Hey guys,

I'm thinking of investing in one of the above.

In the experience of those who've used both, what is their opinion?

I'll be using a Macbook White (2.1 Core 2 Duo w/ 4 GB RAM), Leopard 10.5.4) and also a workhorse PC as a base for the Powercore Compact.

On the other hand, if I get the UAD-1e, i'll only be able to use it on the PC, since the old Macbook's have no ExpressCard slot.

I've heard really bad stories about the Powercore Compact having serious software issues amongst others.

In terms of performance / sound quality alone, what would you recommend besides an overall opinion?


Thanks.

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Spacy dreamer

UAD without a doubt.

The Powercore is only good for reverb (which the UAD's Plate 140 is just as useful for trance) and for the Virus|Powercore synth which is definitely a very nice alternative to a Virus A/B/C ... but not Ti.

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UAD, hands down.

they have a wider selection of plugins and everyone i know who has one, swears by them.

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I have both.

3 UAD-1e card with most plugins

&

1 Powercore firewire with MD3, VSS3, Virus

UAD is more stable, easily expanded and the additional plugins are far cheaper with there also being alot more of them.

Nothing beats the VSS3 as far as software verbs go imo. Its incredible. Also nothing in the UAD is as good as the MD3 when it comes to all in one mastering and HI FI quality. Also Powercore has synths which the UAD does not.

It really depends what you want. That is why i have both. The Plate 140 on the UAD is beautiful as well, but the control and the early reflections of the VSS3 make it a far better all round verb imo.

What are you looking for is the main question. EQs, compressors, delays, verbs, chorus or a mix?

Thanks for the replies guys.

For my limited budget, my choices are pretty much limited to the Liquid Mix / Powercore Compact or one of the UAD-1's or possibly the UAD-2 when we're talking about DSP-based plugins.

I must stress that my aim is to get superior sound quality overall.

Thus, subtle but noticeable changes in shaping the dynamics / sonic attributes of any single / a group of channels is what I'm looking for.

I already have a bunch of native plugins, most of the Sonalksis bundle, plus some of the Waves stuff, so what would you recommend?

Alternatively, I guess this is way off topic, what would you think if I invested in a quality audio interface instead, considering the fact that I already do own a bunch of native plugins already? I was thinking the Apogee Duet. My current USB 2.0 Numark DJIO is sufficient (just about), but there's room for improvement.

Despite UAD consistently being recommended over Powercore, one consistent comment I've been hearing all this while is that due to increasing power of Dual - Core / Quad-Cores, these DSP's are falling behind the curve in terms of power to actual CPU's. A Quad-core processor w/ decent RAM, could easily run more instances of native plugins at the same time.

And last but not the least, in the budget that I have, a Korg Micro XL is also within reach, so that's some sure shot fat analog goodness.

So in conclusion, UAD / Powercore or Apogee Duet or an analog synth ?

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Spacy dreamer

quote:

Originally posted by varun So in conclusion, UAD / Powercore or Apogee Duet or an analog synth ?

Well, the problem is that with the UAD / Powercore, you're really not going to get much for the initial hardware investment. It's all about the pay-as-you-go plugins. Unless you're ready for something that will constantly be hitting your wallet, I'd go for a one-time investment like the Duet (which is MAC only, FYI), or a nice analog like the MoPho.

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Hi Varun,

First off, The korg synth you mention is digital, not analog.

Alanzo is spot on with what he says.

If you are looking for a dsp solution to use straight out of the box, i would highly recomend the liquid mix! It is mostly on par with UAD and includes hundreds of emulations, my favorite being the new distressor ones.

Duende is also a good buy. The prices seem to have dropped and their new software allows you to offload dsp to your computers cpu!

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies.

I've made a decision and decided to go w/ getting an Apogee Duet first.

One thing I do believe is that regardless of whatever top-notch synth or plugs you may have, good A/D D/A converters are important, and my Numark DJIO was just not cutting it.

In the meantime, I'll be looking around for second hand UAD deals, or maybe just save up the cash and get a UAD-2 later.

I do have a nice bunch of native plug-ins such as the Sonalksis bundle, some Waves plug-ins plus I was graciously gifted the T-racks stuff recently

What do you guys think?

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Spacy dreamer

quote:

Originally posted by xphonix If you are looking for a dsp solution to use straight out of the box, i would highly recomend the liquid mix! It is mostly on par with UAD and includes hundreds of emulations, my favorite being the new distressor ones.

oh wow, bout time a distressor emu of some form came out.

how is it?

amazed no1 came up with a full fledged plugin emu of one yet.

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Well the liquid mix only captures some of the distressor settings, not all. At lower amounts of gain reduction it sounds very similar to the actual unit.

Universal Audio have signed a deal with Empirical Labs with the Fatso due out on the UAD platform soon (hopefully). I am sure they will follow it up with a distressor plugin. (who better to have a go at that emulation?)