AudioMedia - July 2008 - (Page 50)

Powered Plug-Ins > instances of a powered-up EQ can sometimes be more useful than five instances of a convolution reverb. Whatever the rationale, Waves suggest that the system is happiest running beefy demanding plug-ins like the L3 Multimaximiser, IR1 convolution reverb, Q-Clone, and the Waves Linear Phase mastering processors. Mac users can also accelerate the IR360 convolution reverb. If you already own these plugins, upgrading them to the APA format requires an un-installation, download, and reinstallation. The accelerated versions are already covered by your existing Waves license, so this doesn’t cost any extra. One installed, communication is handled by a Netshell application, which can be customised to minimise buffer times and latency, and also shows the available CPU power, memory, “Waves suggest that the system is happiest running beefy demanding plug-ins like the L3 Multimaximiser, IR1 convolution reverb, Q-Clone, and the Waves Linear Phase mastering processors.” and network bandwidth. I had some issues getting Netshell to work, but it eventually sparked into life. The APA-enabled plug-ins now appear in your VST and RTAS list with an added ‘net’ tag, so it’s up to you to decide when you want to use the native or accelerated versions – there are no restrictions on how these are combined. Unfortunately the APA32 isn’t spectacularly power ful. Because most of the competitors’ plug-ins aren’t available in native format, there’s no way to compare relative performance. But a direct comparison is easy for Waves plug-ins; the APA32 can run up to five instances of the full IR1 reverb. This may sound impressive considering that a TDM Accel card can’t run a single instance, but a slow dual-core host PC clocked up ten instances at 64% CPU while also playing back ten tracks of samples. So a quadcore system will lose a single APA32 in its rearview mirror, while an eight-core 3GHz Xeon system will eat a rack of eight APA32s for lunch. The APA44M is around a third as powerful again as the APA32, but this still isn’t enough to make it stand out as option. Waves seems to have realised this. Only older 5.x and 4.x plug-ins offer APA acceleration. The latest 5.9.x series doesn’t. So the current status of APA32 isn’t settled – it’s not quite discontinued yet, but heavy dealer discounting and the lack of support for it in the latest release of Waves plug-ins suggest that it may be discontinued very soon. If you don’t mind running plug-ins which are a version behind the latest update, you can pick it up as a relative bargain. If you’re finding your host is maxing out, the APA32 may, ironically, be a good way to offload many instances of relatively undemanding plug-ins, like the Renaissance Channel. The shared networked processing feature could be attractive too, in some settings. In fact it would be interesting to see Waves release the Netshell component as a separate product, making it possible to create custom processing farms from cheap PCs. But there’s no suggestion that’s likely – and in the mean time it’s not clear at the moment what the future holds for the APA32. £ £500+VAT Information W www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=336 Distribution W www.sonic-distribution.co.uk UAD The UAD interfaces lean heavily on rack emulations – even when they’re completely original, as in this Precision Multiband. Universal Audio’s UAD-1 card is possibly getting a little dated now. While plug-ins continue to be developed at a furious rate, the core hardware hasn’t been updated since the original release date, and with a single DSP core it’s a long way from being the most powerful product on the market. Instead of developing multi-DSP versions, UA have repackaged the hardware into PCI, PCI-E, and ExpressCard formats. There’s no boxed Firewire version, but to make up for this, UA offer an ExpressCard model – a good laptop choice which can also be used on the desktop via an adapter > called Extenda. 50 audio media july 2008 http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=336 http://www.sonic-distribution.co.uk http://www.sonic-distribution.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AudioMedia - July 2008

AudioMedia - July 2008 Contents Recording Post Broadcast What's Up UK Geofocus: France For the Record Special Report: Develop Preview SE Electronics 4400 Sennheiser MKH800 Twin Tubetech Club Final Cut: Wanted Smart AV Tango Doctor Who Made in America DSP Roundup Product Sampler: Summer Hits Edirol R44 Video Guide AMSR Fame - Le Musical Waves MaxxBCL Yamaha AD8HR Special Supplement

AudioMedia - July 2008

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