Located on the back panel (and I'm not sure why it is there out of sight), an alternating red and green LED indicates that Satellite is powered up but the driver software is not installed, recognized or even loaded yet. Upon power up, a brightly backlit UA logo on the Satellite's front panel comes on and, like all UAD products, there is also red/green status LED that indicates the operational state of the unit. To turn off Satellite, you reverse the start-up sequence: save and quit your session, shut down the computer (if needed) and then power down the unit.
UAD 2 PRO
In operation, I found that I must boot the computer first, launch Pro Tools and the session AND THEN turn on the Satellite with the rear panel switch. I finished the installation by connecting the unit using the included cable to my Mac's rear panel FW 800 jack. I followed installation instructions and went online to authorize the software and download the authorization file for the "starter" plug-ins. You can instantly try any of the plug-ins for a 14-day demo period by just inserting and using them in your DAW session. Satellite's software includes the UAD Meter and Control Panel software-a kind of monitoring system that checks the status of the UAD-2 Satellite itself and other connected UAD processor cards-you can run up to four UAD-2 cards and two UAD-2 Satellites at the same time.Īuthorization happens via the Control Panel where the Authorize Plug-Ins button opens the store. I'm at OS 10.6.7, running Avid Pro Tools 9 HD 3 Accel and PT software version 9.0.2. I installed the software into my Mac Westmere 8-core MacPro. There are also many, specially priced plug-in combination bundles offered with specials announced at all the time.
UAD 2 FULL
To get you started, the unit comes with authorizations for both mono and stereo versions of: the full 1176LN and (the less DSP version) 1176SE Classic Limiting Amplifier, UA's CS-1 Channel Strip, Pultec® EQP-1A equalizer, UA's RealVerb Pro Custom Room Modeler, and the Teletronix® LA-2A Classic Leveling Amp. I like that you download software only once and get them all. UA updates the software whenever an improvement is made and/or a new plug-in emulation is added to the collection. All the processors show up in the Universal Audio plug-in drop down menu in any host DAW. The UAD-2 Satellite's current software, version 5.9.0, contains the entire collection of their plug-ins and requires a Mac-Intel computer running Snow Leopard OS 10.6 or above.
UAD 2 DRIVERS
The UAD-2 Satellite supports 44.1 through 192kHz session sample rates and there are drivers for VST, RTAS, and Audio Unit hosts.
Using the UAD-1 card as a reference point, the Duo has five times as much processing power while the Quad (as review here) has ten times. The UAD-2 Satellite comes in two variants: the Duo and Quad-so-named after the number of SHARC floating-point DSP chips within them: two or four. Some of the companies who's gear is modeled and are part of the current collection of plug-ins include are: Roland, Neve, Studer, dbx, Solid State Logic, Lexicon, Manley, Empirical Labs, Trident, SPL, EMT with many more added all the time. Running externally over FW also opens up the UA Powered Plug-In processors to users of laptops without an ExpressCard interface that will hold the UAD SOLO/Laptop, UAD-Xpander or UAD-Xtenda modules.Īkin to carrying your own huge outboard effects rack to every recording/mixing gig, the UAD-2 Satellite enables you to run larger mixes with numerous plug-ins in Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, Nuendo, Digital Performer and other DAW systems without taxing your host computer's CPU.Īll the plug-in emulations were developed in cooperation with the hardware's manufacturers using the original schematics, perfectly working vintage examples, and the "golden ears" of recording engineers who know what these units should sound like under optimal conditions.
UAD 2 INSTALL
This is brand new and different from the original UAD-1 PCI card or the newer UAD-2 Solo, Duo and Quad PCIe cards that install in slots inside of your computer. It interfaces the Mac (right now Mac only) using either the computer's Firewire 400 or 800 interface bus. The UAD-2 Satellite runs externally with the included power supply with any modern, Intel-based iMac, MacBook Pro or MacPro tower. The Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite is the newest entry to their line of DSP Accelerator systems that provide access to their entire library of award-winning UAD Powered Plug-Ins processors. Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite DSP Accelerator