Thanks for that ohgrant. Hopefully they put out a native version now that the LM hardware is rendered "legacy".

The whole DSP thing is argued about quite often isn't it. Interesting that SSL Duende have gone native. I'm not sure why UAD hasn't. Maybe they make lots of money from the hardware which also serves effectively as a dongle.

One thing about LiquidMix and the rest though- lower latency! When my current audio card gives up the ghost I'm going to have a good look at the Apollo. 


Those ToneBoosters plugins look very good but I've got stuff that does all that already.

They do enjoy a substantial margin on the hardware, but the software is where the big bucks are. Who else is charging comparable prices for plugins? Only other vendors with similarly hardware-dependent products. I don't think UA is even up to competing in the cutthroat native arena, where few are willing to pay $350 for a reverb plugin.

Hey all

My  " crusade "  for want of a more accurate descrition is to simply demostrate that there is no reason to buy hardware-proprietary systems when just-as-good  [ and often better ]  native options exist.

You have to remeber a few key things about UAD:-

- UAD began when CPU Power was abysmally slow - back then, a dedicated DSP card was critical.
- the UAD card - then and now -  has nothing to do with the sonic quality of the plug - it is simply a DSP host
- UAD use the " card "  as piracy protection  -  emminently sensible from their perpective
- are their plugs sonically excellent - damn straight they are
- are UAD plugs sonically better than equivilent native plugs - of course not - they have their own sound, as all high quailty plugs do and, like all high end native plugs, they sound great - and differnet ears will prefer differnet plugs
- nobody - including UAD owners  like  having to use the card / dongle - they tolerate it to get the software plug

Remember:-

- no-one ever expected Pro Tools to go native
- no-one ever expected Waves to drop the iLok

Sooner or later - and it will be sooner if not already - Native cpu processing power will hit such a point where it will simply be ridiculous for UAD to keep selling their plugs linked to a card /dongle.

Anyway - peace to all.

Tim

timboe, I just wanted to say thanks for prompting me to revisit this plugin. It's been sitting here on disk for a couple of years, since I last demoed it. So today I downloaded the latest version and ran some tests, then bought it. At $18US it didn't require a great deal of deliberation.

However, the CPU usage - on my machine anyway - certainly ain't nothing to brag about. I put it on a track that was hitting 44% on the first core and Reelbus pushed that up to 62%, making it one of the heaviest CPU hits of all the effects I routinely use. Right up there with Ozone.

Not that it's a showstopper. I intend to use it on the master bus as a final bit of spit 'n  polish after all the tracks have been frozen, so I can live with the overhead.

bitflipper


timboe, I just wanted to say thanks for prompting me to revisit this plugin. It's been sitting here on disk for a couple of years, since I last demoed it. So today I downloaded the latest version and ran some tests, then bought it. At $18US it didn't require a great deal of deliberation.

However, the CPU usage - on my machine anyway - certainly ain't nothing to brag about. I put it on a track that was hitting 44% on the first core and Reelbus pushed that up to 62%, making it one of the heaviest CPU hits of all the effects I routinely use. Right up there with Ozone.

Not that it's a showstopper. I intend to use it on the master bus as a final bit of spit 'n  polish after all the tracks have been frozen, so I can live with the overhead.

Do you mean high CPU usage with TB Ferox?
Reelbus was only just released in April, 2012.

You're right, it's only a few months old, so I may indeed have confused it with Ferox, or even some other tape sim. When I saw that I had version 1.x, and that the current version was 2.8, that further reinforced the presumption that it had been around awhile.

 I can confirm pretty high CPU usage here on my quad I5 and XP 32 bit. More than the Kramer tape. Still a nice matering tool not something I would use for mixing.

Also high CPU usage compared to Slate VTM

My " crusade " for want of a more accurate descrition is to simply demostrate that there is no reason to buy hardware-proprietary systems when just-as-good [ and often better ] native options exist.

Thanks for the update.

Would I need to buy a UAD card today?  Probably not.

Do I love the one I have and use it to the max to form the basis of my mix capability?  You betcha.  I only have the plugs needed to support that requirement, I never saw any need to collect the set.

Will I be selling my card soon?  You'd have to prise it from the fingers of my cold dead hand...

Do I love JB's plug-ins? All of 'em.

I'm actually surprised at how few of these plugs you can use before swamping the entire system and also suprised at how many DSP heavy plugs the UAD card can still do the main intensive lifting for.  I can't however ever see where I'd want sub 4ms RTL figures when using any of them.

It sounds like you had fun anyway and I'm all for that...

Tim, Not for or against people buying any plugs that they like. The price point to value is what steers me a lot of the time. However, your post prompted me to take a closer listen and I bought the TB-Reelbus. One of the best $20's I ever plopped down. Great plug that found a place in my favorites' folder and will have a home on the master buss.