New UA pedals - Galaxy, Del-Verb, & Max Preamp
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Sascha Franck
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Sure. They really want to squeeze some money out of their users.
Sascha Franck
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Did they ever even hear of Strymon?
JiveTurkey
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NO HEADPHONE JACK WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
jellodog
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My impression has always been that they designed the Golden Reverberator first and that was the form factor that they went with. In terms of the knobs and functions the Golden actually makes sense.
And then every damn pedal subsequent to that has seen UAFX try to inappropriately squeeze other functions into that same form factor, rather than suck up a little of those economy of scale savings (profits!) and make 2 or 3 other housings that actually make sense.
And then every damn pedal subsequent to that has seen UAFX try to inappropriately squeeze other functions into that same form factor, rather than suck up a little of those economy of scale savings (profits!) and make 2 or 3 other housings that actually make sense.
JiveTurkey
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Don't forgot charging ridiculous premium prices while lacking features everyone of their competitors has!
jellodog
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Hundo-P!
Aaaand... looky here: a V2 El Cap just dropped on my doorstep. Sorry UA (not sorry)
Hot take after 15 mins of El Cap into a Princeton:
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Orvillain
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It's probably the beer, but this really made me laugh my ass off!
Sascha Franck
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I think all of these UAD units are positioned extremely bad (which obviously has got to do with the implementation of things). For live use, you typically either want WYSIWYG access or programmability.
*Check* for WYSIWYG, but in that case, IMO the price can't be justified (and I'd hold any bet that nobody would be able to tell the difference between, say, the UAD delays and any other decent MFX unit in a live context). Seriously, I expect more than 2 FX settings (which are even tough to keep track of because there's no display or any other "parameter value indicator") from a reverb unit setting me short 400 bucks.
And I compared the Ruby and Dream 65 directly with what my Amplifirebox is delivering. Yes, in that case they're delivering more on the usability side of things, but within a complexed pedalboard arrangement, you typically don't need that "more". And once it comes to amp sounds, the AFB IMO is at least on par (and obviously vastly more flexible).
The new pedals are all the way following that concept (or lack thereof...).
Bottomline: Too expensive for what I don't think is the best product philosophy.
But hey, sure, it's now possible to have an all UAD pedalboard. Would not give you presets (well, you can always buy a second Golden Reverberator, can you?), would require an additional loop switcher and a big ass pedalboard chassis, too. On the upside, it could be had for a little below 4k, so that's quite a bargain, isn't it?
*Check* for WYSIWYG, but in that case, IMO the price can't be justified (and I'd hold any bet that nobody would be able to tell the difference between, say, the UAD delays and any other decent MFX unit in a live context). Seriously, I expect more than 2 FX settings (which are even tough to keep track of because there's no display or any other "parameter value indicator") from a reverb unit setting me short 400 bucks.
And I compared the Ruby and Dream 65 directly with what my Amplifirebox is delivering. Yes, in that case they're delivering more on the usability side of things, but within a complexed pedalboard arrangement, you typically don't need that "more". And once it comes to amp sounds, the AFB IMO is at least on par (and obviously vastly more flexible).
The new pedals are all the way following that concept (or lack thereof...).
Bottomline: Too expensive for what I don't think is the best product philosophy.
But hey, sure, it's now possible to have an all UAD pedalboard. Would not give you presets (well, you can always buy a second Golden Reverberator, can you?), would require an additional loop switcher and a big ass pedalboard chassis, too. On the upside, it could be had for a little below 4k, so that's quite a bargain, isn't it?
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dronerstone
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The Del-Verb seems pretty cool, but I definitely can't justify a purchase.
I mean, how am I gonna explain this to my overdrive and fuzz pedals????
"Sorry, but the next item will not be one of your friends."
I can't!
I mean, how am I gonna explain this to my overdrive and fuzz pedals????
"Sorry, but the next item will not be one of your friends."
I can't!
laxu
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UAD could be at the level of Strymon, Source Audio, Chase Bliss, Meris, Eventide etc.
Instead they are shooting themselves in the foot for the 3rd year in a row to the point that their shoes must look like Crocs. These are going to be $349 pedals so the people buying them are going to be looking at the afore-mentioned competition and seeing all the things missing. No MIDI/expression, single or no presets so there's no real good way to control their pedals, many of which have several different fx types that would be nice to use.
UA instead decided to spend their R&D on having mobile connectivitity to...provide features that could just as well be powerup modes. There is no benefit to having to register a UA account and having to fiddle with BT connectivity to edit this stuff. Especially when no alternatives are offered. Weirdly you can update the firmware from your computer, but not from mobile. At the same time you can not do the same things from the computer that you can on mobile. It's pure hubris at this point that despite a lot of people saying "just give us MIDI over USB or BT" they adamantly refuse to do that and even took away presets from these new pedals.
UA pedals sound great, that's never been contested. I'd probably be putting the Del-Verb in my cart right now if it wasn't for the lack of everything else. The feature set of "a few delay types, a few reverb types" is appealing - sometimes pedals like these go a bit overboard and have a bunch of gimmicky stuff.
Instead I've spent a lot of money on Strymon. Those sound great while having the feature set to go with them.
Instead they are shooting themselves in the foot for the 3rd year in a row to the point that their shoes must look like Crocs. These are going to be $349 pedals so the people buying them are going to be looking at the afore-mentioned competition and seeing all the things missing. No MIDI/expression, single or no presets so there's no real good way to control their pedals, many of which have several different fx types that would be nice to use.
UA instead decided to spend their R&D on having mobile connectivitity to...provide features that could just as well be powerup modes. There is no benefit to having to register a UA account and having to fiddle with BT connectivity to edit this stuff. Especially when no alternatives are offered. Weirdly you can update the firmware from your computer, but not from mobile. At the same time you can not do the same things from the computer that you can on mobile. It's pure hubris at this point that despite a lot of people saying "just give us MIDI over USB or BT" they adamantly refuse to do that and even took away presets from these new pedals.
UA pedals sound great, that's never been contested. I'd probably be putting the Del-Verb in my cart right now if it wasn't for the lack of everything else. The feature set of "a few delay types, a few reverb types" is appealing - sometimes pedals like these go a bit overboard and have a bunch of gimmicky stuff.
Instead I've spent a lot of money on Strymon. Those sound great while having the feature set to go with them.
Sascha Franck
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You know, a combination of delay and reverb is *exactly* what I need on my pedalboard, and yes, ideally in a separate unit. So this could check some boxes. But it simply doesn't. I'm now using an HX Stomp for these very purposes, and even if it didn't additionally serve as a backup, a small grab'n'go unit, something allowing for "oh well, let me add this effect as well" and what not, hence, even if I was really only using it for delays and reverbs exclusively, it'd still be worth every penny of those additional 1/3 in cost.
Quite absurd, really.
laxu
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I feel nobody does the "delay/reverb in one box" concept perfectly. I've considered the Source Audio Collider a few times but just don't like how it has connectors on 3 sides and how it operates where the knobs are almost always going to point at the wrong thing. Meanwhile other units either don't have MIDI/presets or they have mystery controls that you need to figure out from some table to remember.
My solution is an overkill Strymon Nightsky + Volante + Gigrig Wetter Box to run them in parallel. Works great but it takes a ton of board space. I really wish there was some "cram it under the board" version of the Gigrig because I don't need the knob and footswitch functionality, just the stereo in/out blending.
The HX Stomp is hard to beat if you don't mind the user interface and like its effects.
Sascha Franck
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Defenitely not.
Been looking at the Mooer Ocean Machine, too, could've been it but no global tap tempo and you have to longpress to get to the function (can't be controlled externally).
The TC Plethora X3 is even worse. Great to edit, great FX quality (IMO at least) too, but no EXP connection at all and no global tap tempo, either (in fact, in case you're using two tapped delays, you have to longpress and tap for both of them separately - WTF?!?).
Source Audio Collider was something I kept an eye on as well, but after checking it out myself on a friend's board, I was way less then impressed by the usability aspect (pretty much for the same reasons you've mentioned)
Defenitely. Comes at a higher overall latency than most individual pedals, though, so in case you're stacking it along with multiple other devices, that might become an issue. But in my case the maximum is an Amplifirebox or Amp Academy running into it (anything else is analog), roughly around 4ms in total, hence absolutely fine.
jellodog
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I do own the Golden and the quality of the sound is beyond question. The Showman spring and Plate 140 are my go-to sounds.
The Golden isn't perfect though and has a phase bug / flaw in mono that caused me to think that it was ruining my dry signal for a some time. Fortunately, I now know how to avoid that issue. The Bluetooth thing sucks and is a waste of space and construction cost that would have been better spent elsewhere.
Anyway, I was thinking just the other day, "I can't believe that they didn't put a Space Echo in the Starlight - that would have been a hard to resist combination". The third slot on the Starlight is wasted IMO.
EP-3, DMM & Space Echo would have ticked all the boxes in terms of classic delay models for me and probably many others.
I'm guessing that they planned these releases out well in advance; so does anyone else feel it's a somewhat cynical move to hold back and then release a Space Echo on its own like this?
I still fancy the Boss RE-202 more, though.
The Golden isn't perfect though and has a phase bug / flaw in mono that caused me to think that it was ruining my dry signal for a some time. Fortunately, I now know how to avoid that issue. The Bluetooth thing sucks and is a waste of space and construction cost that would have been better spent elsewhere.
Anyway, I was thinking just the other day, "I can't believe that they didn't put a Space Echo in the Starlight - that would have been a hard to resist combination". The third slot on the Starlight is wasted IMO.
EP-3, DMM & Space Echo would have ticked all the boxes in terms of classic delay models for me and probably many others.
I'm guessing that they planned these releases out well in advance; so does anyone else feel it's a somewhat cynical move to hold back and then release a Space Echo on its own like this?
I still fancy the Boss RE-202 more, though.
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