Instruction Manual

UAD System Manual - 28 - Chapter 3: UAD System Overview
CHAPTER 3
UAD System Overview
The UAD Environment
The complete UAD Powered Plug-Ins environment consists of many compo-
nents. These components are:
• One or more UAD DSP hardware accelerator devices
• The UAD device drivers
• The UAD plug-ins
• The host computer system
• The plug-in host application software (DAW)
• An audio hardware input/output interface and its drivers
All these components operate together simultaneously within one computer to
form the complete audio processing system.
The other UAD component is your account at my.uaudio.com (page 36) and
the UA online store, where UAD devices are registered, UAD coupons are re-
deemed, and UAD plug-in licenses and authorizations are obtained. Al-
though my.uaudio.com is not required during normal system use, it is essen-
tial for initializing the overall UAD system because authorization is required
to use UAD-Powered Plug-Ins (see “Authorization Overview” on page 37).
The UAD Hardware
The UAD DSP (Digital Signal Processing) hardware accelerator devices pro-
vide the “power” behind UAD Powered Plug-Ins. Most UAD plug-ins use ex-
tremely complex algorithms to provide the quality sound and accurate mod-
eling Universal Audio is famous for. The UAD processor engines are signifi-
cantly more optimized to perform the complex DSP routines required for these
algorithms than a standard desktop computer CPU can deliver.
All UAD-2 devices are Mac and Windows compatible unless stated other-
wise; the hardware is identical for both OS platforms.
Note: Multiple UAD hardware types can be used concurrently in the same
computer. For details, see Chapter 5, “Using Multiple UAD Devices.”