Universal Audio has long had a successful business selling hardware DSP effects, many of them carefully-modeling classic analog gear. These products use dedicated DSP hardware for number-crunching, requiring that you connect an extra box to your computer. UA has certainly had their loyalists, and for fans of the products, the dedicated gear is simply a convenient way to get all of these sound-processing goodies. But it’s fair to ask the question, as many producers have who read this site, what’s the advantage? Why not simply use native processing on your computer?

Apollo, UA’s new hardware, answers that question more emphatically. By integrating the processing prowess of the UA platform into a high-quality audio interface, you can now add UA effects live, as you record and mix, with extreme low latencies. UA reports latencies below a couple of milliseconds. That’s possible, theoretically, on a desktop computer, but not generally on a laptop and very often not with any real reliability. You can do it in a lab, but it’s not something typical users see.

So, in one box, you effectively get your whole studio: the audio interface, the DSP power, and real low-latency sound processing. It’s not the first audio interface with DSP, but it might be the most compelling case yet for why that combination make sense.

And here’s where things get interesting: via Thunderbolt, a single MacBook Air, costing just around $1000, could be your whole studio machine. And while Apollo runs a couple grand above that, that means the total price tag is stunningly low compared to what you’d pay just a short time ago.

UA briefed me earlier this week on the technology. Even as NAMM raves about iPads, you begin to see the real power of conventional computers. Steve Jobs once compared those computers to “trucks” – while quietly leading a company that profits on how cool trucks are, too. With an Air, adding only slightly to the weight of an iPad and at only twice the cost, you can connect to vastly greater native processing power, greater outboard processing power, and greater I/O. And now with Thunderbolt, you could connect a high-res display or two, a big, fast hard drive, and the audio interface, all without running out of power or impacting performance. (No, seriously – you can. The reason you haven’t seen this in action is that we haven’t had the hardware to show it off. Apollo will be a compelling case for that.)

All of this is academic until you actually have something to do with sound. So, UA is also expanding their developer platform to additional outside development; more on that soon.

Apollo isn’t for everyone; obviously, some people won’t like being tied to hardware, and native plug-ins do work for a lot of people. But it does solve problems for many potential producer customers by making something reliable, predictable, low-latency, extensible with lots of excellent processing tools, and all in one single-box solution.

Apollo will initially be Mac-only, but will come to Windows, too – and with more PCs supporting Thunderbolt in 2012, that means the MacBook is far from your only choice. So, you’ve got one add-on that’s your interface, your pres, and your mix/master/effect toolbox.

More specs:

• 18 x 24 FireWire/Thunderbolt-ready audio interface, 24-bit/192 kHz
• “Premium” mic pres – UA stresses that they’re also building on their mic pre reputation, and they claim the “lowest THD and highest dynamic range” in their class
• Dedicated front-panel controls: preamp gain, channel selection, mic pad, +48V phantom power, low cut, monitor level, and dual headphone controls.
• 4 digitally-controlled analog mic preamps, 8 balanced line inputs and outputs, dual front-panel JFET DIs, digitally-controlled analog monitor outputs, 8 channels of ADAT, 2 channels of S/PDIF, word clock I/O, FireWire 800 (standard), and a Thunderbolt expansion bay — making it a well-equipped centerpiece for the modern project studio.
• Core Audio drivers; ASIO coming, so you can use this with your DAW of choice
• Console application and plug-in for recalling all your interface and plug-in settings at once
• UAD-2 acceleration
• Analog emulation plug-ins from Ampex, Lexicon, Manley, Neve, Roland, SSL, Studer, etc.
• Thunderbolt will be available on a sold-separately Option Card; UA says it reduces latency and audio buffer sizes, improves high sample-rate performance, and allows greater UAD plug-in instances over FireWire.

Of course, because Thunderbolt also connects to FireWire devices, you don’t lose your FireWire investment. The only bad news is that you only get Thunderbolt here as an Option Card; I imagine we’ll eventually see UA ship Thunderbolt connections standard.

There are both two-core and four-core versions, powered by Analog Devices SHARC processors, running an estimated street of US$1999 and $2499, respectively. Apollo’s Thunderbolt Option Card will be shipping in the first half of 2012, with pricing TBD.

www.uaudio.com/apollo

Videos are available on the UA blog: http://www.uaudio.com/blog/apollo-intro-video

Windows 7 summer; 10.6 and 10.7 Mac OS X when it ships.

Software Images

Alongside its Pro Tools 10 and HDX unveiling, Avid turned some heads by recently announcing it was replacing its RTAS and TDM formats to a new format called AAX, “Avid Audio eXtension.” Now, your first reaction may not be unbridled enthusiasm, exactly: it seems the last thing users are likely saying is, “yes, please, I’d like a new plug-in format to worry about.” But I wanted to give the engineers at Avid a chance to tell us what they were thinking and why they made the move.

Avid’s product announcements have unfortunately coincided, presumably because of the financial calendar, with unpleasant restructuring and downsizing news, a topic NYC-based audio engineering site SonicScoop takes up. However, I prefer to focus here on the engineering side of what’s happening; we can look at Avid’s business and the changing business landscape another day. (For what it’s worth, I’m not as bleak as SonicScoop about the industry at large – least of all because I think the larger audio market remains healthy, even if Avid has been caught adapting to a new marketplace.)

The picture painted by Avid is one of a smooth transition to AAX. Now, of course, you’d expect them to say that, but I think they do have some specific technical reasons that, even with the change of name, the shift should be friendly to Avid developers. I’ll let them explain, though.

Bobby Lombardi, Senior Pro Tools Product Manager goes into the technical details of what AAX, and what it means for Pro Tools developers and users.

CDM: The main draw appears to be the ability to switch between native and DSP-based processing more easily, correct? From the end user perspective, can you get into specifics on what a user will see and how this will differ from RTAS/TDM?

Bobby: Visually, a user will see that the RTAS/TDM pop-up on the Pro Tools 10 Plug-in header has changed to Native/DSP. The exciting part is what they will hear. In the past, with HD Accel systems using a 24-bit fixed point processing environment, and host-based systems using 32-bit floating point processing, the gain staging could be quite different and produce significantly different results. With the introduction of AAX, sessions that migrate between host-based and DSP-accelerated HDX Pro Tools systems will sound identical.

How much work will it be for developers to migrate from RTAS/TDM to AAX?

Moving from an existing RTAS plug-in to AAX Native is relatively simple. Plus, once a developer has an AAX Native plug-in running, it will take a small amount of development effort to support AAX DSP. In comparison to TDM 56k used with the legacy HD hardware, AAX DSP is much easier to support and developers do not require specialized skills in writing 56k assembly code, so it opens up the opportunity for many developers to create DSP accelerated versions of their plug-ins.

We’ll still see parallel, separate versions of plug-ins for AAX Native and AAX DSP, correct? And some will, as with RTAS, presumably be native-only?

This is really up to the individual developer. Some developers may find it strategic to support one or the other, however Avid’s goal with this new format was to simplify plug-in development and reduce the complexity to support accelerated hardware.

RTAS and TDM are listed as “legacy” formats. Is Avid making any commitment to how long they’ll last?

The RTAS and TDM formats will continue to be supported in the 32-bit versions of Pro Tools but will not be supported once Pro Tools is released as a 64-bit application. The new AAX plug-in format is the bridge to 64-bit plug-ins for the Pro Tools and Media Composer platform.

Avid has expressed a desire to embrace open formats, but why is there still no common, industry-wide plug-in format? (Actually, there may be no good answer to that question, but I feel obligated to ask!)

We absolutely do embrace open platforms because they can open workflows that enhance the user experience. Part of the experience we need to ensure is that it’s stable, integrates well on our control surfaces, and provides a long-term commitment to the customer. For these reasons it’s important that we can design the plug-in architecture. For example, without designing AAX we could never give customers a plug-in environment that supports both DSP accelerated and native Pro Tools systems and ensure they delivered 100% sound parity. We hope that by providing a modernized AAX SDK for plug-in development, developers will find it easier not only to support Avid’s products, but also finding it easier to develop for non-Avid plug-in formats.

Any word on when we’ll see third-party plugs with AAX support?

More developers are coming online each week with their AAX offerings. We had over 25 developers showing over 60 individual AAX plug-ins at the AES tradeshow in NYC last month, and expect to see many more at the upcoming NAMM tradeshow. With the ability to provide all Avid third party developers a optimized development path to DSP-accelerated plug-ins, we do expect to see more DSP-accelerated plug-ins on the new AAX platform than the legacy TDM platform.

Thanks, Bobby. And for one other take, I happened to get to talk to Universal Audio about their transition. UA, given that they have their own DSP platform and support Avid’s rival packages, certainly aren’t dependent in their business on the Avid ecosystem (though you can be sure it makes a big part of their market). Anyway, here’s what they say; I’m guessing other third parties would say something similar, but if you’re a third party reading and wish to comment, please do so, and don’t let the fact that I only have UA here dissuade you.

Lev Perrey, Universal Audio Director of Product Development, responds to CDM:

Universal Audio intends to support AAX Native in conjunction with UAD-2 DSP accelerators ­ exactly like we have just completed with RTAS support in UAD Powered Plug-ins v6. There is no announcement as of yet as to when the transition to AAX will be complete but we are actively developing and committed to the Pro Tools platform. Pro Tools 10 does support RTAS and initial testing with UAD plug-ins shows it to work just like Pro Tools 9.

As for the significance question, for UA moving to AAX Native should be similar to our recent migration to RTAS ­ although it will be easier for us now moving to AAX since we have fully invested in direct Pro Tools development and better understand the Avid SDK.

We’ll continue to follow this story. Thanks to Avid for getting us more details; I know it’s appreciated.

More info:
AAX Audio Plug-ins @ Avid

“It must be a Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” -Arthur Dent, in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy

If you’re having any issue getting through your Thursday, it’s tough to beat some proper, good techno – the kind of techno anyone can love, even if they keep shouting about how they “hate” it.

Techno pioneer Carl Craig is still going strong, the kind of artist whose work seems to flow freely. He’s got the roots, having begun with Derrick May in Detroit, but he’s remained a font of new work and invention since, mixing his work with live and jazz music and even endeavoring to introduce young people to new music through a self-started not-for-profit. (Check the cat’s bio.) If you haven’t checked in with him lately, he’s touring … well, nearly everywhere, and is keeping the new sounds going through his Planet E label. Planet E turned ten earlier this year, accompanied by new a full-length and remix EPs, but here’s a quick test of what’s coming out of this label via SoundCloud.

Latest tracks by carlcraignet

I have Carl on the brain partly because I’ve learned King Britt (Saturn Never Sleeps) has new music with him. I owe King and SNS’ Rucyl Mills a good weekend hiding out during Tropical Storm Irene, where I got in to see King’s workflow – mixing MIDI with CV triggers, Mono/Poly with Maschine, analog sequencing with Ableton Live. (We maintained power through the storm. Can I please evacuate to a chilled-out studio session more often? I’m a very, very blessed person, and believe me, I’m grateful for those gifts, those moments.)

The resulting sound represents the best, most organic feel of the different generations we’ve seen of this music. Whereas once production was laborious, we now get to cherry-pick the most comfy tools, the looseness of live playing and analog gear twiddling and sequencing with the speed of a Maschine or Ableton setup on a laptop. And it comes out, with tracks that are improvisatory, relaxed, and naturally grooving. I think you can hear it in Carl’s new stuff, and I know I can hear it in King’s, having listened in and jammed as some things were made.

Remember handing burned CDs to DJs? In this case, Carl got hold of King’s tracks and King of Carl via email and Twitter.

For a glimpse, see the informal video. (I shot some video of King, too, but want to wait to get his and Rucyl’s word on their collaboration. Oh, and I need to, like, upload it. I’ll just ask my extensive video production department to– doh!)

Give King’s upcoming tracks on Planet E a listen.

King Britt presents Dynamic – Secret of the Stars b/w Things Take Time by planetedetroit

Here’s a look inside the session (and yes, that is a KORG vocoder):

King’s been doing this a long while, and his craft I feel is razor sharp, which lets him keep those tracks feel as loose as they do. He talks about how he tunes tracks in the mastering process on the Universal Audio blog. He definitely lets his UA fan side show, but he also gets loads of mileage out of some specific UA plugs – and the basic techniques here you can easily apply to any mastering plug-ins you like. (Readers recently brought up the excellent and underrated Samplitude, which is also a good choice with its integrated mastering tools.)

Give King talking UA and mastering workflow a read:

King Britt on Mixing “Bit by Bit,” by Saturn Never Sleeps [Universal Audio Producers' Corner]

More, mailing lists and blogs and whatnot:

King Britt.com
http://planet-e.net/blog/
http://www.carlcraig.net/

Universal Audio has a big set of updates to their DSP software out today. It seems worth sharing in part because I find the (faked) look of that Ampex reel-to-reel does give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, even if it mainly makes me want to get in a studio and hear the whir of the actual gear.

Here’s what’s in the update:

For Pro Tools users, there’s vastly-expanded support, including native RTAS plug-ins (instead of the VST-to-RTAS adapter), control surface support, proper automatable parameters, and correct naming and sorting, plus a quicker installation and workflow. I’m embarrassed to say, not having tried UA’s stuff in Pro Tools, I was unaware they’re missing – that sounds like the set of functionality that would make mixing UA and Pro Tools genuinely workable.

Full Mac OS X Lion compatibility is a big deal. We’ve seen a lot of Lion support arriving lately, and I saw readers specifically complain about the lack of support in the update. Seeing a hardware DSP platform with support seems to me a good sign, because it means both plug-in and I/O compatibility have to be in place. It’s getting to be about time to do a new compatibility update, and it may be an OS update that’s possible to recommend shortly (though Snow Leopard is working just fine for now).

Then, there are the plug-ins:

Brainworx bx_digital V2 EQ: This popular mastering EQ now comes to the UA platform, with M/S mastering, M/S recording, and L/R stereo modes. It’s kind of an EQ-plus, with M/S de-esser built in and mastering-specific EQ options, plus a mono plug for mixing.

SPL Vitalizer MK2-T is back in the emulation territory, modeled on the tube-based gear. Separate bass and mid-high modes give you frequency-specific loudness controls.

Ampex ATR-102 models the legendary two-channel tape, and has Ampex’s seal of approval. That means UA now models the two studio workhorses, the Studer A800 (see our previous coverage and shameless gear pr0n gallery) and the Ampex. ATR users and engineering titans Chuck Ainlay, Richard Dodd, Buddy Miller, and Mike Poole contributed presets, in a nice touch. US$349 buys you the plug … and yeah, that’s likely to make a few studios nervous on their rental fees. Then again, look at the names on the presets, and remember just how valuable engineers are, whether they’re behind an analog deck or a computer with a UA plug. (Take it from me – someone who’s not really an engineer.)

The SPL and Brainworx plugs were each developed outside UA. My guess is that Pro Tools support is a factor in seeing more third-party development. And while readers correctly noted the demise of other DSP platforms, UA’s is looking very healthy from a business perspective.

The only bad news: I’m confirming this, but there appears not to be support for 64-bit operation on Windows, which remains a significant omission in UA’s software.

Now, we need some double-blind A/B tests with both the Studer and Ampex (and maybe the real gear). Wonder if someone could help us set that up.

I really enjoyed some of the skepticism in comments on the last article. I think the questions “do I really need this?” and “will this give me the most value over time?” and “what alternatives should I consider?” are absolutely the questions you should ask about any music tech products. This is a news item, so I’m not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to comment in this case. I think the best thing to do is, beyond just reviews, continue to talk to producers and engineers about how they use software, and to developers about how it’s made. If you have specific questions, let us know.

And let’s have another look at the original. Simon Campbell on Flickr has this shot of one with the spools spinning:

We mastered onto this rascal at 30 ips using Dolby SR. Nice.

Recording the album ThirtySix at Gracieland Studios [UK], Rochdale

Photo is (CC-BY-ND) Simon Campbell, whose music you can go hear (linked via his name).

Universal Audio Downloads for the latest updates | Universal Audio Site

With all the horsepower computers are now packing, you might be surprised at the idea of adding on dedicated hardware for sound processing. Or, you can look at it another way: with computers more powerful than ever, with digital processing sounding more convincing both as emulation of traditional gear and in imagining never-before-possible sounds, the digital studio in a backpack is even closer.

Into that picture, enter the Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite. Enclosed in a metal housing about the size of a large-ish external hard drive, the Satellite could absolutely fit into the side pocket of a computer backpack or messenger bag. Coupled with a MacBook Pro laptop, you could very easily carry your entire studio on a bicycle. That’s not to take away from the joys of outboard gear, but if you’ve got some decent engineering chops, such a rig could really be a studio that can live anywhere.

I’ve had a chance to begin working with the Satellite as my main platform for UAD’s plug-ins for some months now, and it’s an extraordinary box. The most important thing to know about it is that it’s intended for select Intel Macs, and it’s equipped with FireWire 800. Dedicated DSP processing goes back to the very first days of digital audio on computers. (Early Digidesign products and even the IRCAM-developed predecessor of Max/MSP all used DSP hardware.) DSP also naturally appeals to sound engineers: it’s hardware built for the sole purpose of doing the kinds of number crunching in audio, as opposed to the general-purpose architecture of a computer CPU.

The challenge has always been how to get data between the computer and the DSP device. That’s led to an array of buses, like PCI Express slots (which requires jamming a card into a desktop computer) or ExpressCard. As Apple have largely phased out ExpressCard expansion, Mac users have found themselves without a solution.

The UAD-2 Satellite makes use of FireWire 800 instead, thus opening up compatibility with recent Intel-based MacBook Pro laptops as well as the iMac and Mac mini. The 17″ MacBook Pro continues to support ExpressCard, but FireWire 800 offers greater processing power (and is less prone to popping out, as cards in the ExpressCard slot have a nasty tendency to do). The Satellite is available as a “DUO” and “QUAD,” indicating the number of internal processors. (You do the math to work out how much more you get from a Quad than a Duo. I’ll wait…)

As an aside, readers routinely ask if something like the mini or, especially, the iMac could work for audio production. Resounding answer: yes, absolutely. The iMac in particular has a pretty compelling price/performance ratio if you want a compact machine to drop on a desk and don’t have a spare monitor. The mini’s no slouch, either, and seems a logical addition to, say, a project studio.

And that brings us back, full circle, to the reason the Satellite is compelling. It unlocks processing power exclusively dedicated to some tasty and useful processing, all emulating classic gear, while freeing up your computer to do other things. You might, for instance, focus on native processing for a software synth and some creative effects, then bring in the Satellite’s UAD-platform effects to add some historically-accurate compression. And even an entry-level, lowly Mac mini, coupled with the Satellite, is perfectly capable of handling typical compositional and mixing environments without bouncing to audio or freezing tracks.

You certainly need to be interested in the UAD catalog of audio processing tools before this really becomes relevant. For some insight into how Universal Audio does their development and conceives what they do, with the obligatory drool-inducing photos of some retro hardware, see our interview with Dr. David Berners:

Modeling Analog in a Digital Age: A Conversation with Universal Audio’s Chief Scientist; Gallery

But if you are looking for a platform on which you can run these effects – or if you’re ready to upgrade from a previous UAD system (your existing plug-in registrations will port right over) – read on.

What UA Says About the Satellite

Looking at a Satellite, you can’t really see much – it’s a magical, mystery box that processes sounds. It’s what’s under the hood that matters. So I talked with Amanda Whiting of Universal Audio about some of the technical details of the Satellite.

CDM: How has the Satellite evolved from previous UA gear?
UA: The UAD-2 Satellite marks the first Firewire-based external DSP unit offered by UA, for Intel-based Mac laptops and desktops. The Satellite provides up to a four-processor UAD-2 DSP Accelerator for the many people mixing and mastering on the road with their laptops, and for those who don’t have a desktop system that includes PCIe slots. It also allows for easy session compatibility — so you can take your UAD-2 plug-ins with you, and mix on another Intel-based Mac system that may not have a UAD-2 card installed. The FireWire 800 onboard provides twice the power of FireWire 400. This allows you to connect a UAD-2 Satellite and a FireWire audio interface together on the same FireWire bus, and still have enough bandwidth for lots of plug-ins.

Ed.: That’s an interesting detail, in fact – hard disks and most other accessories take advantage of only a fraction of the added bandwidth of FireWire 800, meaning for many applications, the “800″ is a bit of a misnomer. Us audio folk are different – we really are talking about maxing out that additional bandwidth for the UAD-2.

Any rough practical info on the DSP horsepower? I’ve done some tests as far as what I can run simultaneously and it’s a great step from ExpressCard, but curious how best to quantify it.

The UAD-2 Satellite QUAD is four times as powerful as the ExpressCard-based UAD-2 SOLO/Laptop card, which has a single chip. For your reference, here’s a couple of links:
http://www.uaudio.com/blog/uad-2-satellite-basics-faq
http://www.uaudio.com/support/uad/satellite-support

Also here is a link to the instance chart. The UAD-2 Satellite has the same theoretical instance counts as the PCIe cards, except at very high instance counts where the FireWire bandwidth is exceeded. Still you can run 152 mono plug-ins or 77 Stereo plug-ins with UAD-2 Satellite, so the FireWire bus is not typically a factor.
“http://www.uaudio.com/support/uad/compatibility/instance-chart.html

What real world uses are you seeing so far from your users? To me, it seems really practical for even live laptop performance, and of course mobile production … not to mention the ability to take your UA faves to a studio.

The UAD-2 Satellite definitely provides a level of portability that we haven’t been able to offer previously. It’s great to take into any studio and pull up your UAD-powered sessions, and it’s absolutely ideal for mobile production. As far as live use, latency is always an issue with running audio over Firewire, but with certain effects — particularly reverbs and delays that lend themselves to live tweaking — the latency may come across as a pre-delay and sound just fine. We’ve heard this more than once from our users. We’ve also seen a lot of adoption with Pro Tools HD Customers – these customers typically have all three PCIe slots taken up on a Mac Pro so the UAD-2 PCIe version may have been a non-starter, but with Satellite, they can keep their cards in the machine and simply connect UAD-2 Satellite via FireWire with great results.

Ed.: One note on latency: with a recent update, you can set minimum latency to an impressive 256 samples. So, at the very least, the software itself is not a limiting factor.

Setup and Use

Setting up the Satellite is fairly easy. I’d actually struggled a bit with an ExpressCard UAD-2 – firmware updates, a card that initially didn’t work, and difficulty, as with all ExpressCards, with the card popping out of the slot. (That’s not UA’s fault: it’s the result of overly springy slots on typical laptops, and the fact that the spring-loaded eject is itself a really terrible idea for something you want to stay connected.) The Satellite was much easier: plug in power, plug in a cable, boot up the machine, and go.

As with all UA products, the Satellite relies on a single, unified installer that gives you all of the plug-ins ready-to-use as VSTs, Audio Units, or, for Pro Tools, RTAS. (On the Mac, I’d recommend defaulting to the VST in hosts that support it.) You get a 14-day trial of everything; for longer use, you’ll need to purchase and authorize the plug-ins. (Various bundles with the hardware get you started with licenses for a range of tools.)

Download and open an authorization file, and you get access to the plug-ins you need.

On the hardware side, you need two cables to connect the Satellite: power and FireWire 800. (Bus power over FireWire 800 is insufficient to drive the Satellite.)

Stop and consider this for a moment: you get exactly the same power out of a Satellite that you would out of the equivalent internal card. That means the argument for a desktop chassis is greatly reduced versus a more convenient iMac, mini, or MacBook Pro.

Because the authorization is associated with the hardware, you can also move the Satellite between multiple locations. These days, a lot of us do production and mastering and such against tight deadlines or in time on the road. Now, you can do that, but still bring your arsenal of effects into a physical studio environment when you’ve got a couple of days booked for recording.

The hardware itself is really lovely; it’s definitely been rugged enough to hold up to all that travel. For anyone considering this for an institution or studio environment, there’s also a Kensington Lock so someone doesn’t walk off with your valuable gear and authorizations. There’s also a pretty, glowing UA logo that shows you power is provided. Unfortunately, the LED that shows you if you’re properly connected to the computer is hidden away on the back; it would have been nice if UA had associated that to the giant herald on the front, instead, so you could actually see it.

Also, I was surprised to learn that hot-swapping is okay. So long as you shut down your UAD software first, UA says you can feel perfectly safe disconnecting and reconnecting the hardware to an active or sleeping computer. That’s a nice boon to us laptop users.

“Ah,” you say, “this FireWire business is great, but I also use FireWire 800 for my project drive. And an audio interface.” The Satellite gives you a couple of options here. For one, it has a pass-through port, so you can daisy-chain additional hardware without a hub. Again, power becomes an issue. Most hard drives I’ve found have power ports, so you can simply bring along their power wall wart and power them separately. (You’ll want to bring along a little power strip.) UA suggests that for gear that lacks that – like certain Apogee audio interfaces – you can use a FireWire repeater, an affordable accessory which injects power externally.

The more significant issue is bandwidth and speed mixing. Any additional device will take up some bandwidth, because they’re sharing the same bus. In my use, I chose to simply run audio over USB2 and connected, with the addition of my wall wart, a portable Glyph project drive to the FireWire 800 port on the UAD-2. If you’re doing something fancier than that, you can allocate bandwidth in the UAD software.

The trick is if you add a FireWire 400 device to the mix. If chained in the wrong order, any single FW400 gadget will cause the FW800 gear to slow to 400 speeds. The solution: just connect that 400 device (like, say, an old MOTU audio interface) last in your chain.

This, to me, brings up an unexpected reason the new Thunderbolt port on new-model Macs becomes useful. The UAD-2 Satellite, for its part, gets plenty of bandwidth from FireWire 800. Universal Audio has expressed an interest in supporting Thunderbolt in the future, but for now, FW800 works just fine. If you invest in a Satellite now, but you’ve got a Mac with Thunderbolt, you could in future connect a different accessory to that Thunderbolt port rather than the FW800 port, thus leaving the Satellite its own bus. (Got that?)

In the meantime, I’m absolutely, positively happy with my 2010-model MacBook Pro, which I picked up steeply discounted when the new Thunderbolt models came out. I maxed out the RAM and saved hundred of bucks, and the combination of 2x USB2 and FW800 more than suits my needs. No complaints here.

As Amanda indicates, the Satellite gives you a significant amount of processing power. For my use, this was perfect for experimenting with creative effects and adding UA’s excellent compression and channel processing tools. I’ve got some mixing and mastering projects coming up, and can’t wait to bring the UA stuff into the workflow.

Recommendations

Whether you want access to the UAD platform is really dependent on your needs and tastes. Certainly, there’s a wide variety of native processing tools that don’t rely on external DSP hardware. The main appeal, as I’ve said in the past, is the unique, historically-informed modeling approach that Universal Audio take to their work. Their catalog is certainly extensive, and I’m especially happy with the quality of the recent additions, like the Studer multitrack tape emulation and some superb reverbs, compressions, and the like. (One new entry: the Lexicon 224.)

The question is really whether the FireWire 800 bus is big news for UA, and there, it’s tough to overstate how much this changes working with UA’s stuff on a variety of Macs and on the road. The SOLO I’d tested previously is nice enough, but the DUO and QUAD really give you the amount of processing power you’d want to do some real work, to experiment live across a number of tracks without running out of horsepower – and that’s, after all, the point of using a DSP platform.

A new Mac and a Satellite are really all you need to build an impressive digital studio. They now give you the freedom to make that studio exist anywhere, and with almost any set of tools. We’ve seen that kind of liberation with native processing, but to get that native power and DSP power at once is really a dream. For existing users, moving over is a no-brainer, since sharing authorizations is a cinch. For newcomers who’ve been waiting for the optimal hardware choice to unlock the UA catalog, this is it. (It’s worth looking into bundles to try to get your collection of effects rolling.)

Even with Thunderbolt on the horizon, external DSP on a MacBook Pro or mini is now finally accessible. UA’s stuff isn’t cheap, but if the value proposition makes sense to you, and you’re a Mac owner, you now have the combination you’ve been waiting for. The only bad news, really, is for PC users left in the cold – and there, we may just have to wait and see what direction laptop buses take in the wider market.

Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite DUO and…
Satellite QUAD

Got questions for me, or for UA? Feedback on this gear or this review? Fire away in comments, as always, folks.

Jim Guthrie was a rockstar long before the iPad was. Paired with pixel-intense artist Craig D. Adams (aka Superbrothers) and the co-design and coding effort of a crack team of video game “wizards” at the indie studio capy, he’s made a soundtrack that’s destined to be a gaming classic. But if you don’t want to play it, you can still listen to it. And if you’re playing it, you may find that it feels as though you’re listening to it, and gazing into its artwork.

From the moment you tap to launch it, Swords & Sworcery plunges you into a world that’s part game, part interactive album. Yes, there’s the obvious presence of a spinning vinyl record you can scratch and brake, right there on the title screen. And yes, there’s the conspicuous “EP” in the title, or the just-released LP (a real LP, on digital but also now sold out on vinyl).

But it’s once you navigate the expansive digital forests of the title, once Jim Guthrie’s moody soundtrack taps away at your brain, that you begin to get it. Sword & Sworcery will certainly get the dreaded (or is that coveted?) “arty” title, but it’s the way in which it spins out audiovisual entertainment that makes it special.

It’s pure aesthetic deliciousness, a brew that makes your head buzz.

And it’s finding that aesthetic sense – neither retro nor modern, neither low-fidelity nor slick – that makes this title relevant beyond even the world of gaming. Jim Guthrie’s songs and the lush pixel art graphics are the perfect fusion of old and new. It’s telling that Guthrie himself crafts his tracks in a combination of a PlayStation music game (MTV-branded, no less), GarageBand, and then high-end Universal Audio plug-ins. (See video above, and have fun gear-spotting familiar toys through the jump cuts.) It’s sort of studio garage, in the way digital music can be now. Its unabashedly synthetic instrumentation gives voice to a generation that grew up with computer-produced music. The musical score itself sometimes nods to Philip Glass, sometimes to punk rock, very often a mixed-up, intimate fantasy folk cinema, with sounds both shiny and flat.

But happily, this isn’t just a game with a clever soundtrack, or a release of game music. It’s a real fusion of album and game, music and visuals. And, lest we get to carried away with the Art label – capital a – music and game alike are good fun.

CDM managed to pry co-creators Craig D. Adams and Jim Guthrie from an adoring gaming press long enough to talk to us in depth about the making of the music and release, down to every last technical and artistic detail. They said so much – and crossed two media so completely – that I’ve broken up their ideas into two stories, across Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion. Their reasoning for committing to those two media has a lot in common, I think, with why we run these two sites and why a lot of you read and contribute to them.

Out now: both an LP music release on Bandcamp and iPad version. Coming this month: recent-gen iPod touch and iPhone versions of the game, too.

Jim Guthrie: Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies @ Bandcamp
http://www.swordandsworcery.com/project/

Let’s begin with the notion of this as musical-visual collaboration. Obviously, some of our favorite game experiences have used music effectively. What’s different about this project?

Craig:The iPhone & iPod Touch, and the iPad to some extent, don’t have an input style that lends itself to precise inputs. So, it seems to me that a lot of traditional video games seem to fall a bit flat on these platforms. The thing is, these machines are great music and video players, so we knew going in that we wanted to make something that was as open and as laid-back as a record-listening experience matched with a naturalistic visual presentation inspired by film, so that was really the starting point. We also felt that a more relaxed, more occasional, less punishing, more interesting experience would be a better fit, something that was closer in pace to browsing the Internet or whatever. Early on we were calling S:S&S EP “a brave experiment in Input Output Cinema.” I/O Cinema is kind of an intentionally absurd nonsense buzzword but I think it’s perfectly apt for this type of entertainment, it’s a heckuva lot more descriptive than ‘videogame’ anyways, in that it gets away from the idea of a program with rules and win/lose conditions and it puts the focus more on the conversation the audience has with the creators while the audience pokes, prods & problem-solves an authored audiovisual creation.

How did you work together, Superbrothers and Jim, to combine music and visually? What was that collaboration like?

Craig: When we looped Jim into the project in we told him the name, described the aesthetic, talked a bit about The Legend of Zelda & Castlevania, and then Jim dug around and found a few songs he thought might fit. I went ahead and tried to generate art & narrative concepts using Jim’s songs or else stand-ins to set the mood. As we started to mix things together we’d evaluate, iterate & improvise. Eventually we’d get into situations where me and Kris, Capy’s creative director and co-designer on S:S&S EP, would have a plan for an environment or a scene or a situation, and we’d get the art & the mechanics together and then pass along a rough build to Jim with some kind of suggestion like ‘go John Carpenter on this one’ or whatever, and then Jim’d work his magic, filter the concept through his music-making mind and barf up something totally beautiful & shockingly perfect. So yeah, it was a messy process, but towards the end we kind of got a feel for it, I think it all worked out super well.

Jim: It wasn’t always clear if the art needed to inspire more music or the other way around, but it was a very necessary process considering the relation the two elements share in the game.

Technically speaking, is there anything unique to the way the music integrates with game play? How did you approach the technical challenge there, in other words?

Craig: For the music integration aspect, we really just made things up as we went along. We tried some things; some of them worked, some of them didn’t. Then we’d iterate on them or revise them as necessary. We tried chopping things up into a million loops and then stringing them back together with logic, and it kind worked, but was kinda rough, so then we’d revise it or refine it. Eventually we started to figure out a bit of a groove – we learned what the limits were with the machines & the quirks of fMOD [the game sound engine]. We’re a whole lot wiser now, but I think it was a positive thing going into something like this a bit naive.

Jim: Technically, there’s nothing in this game that hasn’t been done before. We sort of ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’ and made it our own. It’s more about the mood and atmosphere that the music and art create that is special. Like Craig said, we made things up as we went.

From the beginning, we knew it was very possible that this would be released digitally as an album, but it wasn’t until a little later on that the idea of vinyl struck us as a good idea. You would think it was all planned from the beginning considering how often the image of the record appears in the game but it sort of willed itself in that direction over time.

It’s always tough to describe the process of summoning one’s art. After we had sort of figured out what the first few tracks were going to be, I just let Craig’s art and ideas lead the way and I reacted. It also really comes down to knowing your craft and what tools you use to create with. Once you figure that out the tools don’t get in the way when you’re hot on the trail of a fleeting melody. There’s noting worse than loosing that spark because a technical issue. Computers have robbed me of so many musical sparks, but to be fair, they have given it back tenfold.

I will give into the temptation to ask one obvious question – what does it mean that it’s an EP? Obviously, it’s a reference to the notion of a game release as being akin in some way to an album, but anything beyond that you wish to say?

Craig:The EP concept goes back to the start of the project – we wanted to put the sound component right out front. We wanted the whole project to feel like a musical composition, and at first we wanted to make something small and acknowledge that this was a tentative first release by a new videogame ‘band.’ The project grew from ther,e and it goes well beyond the 37 minute running-time we had originally envisioned, but everything else fits.

We had always planned to prepare a record release to accompany the project and when the time came to commit to this we basically had to make a vinyl edition, and Jim basically just put that into gear on his own… so that became Jim Guthrie’s Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies. While the record is a smaller component of the project in terms of man-hours, the music on its own is kind of larger than the art and the story we tried to create in the actual videogame, so I think it’s kind of perfect that it’s the LP.

Jim, the music really has a quirky personality all its own, and I think it’d be too easy to describe it aesthetically. How did you approach scoring the music, in finding a voice for this title?

Craig: Several of Jim’s songs pre-date the project, so they informed the aesthetic & concepts from the start. My role early on was to translate the music into artwork & narrative that would fit the general idea of the project. But yeah, beyond that I’ll let Jim fill in the blanks here!

What’s the production process like for the music itself?

Jim: I captured all of the music either on a PlayStation using MTV’s Music Generator and/or
[Apple] GarageBand. For example, on the song, ‘Lone Star,’ I drummed a beat onto a cassette four-track, burned that onto a CD, placed the CD into the PlayStation, sampled and looped in MTV Music Generator,
and then built a song around it using that software. THEN I brought it into GarageBand and added more layers and effects. I also used a [Casio] SK-1 peppered throughout. In terms of plug-ins and soft synths, I used a lot of the Arturia stuff, [Native Instruments] Kontakt, [XLN Audio] Addictive Drums, [Toontracks] Superior Drummer, and a [Universal Audio] UAD-2 card loaded with a bunch of their processing plug-ins.

Not all games are narrative, and I’ve never found conventional narrative to be a prerequisite to art (cough, Ebert). But there is a strong narrative aspect to this title, too. How do you go about telling a story and building a game mechanic at once? (And, for that matter, do you still scrawl things on index cards to get there?)

Craig: It’s funny, we are getting some positive responses to S:S&S EP’s narrative, but really, the narrative only exists to make sense of the player’s experience; it’s not exactly ‘the point.’ We started with the songs, then the art, then the mechanics that would bring it together. And while the broad narrative concepts were always there, it was only in the final stages that the script came together, and really it’s just a way for us to help communicate what’s supposed to be going on. I was on the line to write the script, and for a good long while, it kinda sucked while I was buried under art, sound & design tasks, but I kept iterating on it, editing it for brevity, clarity, and humor, with Jim and Kris and a few others kinda guiding the process.

So yeah, I guess we did some okay things with narrative, and I’m actually super-proud of the mind-fuck tear-jerker heart-breaker finale, but I think the only reason any of it comes across is because of Jim’s music wrapped up in paintings. And really, Jim’s songs are all the narrative I ever wanted.

Now that you’ve become gaming rockstars, what’s next?

Jim: A bottle of vodka?

Craig: Hahahaha… Jim’s already a rockstar, so this stuff is probably old news. I think we’re definitely enjoying our fifteen minutes of fame in this very specific niche, and I’ve been trying – maybe too hard – to keep that buzz going so the project stays visible as we gear up for the all-important iPhone & iPod Touch launch. Once all that’s out of the way, I’m really just looking forward to some quiet time: bike rides, swimming, hiking, and whatever else.

We’ll keep the Sword & Sworcery project rolling along in the background too. We have plans for a gala event here in Toronto in a few months and some other schemes related to the app itself that’ll last the year & maybe into next year. We’ve been given a real opportunity here & we want to continue to honor that.

What are you excited about in gaming – or, for that matter, audiovisual work – at the moment, beyond your own work? Anything you’re listening to, watching, playing (or all three) at the moment?

Jim: Honestly, I went into my iTunes to have a look at my ‘Recently Played’ list and for as far as the eye could see, it’s all stuff I’m working on. No time for art! Just work!

Craig: I’ve been too busy and too exhausted to be paying much attention to what’s happening out there in videogames, film or music. To be honest, what I’m most excited about right now is the prospect of getting some fresh air and some exercise, maybe getting away from electronic screens for a bit sometime, and then after a little break maybe starting on some new creative work.

I had the opportunity to see 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters a few months ago. I’d seen it a few times before but only on VHS… so that was a real treat, it’s an entirely different film in the theaters, there’s so much more to enjoy. I’m also a huuuge fan of Kanye West’s “Runaway.” I think that’s a genuinely incredible piece of audiovisual work; Vanessa Beecroft’s art direction really shines. Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop and James Cameron’s Avatar blew me away too, for entirely different reasons. I’ve just recently seen my friend Firas Momani’s Fantasia Festival award-winning short film The Adder’s Bite & it gave me all those groovy Cronenberg + Lynch + Kubrick feelings, very inspiring.

On the video game side I’m still intermittently playing Motorstorm: Pacific Rift for PS3, a 2008 effort from Liverpool’s Evolution Studios that I think is basically perfect, plus I’m digging in to Monster Hunter Tri on Wii. I’m playing Monster Hunter co-operatively with a couple friends every Sunday morning… we’re still just scratching the surface but it’s easily the most intricate and deep video game I’ve ever played, which takes me way outside of my comfort zone in an interesting way. I’m also cautiously optimistic about L.A. Noire, Uncharted 3, and The Last Guardian… we’ll see how they work out in the end.

On the music side, I’ve been listening to Jim’s Sword & Sworcery LP… even though I’ve heard these tunes so much in the last two years that my ears hurt, the record itself still comes across as beautiful & fresh, the songs still evoke all kinds of imaginings. That record aside I’ve got a heckuva lot of catching up to do… but first I have to give my ears a bit of a break. That said, I’m amped for the Beastie Boys record that’s hitting in the next little while.

All images courtesy Superbrothers and Jim Guthrie. Used with permission.

Do let us know what you think of the game, folks – or whatever audiovisual creations, in the form of games or otherwise, inspire you.

More on the art, the design, the coding – and why Superbrothers went iOS-only.

On our sister site:
Inside Handheld Game Art: The Art Style and Making of Swords & Sworcery, Superbrothers Pixel Cinema [Create Digital Motion]

And, oh yeah, don’t forget to get the game:
http://www.swordandsworcery.com/

Comfort and creativity – the mystery of what makes certain vintage gear so appealing remains. There are few people closer to the meeting place of digital and analog, reason and sentiment, than Dr. David Berners. He’s the chief scientist for Universal Audio, responsible for modeling in digital software form the characteristics of sought-after, beloved analog gear. It’s science: Berners cut his teeth as an engineer working on the physics of nuclear fusion, going on to pursue a love of music and sound. Now he uses knowledge of physics and the characteristics of sound equipment to model computationally what makes this gear sound the way it does. But it’s also commerce: UA’s DSP platforms unlock access to a range of a la carte plug-ins, bringing a menu of sounds from the past to modern engineers without the associated bulk, inconvenience, and cost of the real thing.

So, if you’re curious to know a bit about what makes analog and digital gear tick, what that analog gear means in a digital age, Dave’s a good place to start. The timing’s good: UA’s on a bit of a roll. The company’s heritage begins entirely in the analog domain, founded in 1958 by Bill Putnam, Senior and resurrected in 1999 by his sons, James and Bill, to make new tools in both hardware and software. UA has recently introduced an elaborate software model of the Studer A800 tape recorder, one that seeks to make a digital workstation sound like a beloved, high-fidelity multitrack tape setup. There are also new models of the SSL console, authorized by manufacturer Solid State Logic, providing the channel strip and bus compressor; the real thing earned more Platinum records than any other gear, so it’s more or less guaranteed you’ve heard it unless you’ve been holed up on a farm listening to old-timey AM for the past few decades. And they’re expanding compatibility, with new support for Pro Tools and, via FireWire, all those Mac laptops that lack ExpressCard slots.

None of that, though, really winds up being the focus of our conversation. Dr. Berners is also Professor Berners, teaching the elements of DSP to students at Stanford with another UA alum and former CTO. Here, class is in session, as he talks about his laboratory-style approach to understanding how equipment works, and why having a theoretical model is so essential. He hedges on the question of why analog gear is appealing, leaving that to others, but opens up when explaining why he fell in love with engineering.

And, in the process, we get some serious gear porn courtesy of photography (and UA PR rep) Marsha Vdovin. She takes us inside the UA studio for a glimpse of a treasure trove of drool-worthy vintage gear and modern test equipment.

Deafening us with science, here’s Dr. Berners, proudly sponsored by our favorite advertiser, The Field of Mathematics. (They’ve been working on improving their PR lately. I hear they’re on Twitter.)

But deep beneath all that science, all the most empirical techniques for modeling, you might just discover how and why digital audio today could find its connection to the past.

CDM: Can you tell us a bit about how you wound up in this field? What led you to working in the science of DSP?

Dave: My parents told me that I wanted to be an engineer, ever since I was about five years old. I described to them the job that I wanted to do, and I asked them what it was called – and they said, that’s called an engineer. As far as I remember, that’s always what I figured I would end up doing.

After finishing a Masters Degree in power supply stuff, I worked at NASA a while on some design stuff for a couple of different projects, and then after that I worked at the Lawrence National Lab in Berkeley. It was some physics projects related to fusion power plants, so that was very different from audio. While I was doing all those things I didn’t realize I could find work in audio. I always liked the idea of doing audio-related stuff, but I didn’t know there would be any way I’d be realistically able to do it. While I was working at those two places, I found out about the CCRMA center at Stanford and decided to apply there for a graduate program [in the early 90s.] That was when I met Bill [Putnam, Jr. founder of the modern UA], because he was also a student there. I had done a little bit of DSP before that, but that was where I learned most of what I know.

And you’re teaching now at CCRMA.

Yes, along with Jonathan Abel. There’s one course in the fall that’s an introductory DSP, Discrete Time Filtering class. That was a course that was created by Julius Smith. He’s written the textbook for it. It’s meant for people who are just getting their feet wet … with no prerequisite other than high school math. The other class is the one Jonathan and I created, and that one’s more related to audio effects processing — tricks, I guess, on how to define DSP effects.

How did your background apply to coming the Universal Audio? Was there an additional learning curve, getting into work in audio?

For me personally, it was pretty smooth because I had real strong musical interests, the whole time I grew up. I had been an amateur musician my whole life, and spent a lot of hours playing music and working on music. Somehow that gave me an advantage – if I discovered I had made a bug or done something wrong, it gave me a good intuition — if something isn’t sounding right, what is it likely to be?

How much of modeling is intuition? I’d imagine that, with audio, the ultimate test is sort of if it sounds right, it is right?

The feeling thing is important. The way I like to think about it is that it’s not really among the design criteria. It’s more of a check. Ideally, what I would like is to be able to get a bunch of information about a product — schematics, info about the physics of how it works, whatever I need to understand the processes by which it operates — make a model, and implement the model. Human hearing comes into play, psychoacoustics, to determine what may or may not be important perceptually. But what I always hope is that by the time we get to the listening phase, there’s not anything left that we’re trying to tune, so to speak. It’d be more like catching bugs.

I do rely on our listening team — Will Shanks, in particular. He’s in charge of the qualification of our products in terms of our sound. I rely on him a lot, but it’s more that he’s finding little mistakes and errors. I don’t ever want to get into a situation where we listen to something and compare it to the original and say, well, I wish this sounded a little brighter. I would be very unhappy if I got in that position. I would much rather be able to have a complete understanding of how the original equipment works, and match that.

There’s a particular reason why I developed that opinion, and it has to do with the non-linearities that exist in a lot of this gear. If we had a totally linear system, like an equalizer that has no measurable distortion, that kind of system can be characterized fully just with one measurement. If I make a very good measurement in a careful way, for whatever setting the controls on the equipment is at, I can know everything there is to know about that piece of equipment. I can be totally confident that no matter what signal somebody puts through it, I can predict the behavior, just on the basis of my one measurement. What happens is if there’s any sort of non-linearity at all, unless we can characterize the non-linearity in a very specific way … it becomes absolutely impossible to characterize by measurement. There would always be the fear that even though you’d listen to a thousand audio snippets and they’d all sound identical, the next one that you try could sound different. It’s very difficult to have confidence in a model of a non-linear system, unless you know how that system works.

That goes hand in hand with how we do our measurements. We do use specific signals to cross-check our model — I’ll take a piece of gear, and start with the schematic, and write out with a pencil how it works. And then it’ll turn out that there are certain things in that circuit that aren’t really specified by that schematic. There’s a lot of behavior of different components – say you have a transistor or a tube or something – [where] you can write the part number on the schematic, but that doesn’t fully specify what that part does. We do have to do some measurements, but the only way we can trust the results of the measurements is if they’re informed. If I try to just take a piece of equipment as a black box, if I didn’t already know what was inside the box, it’d be impossible to make a good model.

You can do signal modeling, where you have some array of test signals that maybe you’ve developed and see what happens to them when they go through the equipment — and that to me is the risky way to do it. And then the other method is called physical modeling, where you try to understand all the processes that are happening inside the box. With that type of a model, you have to build the behavior from the bottom up, and then once you’re done, you need to verify that you’ve got all your parameters right. So instead of unknown types of behavior you just have unknown parameters. So you might say, I know there’s a capacitor inside here, and it probably has some resistance associated with it, and that resistance doesn’t appear on the schematic, because nobody knows what it is. But I can find out what it is by doing a particular measurement.

So then what happens is we’ll build up a behavioral model based on the physics of all the parts. And then only after we make the model can we decide what test signals are appropriate to expose all the unknown parameters. Every model that we make of a different piece of gear, we’ll have to invent a completely different set of test signals to find out the parameters of all the different components. Hopefully we’ll be able to do something without taking everything apart. In some cases, there are behaviors that are unobservable directly. Sometimes we’ll have to unsolder all the components and measure them separately and then put it back together. In general, we’re more comfortable trying to understand the real processes that are happening inside a box.

I’d assume you get better at doing this over time. Does what you learn in one place carry over to another?

Yeah, that’s half of it, and then the other half is, as time goes on, we have more and more processing power available to us. There are certain things that we would have liked to do in 1999 but couldn’t. We already foresaw that we might eventually be able to add some of these effects in. Every once in a long while, it’s worth revisiting some of these things and saying, well, now I have one hundred times more computational power available to me, so now I can start putting in more effects that are less noticeable than the ones we put in already, but maybe above the threshold of being able to be perceived.

So not only do we learn more as we do more projects, but we also have more opportunity to include effects that would have been too expensive ten years ago.

That seems to be a story that’s largely untold. People are aware of the trajectory of CPU power over the years. People are now looking at the area of the GPU and low-power CPUs. But people seem unaware that DSP chips has grown, too. It seems the bang for your buck is better today than it was even recently.

Oh, yeah, I’d say definitely. I think the tangible manifestation of that idea can be seen by the difference between our original UAD-1 card and the UAD-2. Over the last couple of years since the UAD-2 came out, we’ve had increasingly power-hungry processors that we’ve released. Now we’re to the point that a lot of this stuff would not have run even one instance on the old card. But we can still do it. We always feel like if there’s a question whether to include a part of the model that’s a little bit expensive, so far, we always put it in. The amount of processing power is never going to be reduced. We’d rather include more right now, because then we’re ahead of the curve.

Sometimes, it’ll turn out that we’re at a certain point in complexity, and in order to gain a tiny bit of perceptual improvement, it’d take a huge computational cost. And so then we figure we’re at a sweet spot, and so that’s good. Other times, we’ll look at something, and maybe by increasing computational cost a tiny bit, we could get a significant perceptual improvement. Then we may be inclined to put it in even if it stretches the current capacity of our hardware. There’s also cases where, if we feel like something’s gotten really expensive, sometimes we’ll make two versions of a plug-in. We always try to order everything so we take care of the major artifacts first.

Let’s talk about the Studer. First, to revisit this idea of process, where do you start modeling something like this? In some ways, it’s not the most non-linear of the things you’ve had to model. It does seem like it’s a complex system. There was a lot there to take into account in the design.

Yeah — the signal path is long, and there’s a lot of things happening in there. Also, the non-linearities, while they may not be as dramatic as, say, a guitar stompbox or something, they’re considerably complex. There’s a lot of behavior that has a fair amount of subtlety. I think that just about any magnetic mechanism is going to be complicated, because of the hysteresis that you get in magnetic processes. Not only is the tape deck magnetic, but it has a spatial extent. So whereas, if you have say a transformer or an inductor with a magnetic core, unless you’re being very picky, the coils of the wire don’t really move. They might deflect a tiny bit when current goes through them, but for the most part they stay put. And if you imagine the coils of wire are actually fixed on a transformer, the fields that are created don’t change their shape that much, unless you have a material that’s really saturating a lot. Basically, you have a one-dimensional system.

Whereas with the tape, there’s the thickness of the tape and then the width of the tape, and then there’s the length of the tape on which you’re making the recording. That’s all going by the heads, the record and the playback heads, and so the geometries become really important. Any time you have a system that’s got a spatial extent, and especially one that’s got moving parts like that, the computational complexity can go way up. Let’s say you have a tape that’s magnetized, it’s not going to be uniformly magnetized. The magnetization will be a function of the depth of the tape and the width of the tape and of course the length. If you wanted to keep track of all of that stuff, you have this sort of geometric explosion of complexity. It was really necessary to think very hard about how we could have some kind of a model that would be practical to implement – keep all the subtlety that we wanted to have.

Even though the original intent of the [Studer] deck was to be as linear as possible, to be a transparent recording medium, all those different factors made it one of the longer-term projects that we’ve ever done – just trying to figure out how to do the simplifications that we were going to have to do in a way that wouldn’t really detract from the fidelity of the model.

So, how much of this was theoretical? At what point do you have to look at the actual hardware?

We knew that we’d have to have a machine. Just distinguishing between the different tape formulations, it would be very difficult to be confident in those models done all in the abstract. This is one of those cases where we like to have a model, but it’s very important to be able to cross-check the results with the real thing. We had a Studer deck that we got from Ocean Way [Recording, the legendary Hollywood studio] and brought it into our studio. It’s been here for the last year and a half or so, and we’ve used it heavily. It’s really tough to take something like that apart; the cards plug into the interior of the machine. So we’d take the cards out and work on them, and I soldered a bunch of leads on different parts of the circuit that I wanted to look at, and then we could temporarily just lift a component if we really needed it to be disconnected.

For this, we ended up bringing in a bunch of scopes and other test equipment into the control room. I soldered flying leads onto the cards. It really turned out to be critical that we could look at different points inside the circuitry while we were using the deck.

It’s kind of related to the stuff I was trying to describe before. Even if we know a model for the whole process, if we want to expose a particular non-linearity or behavior at a certain point in the circuit, it’s a lot easier if we can look at data right from some internal circuit node rather than the output. So that’s how we did our verification – and obviously, listening, too.

It’s well known that the Studer is really carefully designed to have high fidelity and be well-behaved. But in spite of that, it turns out that there’s a little bit of non-linearity on the record amplifier, so the signal’s [got] some artifacts associated with it on the way to the record head. So that’s why we felt we had to monitor all these points on the circuit.

On the other hand, if we would have just started hooking up wires at different places and blindly tried to figure out what’s going on without knowing anything about how this stuff works, there’d be no way to work out a workable model. If we put out some signal that we just made up out of thin air, it would be overwhelming.

Having gotten intimate with this equipment, can you comment on what makes this gear so desirable in the first place, aside from pleasant associations with it historically?

I’m comfortable with audio and music, but I don’t want to decide upfront that something will be unpleasant or undesirable and leave it out. I’d rather put everything in. It’s never obvious, really, which artifacts are the desirable ones.

It seems really the opposite from what we’re seeing in consumer photography. There, when you see iPhone apps like Hipstamatic and Instamatic, the idea is to apply very specific, desirable qualities from a camera intentionally, rather than to model the whole camera. So they really have decided what’s desirable.

[laughs] If we had as many customers as the iPhone, maybe we’d charge $2 for an app.

Hey, in that case, maybe you’d just listen to your entire song library as if it were coming through the Studer.

That’s right. That could actually be great.

There is a place for that line of thought. And to me, that place is to make forward progress. Let’s say that we’ve analyzed a hundred highly-prized pieces of vintage gear, and tried to understand what makes them all special. Now, it gives us hopefully a good information base, and maybe a little intuition ourselves of how we’d design a new piece of equipment if we wanted it to have a specific sound. If we were going to design something like that, then we’d have a lot of freedom that we wouldn’t [otherwise], if we’re not claiming it’s identical to something.

For us, it’s worth it to do the modeling just to achieve the models ourselves. And when we are doing a model, we don’t want to interpose our own ideas about what’s important. The one case where we do is if there’s really solid evidence from psychoacoustic experiments that people will not be able to perceive something, then we will neglect that if it turns out to be expensive to put things in.

We’re willing to accept the fact that people will be unable to perceive certain things. But what we’re not willing to do is to decide whether something will be pleasant or unpleasant.

What were some of your favorite projects from UA’s now fairly large back catalog – or what were the toughest models you worked on?

Almost the first two models were the 1176 and the LA2A. And it’s kind of interesting to think about those, because they both were difficult, but for different reasons. The LA2A has this little electro-luminescent panel in there that lights up and shines on a light-sensitive resistor, and that’s how the compression happens. And it turned out that the physics of that panel were very difficult for us to understand. And so we spent a long time trying to figure out how in the world we would even understand the mechanism of how that worked but then characterize them somehow. The behavior was just very, very complex and multi-dimensional. It just was very difficult. It really was satisfying to finally get a model that had the right behavior.

The thing that made the 1176 very hard was that the attack is very fast. It’s actually faster than one sampling interval if you’re at 44k. The attack is pretty much just about complete by the time you advance one sample forward in time. Even though we could characterize the behavior of the 1176 more easily than the LA2A, implementing the plug-in became very, very tough, because we had to make this feedback loop. It’s a feedback compressor, and we had to make the loop behave properly, even though these processes were happening much faster than one sample period. So we had to think really hard in terms of how to implement the thing. There’s a lot of different ways to get stuck — you could get stuck trying to understand the actual process, or you might understand the process but then think, “How can I implement this as a digital system?” So at different times, we’ve had different things that stuck out as the tough part of a project.

It does sound like you have a strong philosophy.

When I first started working at UA, Bill met with me and said he had the idea and the vision to do these models, based on physical process. It’s been a company point of view, irrespective of who does the work. There’s actually three or four of us now that do algorithms here, all working with the same ideas and the same ways of going about things. It’s a broad angle of attack that we as a company decided to do, not something that any one person developed.

Bill’s been really great to work with from the days when we were in school together up until now. One thing I really admire about Bill is that he can look at a problem and reduce it to the important components immediately. He can look at something that’s really complex and has a lot of different factors that are difficult to dis-entangle for someone else and get right down to what the important behaviors are going to be. It’s just a really nice, organized way of thinking that he has.

I should also mention Jonathan Abel. [founder of Kind of Loud before it merged with UA]. He had a lot of input – a huge effect into the shape that the first batch of plugins evolved. He worked a lot in the trenches on the algorithms with me, and had a huge impact on how that stuff came out.

So why model historic gear in the first place? And once you are done with the process, what does that tell you about why people value these tools?

That’s a tough question to answer definitively. It’d be very hard for me to make a convincing argument that someone should want to have those models and use them all the time. But if you just want to answer the question, why would someone ever want them, then it’s easier to answer that question.

There are thousands and thousands of vintage projects that have been designed. The ones we focus on are the ones that for some reason have become highly coveted. In a lot of cases, those ones are the ones that were the most carefully designed or the most expensive things available at the time. Not all of them – some of the stuff that turns out to be really popular and sound great, some of those things have a lot of their good characteristics almost accidentally. I’m absolutely sure when we do a lot of these models, we know things about the circuit that the engineers didn’t. People would design something and then just put up with a little bit of an artifact without understanding it or caring about it, whereas we, if we want to recreate that, have to go down into the weeds and really understand it to a higher degree than sometimes the people who designed the gear.

For whatever reason, there are certain pieces of gear that have become super-popular. Whether it’s an intrinsic human characteristic to like those things, or whether it’s cultural weight, or familiarity, for whatever reason, they’re pleasing. And so, for people to have those sounds available to them I think is always going to be beneficial, until people just forget about those sounds, if that ever happens.

I think familiarity definitely leads to comfort, and comfort can lead to creativity just as well as being off-balance can. They’re two different kinds of things. It seems you were making the point that there’s a whole world of new stuff out there where you could make new sounds, and that’s probably true. I hope that people – even us – continue to do that kind of work, too. On the other hand, there are certain sounds people are used to and enjoy, and I think it’s good to have those sounds at their disposal, too.

These tools allow someone to make a recording with a grounding, that gives it a pleasant, familiar, comfortable sound. And then you still have the freedom to add your own novel ideas to the music. Maybe someone’s never used that piece of equipment before, but they’ve probably heard records that were made with that equipment.

It’s happened to me in development. For example, when we did our very first Neve EQ model, I worked out all of the math, designed all of the filters and everything. And then I got hold of the hardware, and started cross-checking the results of my design with the hardware. And I started playing music through both. It was really eye-opening to me. I made some adjustments, and thought – oh, it’s that sound. I know what that sound is; I’ve heard a lot of records that sound like that. But I never knew that that was a 1073 making that sound. But now I do. And it’s the same thing with the 1176 – you know, like I said, if you put that on a drum kit, you think, oh, it’s that, it’s this record and that record, and it’s a beautiful sound, and I always wondered how people got that sound. To me, it’s kind of exciting to have that comfortable feeling of thinking, I love that sound, and now I can do it.

By the way, I’m a design engineer, not a professional musician or a recording engineer, so these perspectives should probably be given very little weight. But I’m just telling you my personal opinion. There’s other people even within UA that probably should carry a lot more weight. I don’t know — I like creativity in music, but also a grounding in some aspect of it that sound comfortable and familiar.

Thanks, Dave. We’ll be taking a closer look at the Universal Audio solutions and where to begin using their stuff in your music, as well as their new FireWire-based Satellite for you Mac users. And in the interest of balance, I also have a very different take on modeling analog, from guy named Dave. I spoke with Dave Hill about HEAT, the Avid product; watch for that interview soon. HEAT is quite different from the UA stuff, but you’ll hear some familiar themes about the larger picture. Got questions for this Dave and UA? Thoughts on your own experiences with hardware and software? Let us know in comments.

http://www.uaudio.com/

TC Electronic’s PowerCore, a hardware DSP platform for audio processing is officially discontinued. You could easily continue working with PowerCore for some time, however. A recently-released 4.0 update provides full support for current OSes and hosts, even 64-bit ones, says the manufacturer. Nor is TC going anywhere: the company says it will continue to pursue audio interfaces and software (non-hardware-DSP) plug-ins. In fact, it’s a safe bet TC simply wasn’t getting enough business out of PowerCore to justify it, and will devote its resources elsewhere.

One manufacturer that is making it in hardware DSP that’s not Avid Pro Tools is Universal Audio. Their UAD-2 system remains a popular choice, and may become more so now that it offers FireWire support on Macs (something previously offered only by the PowerCore). Updated: James Grahame reminds me that it’s worth mentioning Sonic Core, who have their own Scope platform. As with UA, they’re basically a specialty shop, whereas TC has a number of other businesses. With S|C covering new-fangled digital ground like graintable and physical modeling, and UA focusing on first-party development of analog modeling and vintage emulation, you’ve got a good range of choice for DSP.

The crossgrade doesn’t give you a break on new UAD hardware, but it does give you significant bundles of free plug-ins for the platform. The breakdown goes something like this:

Solo line: Fairchild + Cambridge + Puletc-Pro ($377 value)
Duo: add LA-3A, DreamVerb ($675 value)
Quad: add Precision Limiter, EQ, multiband ($1322 value)

That’s on top of coupons for plug-ins of your choice included with each of those packages. And it includes the new FireWire Satellite systems.

None of this will entirely comfort existing users, though, I’m guessing. Our friend Oliver at Wire to the Ear writes a nice obituary – and I agree that I hope we see native ports of some of these plugs. (That or else maybe we’ll see TC introduce them on the iPad, the way the industry is going.)
TC Electronic Discontinues the PowerCore

The ongoing success of the UAD-2, even if for a specific niche, demonstrates that hardware DSP platforms aren’t necessarily going away. At the same time, it’s easy to understand that TC might focus instead on native software and specialized hardware (like stompboxes).

It’s difficult to describe Universal Audio’s plug-ins until you’ve tried them. It’s a bit like having chocolate sauce at your disposal, sonically speaking. Whatever your higher-level brain may have to say, somewhere deep in your mammalian brain, you hear only … mmmmmm. Chocolate. It’s the word I get from UA users, and I’ll also have an interview with UA to post next week in which we get deep into the philosophy of sound, software design, and modeling, a conversation that transcends any one product. They’re not for everyone – they demand a price premium, to be sure, versus rival CPU-native options, and those with access to a studio might just use the real thing. But for enthusiasts, they can be a delight.

The trick is actually having access to UA’s extensive library of analog-modeling effects. Even as CPUs have marched forward in performance, dedicated DSP chips haven’t stood still. That makes these number-crunching brains a convenient platform for sound, as they are on UA’s effects. If you’re not using a desktop PC with a PCI slot, that means you need an external bus through which the hardware and your computer can connect. ExpressCard is a big boon, but especially for Mac users, it’s been an obstacle. A powerful MacBook Pro is now available for around a grand, but to get ExpressCard, you now need the wallet-busting, messenger bag-cramming 17″ model. It’s clearly a deal breaker.

The UAD-2 Satellite DUO and QUAD should greatly broaden the appeal of the platform, making it accessible to inexpensive, recent iMacs and MacBook Pros. I’m sure Universal Audio is smiling at the idea that you can take that $1000-2000 premium and spend it on UA instead of Apple.

By connecting via Firewire 400 or 800 on a “select” (recent) Intel Mac, the Satellite gives you access to models of vintage hardware UA has made with the likes of Roland, Neve, Moog, Studer, dbx, Solid State Logic, Lexicon, Manley, Empirical Labs, Trident, SPL, and EMT.

On the PC, I’d still recommend the inexpensive ExpressCard option to get started. It’s cheaper, and won’t have the strict compatibility requirements. On the Mac, though, with $500 plug-in vouchers or 50 plug-ins included, the US$899 starting point on these models doesn’t look bad at all. In fact, someone out there may be over at the Apple Store already pricing out one of the “low-end” iMacs or MacBook Pros, as they represent desktop-class performance from just a couple of years ago, particularly with what you can do now with USB2 and Firewire.

UA also recently added Pro Tools compatibility, so that combined with FireWire options means just about anyone can now consider their platform. If it’s something that interests you and you’ve got questions, fire away in comments and I’ll pass them on to the engineers at UA.

http://www.uaudio.com/

UAD-2 Satellite DUO Product Page (the entry-level model … more specs on compatibility forthcoming)

Darnit. Now I mentioned chocolate, so I have to go eat a chocolate.

I’ve been waiting for the near-ubiquitous ExpressCard slot on laptops to see some audio goodness, so one of the more welcome announcements of NAMM is that there’s now finally an ExpressCard-enabled version of the Universal Audio platform. The UAD is a DSP platform for computers, with an emphasis on high-quality, boutique mastering and effects plug-ins, including some recent, familiar emulations of classic Roland and Moog gear. UA’s stuff really does sound great, and host support has been improving (look for the key words “latency compensation” in your host of choice). So it’s about time that laptop users get in on some of the fun the desktop users have had.

The surprise is, the UAD-2 SOLO doesn’t cost that much – $500 includes the card plus the “1176SE Compressor/Limiter, Pultec EQP-1A Equalizer, RealVerb Pro Room Modeler, and CS-1 Channel Strip.” That’s a premium over native plug-ins, but then you have access to other UA plugs later on. In other news, Antares and Manley Labs signed onto UA’s platform, so more stuff is coming.

And by the way, while the forums rip into the choice of DAW, this stuff will work everywhere – even, via RTAS, Pro Tools.

Universal’s stuff isn’t for everyone, but I’m pleased that laptop users are getting something more out of a slot on their machine. (You’ll find ExpressCard on most PCs and the MacBook Pro, as well.) I hope this is the first of more hardware to come.

http://www.uaudio.com/

Mastering – spoiled for choice? This means in mastering choices, you’ve got the UAD, IK’s T-RackS 3 announced at the end of last year, and iZotope’s Ozone 4 announced at NAMM. I’ll be talking to some folks in New York who know something about mastering (i.e., are not me). (One of them is a big Cubase fan, so I expect he’ll also be all over Cubase 5 – and he makes records that make real money, whereas I make records that go nicely with experimental modern dance.)

Each of these products goes a different direction, but the honest truth is almost any DAW will start you out with a pretty great selection of effects tools, and for a small chunk of change, you can add on with something like the UAD, T-RackS, and iZotope. None of this changes your actual skill level or the quality of your ears, but it does help keep your wallet from being the major barrier.