The Sphere software is now supported on the UAD platform. "Why would you want to run such software on a laggy platform like UAD?", you may ask! The main answer to this is that a lot of producers move from studio to studio and use the studio's own computers, which may or may not have their normal software loaded and authorised. So they tend to take outboard UAD-2 units round with them, and the UAD-2 software emulation authorisations are tied to the outboard units, so even if they need to download the latest UAD software pack, they'll be up and running with their plug-ins within a few minutes.
The Avid 11 Rack guitar amp emulations were only so-so, according to my friends that know these sort of things (I've never heard one), OK in themselves but not that close to the real amps they were modelling. So with alot of the same people on the Sphere team, I wonder how close to the emulated mics they will get compared to the Slate system? Still waiting for a good independent comparison test.
Hi Simon I use Both the UAD and Eleven Rack. The UAD is great when used to mix as it's the FireWire satellite version, it's fabulous. But wouldn't use the plugins to record. The new UAD audio interfaces are better as there's no latency when using the plugins in a recording situation. The annoying thing with UAD is you have to buy their expensive hardware then purchase their equally expensive plugins, you would have thought having to use the hardware, the price of the plugins would be of a reasonable price but nope, in fact they are higher than independent plugins. The Eleven Rack is a guitar interface that in truth was designed and built before memory and processing power was easily available and at cheaper prices. Now it sounds pretty dated in comparison to Semper and my favourite Bias head. But when it was introduced in I think 2008; well as you can appreciate, 8 years in that kind of industry is a long long time, something better was bound to come along. The Eleven Rack is still an amazing audio interface and can be used for live gigs as an amp, it's also well supported in the community in reference to new downloadable sounds and patches. And is readilliy available to purchase at a great price. I use it mixed in with other guitar effects and with its low latency, find it a no brainier for the price. Is it a Semper or Bias? Absolutely not. But it is a great audio interface with guitar sounds built in. And built like a proverbial tank, needs a firmware update. But Avid aren't interested in it any more, shame great platform. And the guys that designed this, Avid layed off along with many more talented designers and programmers. The other great thing is it it integrates nicely with Pro Tools.
Last edited by kimball492; 05-12-2016 at 02:47 PM.
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