These units can be purchased separately and daisy-chained with your current device using the Thunderbolt protocol to provide even more processing power. Universal Audio Satellites (that’s the solution) are basically additional units of DSP. It seems like they’re completely oblivious to the solution Universal Audio has created… It’s more than enough for my needs, but some people have complained that it doesn’t provide enough DSP.
Now, one of the reasons the Arrow is more affordable than the Apollo series is because it only uses ONE single-core processor. It might actually be more affordable than upgrading! If ever you needed more inputs/outputs, you could simply purchase another Arrow (the model we’re talking about) instead of replacing it. We started discussing the possibility of adding an additional Universal Audio interface to your system using Thunderbolt’s daisy-chaining ability. One of Universal Audio’s often overlooked marketing plots is the ability to “scale” your recording studio. If we take Universal Audio’s most affordable (and best, in my opinion) audio interface, you’ll want to understand the potential for scalability. Universal Audio has also recently released their own DAW and guess what, it’s FREE (more on this later as well).
With their Console software (more on this later), you can essentially use this system with every DAW. On the other hand, Universal Audio’s DSP system can only be leveraged using their own UAD plugins (of which there are many).
Oh, did I forget to mention how expensive Pro Tools is? It’s also difficult to find plugin manufacturers that actually support the required protocol. Of course, the limitations of the traditional DSP-powered multi-effects processors still apply.Īvid’s DSP system can only be leveraged using Pro Tools and its AAX DSP plugins. If you want to talk about pricing, compare these two systems (hint: Universal Audio is MUCH less expensive). The card itself could be inserted into the computer’s PCIe slot or connected through an external Thunderbolt PCIe chassis. Universal Audio was the first and only manufacturer to integrate DSP-hosted software straight into their audio interfaces though.Īvid’s recording system required the purchase of an external HDX card with the addition of one of their audio interfaces. These companies were Avid (Pro Tools) and Universal Audio (LUNA). However, there were only two companies that sought to bring this technology to the software world. Recording in this manner had the same advantages as analog equipment ZERO-LATENCY. Since we weren’t using DAW-hosted plugins, these devices needed some form of internal processing power. Traditionally, multi-effects processors were equipped with onboard DSP processors, but why? It’s pretty simple in this case… Not only does this cut your computer’s CPU some slack, but it also allows us to record using digital effects in real-time (zero-latency). In case you aren’t familiar with this technology, it basically acts as an independent CPU for audio processing.