Review: UAD-2 Satellite Firewire DSP Accelerator

While the rest of the competition (Avid, TC Electronic and SSL) is deserting the ‘DSP on a card’ mindset in favour of Native/host-based solutions, Universal Audio is expanding its proprietary DSP card philosophy. With its latest release, UA has chosen the tried and tested protocol – Firewire.

The UAD-2 Satellite is essentially DSP in a box that connects to Apple (only) computers running 10.6 or higher, using either Firewire 400 or 800. This connectivity differs from the initial UAD-2 solution for laptops – the UAD-2 Solo – which connected via a modern laptop’s 34-slot ExpressCard. Other obvious differences are the Satellite’s pro-styled aluminium chassis that’s about the size of a DVD case, its glowing white UA logo, and its 12V ‘wall-wart’ power supply. Also in the UAD Satellite package are a driver CD and Firewire 800 lead. Installation is as easy as plugging everything in and installing the latest software.

The Satellite easily hangs directly off a computer or daisy-chains off other equipment – I had the device connected via my RME Fireface 800 with no issues. The unit itself (I had the Quad model on hand for review) has two Firewire 800 ports and a Firewire 400 port to facilitate the connection with various rigs and setups – I used only Firewire 800 cables during the test period. I have to mention here also that the UAD-2 Satellite doesn’t function equally with all Mac Firewire 800 ports. To get maximum plug-in counts you’d be wise to check whether or not your machine – mine is a four-year old MacPro Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz machine – will be throttled back to a maximum Firewire 400 throughput. Testing the 800 port in a friend’s one-year old Macbook Pro showed a roughly 22% increase in plug-in counts on average above my own system. In the grand scheme of things this may have a significant effect on a large mix running multiple plug-ins, particularly if you’re mixing on a laptop or an iMac, where you currently can’t run more than one UAD-2 Satellite at a time.

UNIVERSAL APPEAL

In use, the Satellite works like any other UAD-2 card. The available plug-ins are the same, of course, as are the SHARC chips that run them. The only major difference between the Satellite and other UAD-2 solutions is that the Satellite needs external power and can’t be used like the UAD-2 Solo running off a Macbook Pro’s battery power.

I encountered no hiccups whatsoever running the Satellite and the unit didn’t seem to get unduly hot during testing either, which was a bonus. I occasionally found the illuminated logo a bit distracting (an option to turn it off would have been nice) but this is small potatoes when weighed up against the fantastic ability to have ‘DSP on a card’, on the run.

JUGGLING THE BANDWIDTH

The software control applet tab, which appears when the UAD-2 Satellite is plugged in, provides a handy plug-in calculator and a bandwidth allocation section that allows you to juggle the amount of Firewire bandwidth the Satellite uses relative to any Firewire interfaces you may also have connected (in my case the Fireface 800) [see screenshot]. This is a great facility.

Given the nature of its portability, the UAD-2 Satellite has to withstand a lot of abuse from the inside of gear bags, road cases etc and to this end UA looks to have succeeded in building a very sturdy unit. You’d be hard pressed to damage it unless you dropped it from a height onto a hard surface, and it’s pretty obvious that the aluminium chassis of the UAD-2 Satellite has been constructed to be strong and stylish. Users will find it hard to bend or break – abusers may try. The $1800 investment is no small price to pay so it would want to be well constructed, but those four SHARC chips should be well protected inside this fancy case.

SOFTWARE

It should be pointed out while we’re at it that for $1800 (street price) the UAD-2 Satellite Quad (like the Duo) doesn’t come with a huge stable of plug-ins from UA’s impressive catalogue. The standard plug-in collection of the UAD-2 Satellite is known as the ‘Analog Classics Software Bundle’. With this you get: the LA-2A Classic Audio Leveller, the 1176LN Classic Limiting Amplifier, the 1176SE Limiting Amplifier (a DSP-optimised version of the 1176LN), the Pultec EQP-1A EQ and the RealVerb Pro Room Modeler. All these plug-ins are exceptional and make worthy additions to any mix rig, and to get you started with the purchasing of any other UA plug-ins, the company provides a $50 voucher for its online store.

If you have the budget, I would highly recommend the UAD-2 Quad Satellite. It has the DSP power of 10 UAD-1s, and with the provided plug-ins (and the many more on offer at the UA store) your mixes are going to sound better for it. Those most likely to want a Satellite orbiting around their system are people who need to mix in remote locations on their Macbook Pros or anyone who has already used up their available PCIe slots in their Mac desktop system. With only limited slots on most Apple desktop machines these days, many users already have their machines max’ed out with existing UAD-2 cards, or indeed, ProTools HD cards. The UAD-2 Satellite is perfect workaround for anyone in this sticky situation, providing that extra plug-in overhead to get those massive mixes ‘over the line’.