar yeah, i agree. But, Inspirat Media touched a valid point. It's about FLOPS more than anything. It's true that's a close ecosystem but eventually if all these amazing plugins were released as VSTs a high-end computer would handle them very easily at realtime too. It's exciting to see GPU based plugins coming out. I think they'll rule the hardware-inspired ecosystem for a while but not forever.

[@alesnovak2906]

In short...my 7 years old PC which costs 800€ new and is now worth maybe 100€ can still handle 20 times more plugins than this DSP money pit. No thanks.

[@APaclin]

Not many

[@TomiBonTomi_2.0]

Man, what about actually using your voice when you're speaking? This is difficult to listen to.

[@bigdap100]

👎 Thumbs Down on UAD...I can buy one Apogee Symphony Desktop or One RME ADI-2 Pro FS, or One Prism Sound Lyra, ONE Forsell or even ONE Black Lion XB Clock and make my ENTIRE studio world class: mic, monitors, headphones, and even plugins will instantly be World Class Mastering Grade. A stock plugin running through a Lavry DA11 sounds better than UAD easy...and I can load 500 not 4 instances.

[@RADROCKSOUNDSTUDIOS-ov8wu]

hey div-head, with all that information you didn't even explain where the fuck to plug my freckin satellite in....I've had on for years, and not once have I ever seen a single percentage of any plugin whatsoever...I was told to firewire plug the UAD Sat. into my iMac computer- the one I'm using with protools....WTF