Mackie Control Vs Uad-1 Options

[emtee]

*Mistakenly posted this in "Plug-Ins" group -- apologies to Moderator...


Wondering if anyone out there has had experience using a Mackie Control w the UAD-1 PCI dsp card?

I'm waiting for a Control, and was strongly considering purchasing the UAD to take the pressure of my B&W G3 400. However I noticed at the Mackie/UAD downloads page there is a list of "issues", including the fairly ambiguous note that the UAD does not work "correctly" with the Mackie Control in both MAS and VST.

Tried e-mailing Mackie but no response yet. Anyone have any details on exactly what does not work "correctly"? Need to know how bad this is before I invest in the UAD...

(SetUp: B&W G3 400, 700+ megs RAM, DP 3.x in OS 9, MOTU 828, soon a Mackie Control)

TIA

[gramps]

while this may not be the answer you are looking for but, you can always use your mouse to do the moves. even though mackie now owns uad the card and the board are two seperate entities. whether or not they address this issue will probably depend on how deeply imbedded in the core code the operations for that type of control are.

the uad-1 may take some of the pressure off you rig but it does use cpu despite the claims in their ads. most will find the plug and the setting they want then render or freeze the track with the fx. if you do this, it's best to make a copy of the track prior to rendereing if at a later time you find it's not the right choice.

latency is another issue and as of yet Dp (you didn't say what app you're running)has no algo to auto compensate for this. uad does have a plug which you insert on the tracks that are not using the card for this.

as far as a response from mackie...it depends on the question and the day you ask it. i've posted and emailed them on the upgrade and purchase of the cambridge eq for a pc and a week later i switched to mac and have gotten no reponse to either and it's been over a week. i finally had to answer my own question by saying i don't have to buy it again...made me feel better,,,i don't know how it made them feel.

g

[azusa]

I use the UAD-1 card with DP3. It's fantastic. I got the sound I'd been looking for from plug ins.
About the latency, all you have to do is put in a plug in compensation to the other tracks that don't use UAD (DP only).
It will sync perfectly. The CPU performance meter stays surprisingly low when using UAD-1.
All I have is a praise for the card.

The only thing that UAD-1 has a trouble with is the PCI video card in your Mac.
It has to be AGP type otherwise you can't start the computer.

And for the Mackie control, it'll be a while before I can buy one.

[emtee]

just checkin back -- thanks for the responses so far

anyone else w info on these issues, please chime in if you're so inclined, and TIA -- in the meantime:

gramps: whether or not it was the answer i was looking for, it's a beautiful answer - lost of good info, thanks! I guess I'm starting from ground zero here -- so just to backtrack, it's true then that the Mackie cannot control any UAD parameters? Sounds like this is the case. Also sounds like if I'm willing to simply not use the Mackie when editing the UAD plugs it shouldn't affect the basic functionality of either (beyond that little problem of them not being able to communicate whatsoever of course...)

[fyi - I actually got a quick response from a tech named Sean at Mackie, but he didn't have any details to offer (so far) other than to say the comm problem was imbedded in MAS and it was a MOTU fix ultimately.]

azusa: sounds like you're diggin the card, which is great. The latency problem mentioned by you and gramps is a bitch, but I can deal with it if the net result is more CPU cycles for my audio. However the note about AGP video only is very disturbing -- I have a B&W G3 so it's PCI video only baby.

Any other UAD users out there (or anyone from UA on this forum) who can confirm as well that the UAD does not play with PCI video cards? I have my original Rage 128 in storage, my current card is the Radeon 7000 PCI. To be honest the 7000 didn't seem to do much, and I can't afford to take advantage of the dual monitor outputs yet, so any info on the Rage OR the Radeon vis the UAD would be welcomed... Guess I'll check the UA site again too.

Once again, thanks to all -- this is a great forum.

mt

[gramps]

speaking as a pc user, you pretty much can't put any audio interface (card) next to the agp card in first pci slot. since i just bought my first mac a week ago i guess it's the same for that platform too. unless i really need the slot i usually leave it empty.

g

[emtee]

Just an update -- and maybe some info:

Bit the bullet and picked up the UAD-1 -- and sonically speaking I can honestly say that it's amazing! The time compensation for DP/MAS is more than a little confusing, esp figuring out whether I need to compensate for MIDI tracks playing alongside audio, or that crazy 13 sample Pultec compensation -- but I'm sure it will become clearer the more I work with it.

So far no compatibility problems with my B&W G3 or OS 9.2.2 or DP3 -- just the usual occasional freeze/crash but I think that's a pre-existing extension conflict (same thing happened before anyway).

No problem either re the UAD versus my PCI video card (ATI Radeon 7000) -- everything boots up fine, though once I had a graphic glitch when I rebooted into my OSX partition (no problems in OSX after a restart). So perhaps that suggests that the video issues are only with AGP video cards versus the UAD -- but I can't really speak to that until I eventually get a G5 and test it out (maybe in 2005...).

Hopefully the Mackie Control will at least not mess up the UAD compatibility with the rest of my system (don't see why it should though of course that doesn't mean anything). Still waiting for that Control though -- it's been over a month since I ordered it here in Vancouver Canada, seems like an inordinately long delay. It will be sweet once they work all this out and I can actually tweak the UAD in real time with the Mackie -- heaven!

Thanks for everyone's comments. Will keep you posted if I encounter any special issues etc. (Unless my free subscription curtails my posts of course...)

mt