UAD-1 Fairchild 670

billybk wrote on 1/18/2004, 7:37 AM

"I can see why the real hardware units are going for $30,000. Wow."

Yes, I agree and to think I only paid $149.00 for this fabulous vintage plugin :)
It seems to make a thin track fat or a fat track fatter while still sounding transparent. I think someone said it best when he compared UA's Fairchild 670 plug to a neutral sounding Vintage Warmer without any of the digital artifacts or harshness when pushed hard. When it comes to excellent sounding, affordable plugins with great eye appeal, UA knows how to program 'em! Try using it on the master bus in Sound Forge 7.
I already have some Plugin Chain presets for instant recall when doing my psuedo master's:

Fairchild 670 | Cambridge EQ | Elephant HQ

Fairchild 670 | Pultec EQ | LA2A | Elephant HQ

Billy Buck

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/18/2004, 7:55 AM

whats elephant hq?

billybk wrote on 1/18/2004, 8:47 AM

"whats elephant hq?"

It's a high quality, affordable, transparent mastering limiter (loudness maximizer) VST plugin. There are two plugs, the less CPU hungry Elephant and the higher quality Elephant HQ. Whereas I used to use the L2 a lot, I normally reach for the Elephant nowadays.

http://www.voxengo.com

Billy Buck

bgc wrote on 1/18/2004, 10:01 AM

I haven't had it long enough to try it on much other than as a master buss compressor. I've been trying a Fairchild 670->Magneto chain (I almost always let the mastering house do the loudness processing so don't add that). It sounds amazing, really bringing the drums out, "gluing" the music together and I swear widening the stereo by about 50%.
B.

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/18/2004, 10:26 AM

Man I am gonna have to buy this fairchild if its that good. Ill be trying it today.

What are the demo limitations?

I will be quite surprised by this plug if it lives up 1/10th to its name, as the UA stuff has been pretty unimpressive so far, especially that damn dream verb

Any hope of ever fixing the cpu munching bug?

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/18/2004, 11:47 AM

does a real fairchild turn up the gain when you turn the threshold down?

Is there a cure for the cant shutdown windows bug when the UAD-1 is installed?

bgc wrote on 1/18/2004, 5:48 PM

It's a 14 day demo for the Fairchild.
I have to disagree with you on the plugins being unimpressive. The LA2A, 1176 and Pultec plugins are fantastic emulations and nothing elese sounds like them - except the real-deals of course.

The Fairchild plugin works (for me) just like the original control-wise.

Sorry, I don't have and haven't heard about a "can't shutdown" bug with the UAD-1.

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/18/2004, 9:00 PM

Im still having another weird problem with the UAD-1 plugs

If any of these plugs: LA-2A, Pultec, or Fairchild are used as a track effect, I cannot send from an insert send from that track to a realverb or dreamverb

Arnar wrote on 1/19/2004, 1:25 AM

Pipe i have that same bug with not being able to use the send´s on a track where i have pultec or the others on the inserts.

Dont know why though, absolutely silly bug where the problem is in fact that the software seems incompatible with it self?!
Shutdowns are weird , followed by blue screens every other time i shut down.

Absolutely love the sound of the uad though , nothing comes close.
Im talking the compressors s i agree that the dreamverb really, really sucks.

bgc wrote on 1/19/2004, 9:47 AM

Sorry about the problems you're having. Let me check my system and see if I have similar problems with FX sends on tracks with UA plugs as Track FX.
I definitely don't have shutdown problems.

One issue I did have, and sounds like it may be related, is that depending which PCI slot I put the UAD-1 in I had IRQ conflict problems. The first slot I used conflicted with some important hardware and I had startup/shutdown problems. I moved the card and verified that the new IRQ the UAD-1 was using shared with stuff that I didn't need to use for normal audio recording operation. So check your IRQs and try moving around the card in different PCI slots. Hopefully that might help out.
B.

billybk wrote on 1/19/2004, 3:55 PM

"If any of these plugs: LA-2A, Pultec, or Fairchild are used as a track effect, I cannot send from an insert send from that track to a realverb or dreamverb"

Yes, I can easily replicate this behavior too! Everything is fine until you try to adjust any parameter's, like the mix level, on the RealVerb or DreamVerb and then BAM!, HUNG APP! This also happens in ACID Pro 4 too! Which does not surprise me since they use basically the same audio engine. I believe this is a SONY problem though, as this does not happen at all, in SONAR 3.1. I just had a Pultec followed by an LA2A, as track inserts, in two separate tracks, one track going to Aux Bus 1, with the Realverb, and the second one going to Aux Bus 2 with the DreamVerb. Not even a hiccup, smooth as silk, no matter what I did to the plugin parameters.

"Is there a cure for the cant shutdown windows bug when the UAD-1 is installed?"

I have never encountered this before when using the UAD-1 in my rig. In fact, I just re-formatted my main DAW hard drive, in order to finally clean out all the crap I had installed on it over the years and streamline it with apps and drivers that I actually use making music. Well, after re-installing XP, drivers, apps, and of course, a fresh install of the latest version 3.4, the UAD-1 still works just as well as before. No shutdown problems here.

"Any hope of ever fixing the cpu munching bug?"

That is a very good question, because it is still alive and well in Vegas and ACID. Co-incidentally, I hardly ever see this in SONAR anymore using the same DX versions. But I still get this CPU munching, in each and every Vegas and ACID project, just like clockwork.

I know one of the SONY techs, I can't remember which one, has a UAD-1. I would think they could track these issues down rather easily, if they are aware of it and it can be easily replicated.

Billy Buck

stakeoutstudios wrote on 1/21/2004, 11:40 AM

that does raise a few questions... if it works in Sonar and every other app... umm, that means it's a Vegas bug not UAD (or at best part/part).

Shouldn't Sony and Universal Audio both be looking into this?
This is a very extreme flaw!

Jason

billybk wrote on 1/21/2004, 12:51 PM

"that does raise a few questions... if it works in Sonar and every other app... umm, that means it's a Vegas bug not UAD (or at best part/part).
Shouldn't Sony and Universal Audio both be looking into this?
This is a very extreme flaw!"

I agree 100%!

Billy Buck

bgc wrote on 1/21/2004, 8:43 PM

Hey guys,
I tried to replicate the Track FX send to buss FX problem (1176 and Pultec Track FX) to both DreamVerb & RealVerb and had zero problems (even messing with parameters on all plugs).
Also don't have any shutdown issues. I only have CPU munching when the UAD-1 load hits around 70%.
B.

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/21/2004, 10:39 PM

do you have fxspansion's vst adapter on your system?

stakeoutstudios wrote on 1/22/2004, 7:51 AM

Yeah, I've tried the VST adapter - the same problems appear sadly. I actually bought it to see if it could be a workaround!

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/22/2004, 9:29 AM

well we gotta figure out what bgc is doing different

bgc wrote on 1/22/2004, 9:43 AM

Let me start with my system and OS and see if there's anything glaring:
---
AMD Athlon 2200 Processer 1.7GHz
ASUS Motherboard (333 I think?)
Windows 2K with SP3
1GB RAM
Have to check on the video card.

Using DX versions only of the UAD plugs.
Have latest version of DX.

PipelineAudio wrote on 1/22/2004, 11:14 AM

whoa I got xp for one thing and p4 for another

fishtank wrote on 1/22/2004, 1:39 PM

I seem to recall a few users on the UAD-1 forum commenting that Win 2K was working better for them than XP in regards to UAD-1 issues. This could be what makes bgc's system work better.

I actually went from Win 2K to XP a couple months ago and did not notice any different behaviour with my UAD-1. Obviously, this was using the older 3.1 and 3.2 drivers. Vegas 4 seemed to behave like it always has with the UAD-1 ver 3.4 - though I just brought up an old project to verify if the CPU munching was still present and have not actually done anything with Vegas in quite some time. Switching to a VST app has made life much, much easier with the UAD-1.