Awesome video. I'm very interested in purchasing the UAD Manley VoxBox because of my voice, since it's raspy and believe it'd fit it perfectly. Would you make a video using it? Thank you!
I plan on dropping a video tomorrow going over my go to plugin chain for tracking vocals and how to set em up. It’s impressive how quick your channel has been growing. Feels like just yesterday you were making a video on me lol
ha right! It's crazy to me too, good times. Hope you're doing well. You're channel is awesome and you've done a great job Ty! If you're ever in town - Nashville - we will have to catch up. I'm planning on doing a video on vocals soon too, it's like we're on the same wavelength. ha I appreciate you dropping by and keeping in touch. Cheers brotha!
@@TheSteveKinney that’d be awesome man I’m always up for collaborating any way possible. We’re all in this together it’s about time the audio community begins supporting each other. I’m tired of the larger channels never showing love to us smaller guys who are trying to come up. In due time man in due time. Mann you’re wayy on the other side of the country lol. I’d love to check your spot out. Perhaps one day we’ll see what happens 🤷♂️ take care bro
Thanks for the kind words Tom! I figured as I continue to build videos, that I need to make sure that I have covered everything from start to finish. glad you enjoyed and got some take aways from this video. Cheers!
My reason to begin with UA was that they make special external hardware to run their plugins. I'm far from an engineer but common sense, at least to me, must be that plugins must run smoother if they have their own hardware, sort of. Compared to having the computer run everything.
Hi Steve, ive been watching your content all day. I decided to jump on the UAD train with an Apollo X Duo and Satellite as well. Both are in the mail as we speak 🎉 Looking forward to watching this channel grow. Good honest content without the bullshit. Also thanks for not posting these vids with those obnoxious facial expression thumbnails. I'll pick up some of your packs and a mug at some point. Thanks mate 🍻👍
Ha! had me rolling at the "facial expressions".. Jim, thanks so much for the support, watching, and your thoughts! You will certainly not be disappointed in your decision to take the plunge! After picking up a Duo, I was instantly hooked. Plenty more video's to come in the future! Really gonna try to hit it hard this year. Cheers, -Steve
Great tutorial! I've been confused for months though - I can only use my SSL once. Trying to add it to a 2nd track, I get the "resources maxed" messages. How are all of you guys using UAD plugins all day and night and I can only use it once before maxing out on DSP resources? Thanks all!
I have a video on that as well. The WAY you use it is very pivotal. A few quick tips: 1. Always commit via unison if you’re solely using as a mic pre with a little eq - aka if it’s first in the chain. This way - you don’t need to have an instance in post production / mixing, it’s the old school method that you would do in studios back in the day. 2. Track freeze - a lot of DAWs, Luna included have the ability to freeze tracks or bounce tracks in place. This is another way of committing to the processing. 3. Most of the YT’ers out there have set ups that have large DSP counts, multiple apollos, DSP accelerator units .. 4. Many have also migrated to using other plugin brands for the ssl thing .. myself in particular - for tracking, I’ll use the UAD plugin for the unison mic pre emulation; and then in post production, I’ll use the new SSL 4K E plugin. Best of both worlds. There are other decent once’s out there too - like brainwork’s. But the new SSL plugins are the top dog at the moment for 4K emulation. I’d put UAD’s right under it.
great video, you explain things very well. I started using Luna and looking for some ideas to build a mixing template. Would love to see your take on a mix template we could get some tips on using these plugins or even 3rd party stuff.
Hey John, Thanks for watching and for the kind words! Luna is awesome, I'll definitely be putting out a video on mix templates as soon as they release that feature to the public - for now - I can only watch with anticipation! lol I think your idea with 3 party stuff is neat. I'll add this to my ever growing list! -Steve
Cheers! Ya- I did as many as I could towards the end. I need to make some music that I can use in these RU-vid videos. All the stuff I’m working with is with artists that release - so I can’t just open up a project I’m working on for examples.. for fear of copyright strike. Doing my best 😭 so much non stop work. Fun though! Thanks for watching - I’m certainly doing my best over here to always improve. Learning everyday.
@@TheSteveKinney I’m a guitar-first guy so just being selfish. I watch as many vids as I can to try and educate myself. So much to learn for the Newbie and appreciate your help.
@@ArenaPAsys totally! Being a guitar guy myself, it’s what started it all for me. I’ll have to do more stuff on guitars for sure. Sooo many good sounding UAD guitar sims. The fuchs is amazing.
Hello Steve! I am looking at the UA interfaces now, specifically an Apollo Twin or the new Volt 276. Would you comment on the pros and cons of each? Thank you!
Right on dude. I mean. They kind of aren’t comparable. The volt is aimed at a different market. The twin is their professional interface line up. The volt, while likely sounds awesome, behaves like a traditional interface. Apollo is a totally different class by far. Cheers dude.
Hey Chopp! Would love to do this. I've gotta dive into the Avalon for sure - haven't had time just yet - but will certainly look at this in the very near future, stay tuned! Cheers
Awesome video. I'm very interested in purchasing the UAD Manley VoxBox because of my voice, since it's raspy and believe it'd fit it perfectly. Would you make a video using it? Thank you!
From all the praise I see in the comments - I don't think you'd ever be able to go wrong with the voxbox. It's a fan favorite for sure. Adding to my list! Thanks for the suggestion - here's to another lost weekend, ha ha! Cheers, -Steve
Do you have to have an Apollo interface to make Luna, unison plug-ins and non unison plug-ins, console app, and UAD meter& Control panel to make all this work???
Any UAD plugin will load with either a UAD Satellite, or Apollo.... unison technology will only work with an Apollo, but the plugin will still model the characteristics of your signal - just won't be able to change impedance and those characteristics after the fact. Luna requires an Apollo to run. Console is really only for an Apollo as well. UAD meter will run with the Satellite, it just measure your DSP usage etc.
Are the plugins stored in the audio interface or on an external hard drive and loaded into the interface when I need them? Can I use the plugins in my daw and not in my universal audio interface if I wanted to?
Hey Joseph! Hope you’re well, thanks for the great question. So the companion software “console” is stored on your computer. This is the software that controls what’s happening under the hood of your Apollo interface. The licenses of the plugins are stored on the Apollo - and the plugins are processed on the Apollo. Pretty sure the plugin code themselves is stored on your computer. Hopefully that makes sense. The code and plugins run on the Apollo as you substantiate or load a plugin. This can be done in your daw OR in console. Both require your Apollo to be on and running. For tracking - you’d wanna load the plugins in console - for the lowest latency. As well as to take advantage of the Unison preamps - which physically change how the preamp is interacting for the difference mic pre plugins you’re loading. Really cool. Once you’re done tracking you can put whatever you need into your daw session. 😎 Cheers mate.
I have a Twin MKII Apollo duo core, and I have the issue of DSP usage. Some of the UA plugins just suck all the DSP after just using a few, so been trying to save for a Satellite, at least a 4 core to help with available DSP. Have any advise for managing DSP usage when using UA plugins?
Hey Joey! Great question and thanks so much for watching! I made a video on this already - which you can find on my channel. Link here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xmgcnQD-a1A.html That said, just a few quick tips that I don't think I remembered to include in the video. 1. Create a "new session" Console Template to load after you're done tracking. This will make sure that after you're done tracking - you can easily clear out all the plugins from console, so you can use that DSP inside of your daw in post processing. 2. Use Legacy instances on background sounds that aren't in the forefront. You'd be surprised at how much this saves you. 3. Bounce your FX tracks inside your daw to wav files. NOTE: only do this once you're already done automating sends, vocals tuned etc. (this is nuanced so ... use caution) 4. Don't use preamp plugins inside your daw. If you're signal was already recorded - then the sound and character of that preamp is baked in... so. in essence - you'd be taking the sound of whatever source you had originally and running it into a Neve. So now it's Neve on top of something else. lol and you just burned a bunch of DSP.... now if you like it - and it's a static file that's not gonna change - bounce to wav. Final thought - a lot of the tips really stem from knowing how and when to commit audio to wav. Just the nature of the beast I suppose. Even back in the day on tape they ran into these situations. It will make you a better engineer - I promise. All the best, Steve
No, but when you get autotune - you can track with it in real-time - unlike the computer hosted versions. Pretty damn sweet. It’s like having the autotune rackmount box from tascam.
What plugin would you recommend to get a clean trim plug in on UAD console auxiliary just to track vocals better for your headphone mix? Does UAD have anything clean of that sorts?
You mean just to gain up sound louder into the aux tracks inside of console? - personally... I’d just use the ua610-b and just use the output gain knob at the bottom for digital gain - if it’s just for monitoring- clean doesn’t really matter so long as your not distorting - really anything should do here. Another thing you could do is use the precision channel strip turn off the eq and dynamics then turn the output gain up,.. or precision delays/verbs and turn the mix to 0 but the output gain up. Great question! Cheers mate!
@@TheSteveKinney Thank you Steve. Yes i was asking for just increasing tracking volume output on the auxiliary. I recently made a new vocal chain on Avalon 737sp with proper gain staging and compression stacks on the inserts to be printed. But the volume was not adequate for me at the end for tracking on the headphone mix (i may have been too careful and could have increased input gain a bit higher). Also note my headphone monitor output was almost maxed out as well. So i routed the auxiliary send fader almost to the max and put another Avalon on the receiving side (eq and comp off) just to hear myself better to my liking. The problem was i was getting a lot of added warmth and brightness which confused me from understanding what was normally coming out of my live vocals. Now i intend to try that UAD precision channel strip to see how clean it is. Thank you so much. I have never seen anyone address this particular problem and solution on youtube.
@@Ali_ReBORN interestingly enough - it may be an impedance mismatch on the headphone output. I noticed that when I went to high impedance headphones - I had to crank my headphone level. Food for thought. But yeah - the precision strip with the modules turned off ought to do the trick! Cheers mate!
@@TheSteveKinney Hmm, i’ll check everything then. Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been planning to replace my AKG K271 Mk II 55 ohms headphone with Beyerdynamic DT 770t 80 ohms soon. But not sure if i changed any impedance on the vocal chain though. Will find out and update you 😆 been relearning everything properly lately!
Steve - you've been so helpful always! This is a very beginner question - but I'm new to Apollo and Luna. I want to make sure that my neve 1173 preamp is in unison to be sure it makes it onto my recording. My question is how do I track with the preamp and the LA2A but NOT have the reverb go on the recording ? How do I know what's being recorded to the track versus what doesn't get tracked? Hope that makes sense
Hi i am from Sweden and run a studio there and want to jump in to the Universal family, But can i use the plugins post? So i can use them in my mix in logic X and how do i do that? Thanx
Hey there. Great question. Answer: yes you sure can. They are AU plugins just like any other. You’d load them up in logic just like you would a stock plugin. The advantage with their interfaces is that you can also load them “pre daw” so to speak - and track into your daw as if it were analogue gear - saving DSP resources later. And if that wasn’t cool enough - the mic pres have this modeling technology called unison. When you load a unison mic pre plugin into the UAD console insert - it controls physical modeling inside of your Apollo’s mic pre, matching distortion characteristics, impedance, etc. And finally - you can do a mix of printing your signal on the way in too. So for example - I could record with a 1073 mic pre plugin (print/commit to wav), and then monitor with compression, reverb etc - without recording that compression to wav. All in real-time. It’s where it’s at mate! Super powerful! Cheers!
@@vaterson6664 I/O is limited by comparison. Older connection technology. Converters are likely not as good. No unison tech - just traditional plugins. So all the modeling is almost like putting an Instagram filter on a picture. Definitely not a bad interface. Just IMO doesn’t compete. The newer antelopes are nicer but they are just as expensive and still don’t offer the unison style modeling tech. That stuff is really damn good. I tracked a vocal through a API 1608 mk ii ... and split the signal before hitting pre - ran it through unison api vision strip .. it sounds identical. The reason is how the hardware physically interacts with the mic. Good stuff. Cheers!
