Allen & Heath RackUltra FX card, worth it?

dLive dLive General Discussions
1

The distributor I bought my dLive CTi1500 + CDM32 from,
recently sent me an email offering all A&H dLive system owners the chance to buy a new RackUltra FX card for 999 euros.

The price of this card used to be over 2k, and it was released with firmware v2 less than two years ago.

Such a big discount, combined with the lack of real-world reports online, makes me feel like very few units have actually been sold.

The FX introduced with firmware v2 are here:
https://www.allen-heath.com/hardware/dlive-series/rackultra-fx/

However , one additional delay was added later in v2.1, released about a year after v2:
https://www.allen-heath.com/dlive-v2-1/

The fact that the Allen & Heath website does not provide a complete list of all RackUltra FX in one place is a bit confusing to me.

So…are these FX really worth it?

I’ll add some thoughts here:

When I buy a DSP card for additional processing power, I expect to work with complex FX that require fast, dedicated DSP, to avoid latency.

Autotune at FOH? Not for me.
I strongly prefer autotune to be handled side-stage by a dedicated person or on stage by the singer on smaller productions.

Here’s a list of processing tools that would make sense to me on a powerful DSP card:

  • Soothe-style de-resonator
  • Cedar-style vocal denoiser
  • Drum trigger / sampler
  • Fast, transparent brickwall limiter / clipper.

I’m sure there are hundreds of engineers who would make heavy use of these as internal processors instead of relying on external computers or UAD DSP’s, etc.

I also think more FX could be added to the regular DEEP processing (standard dLive customers deserve a bit of love too)

  • X-FDBK-style automatic anti-feedback EQ
  • Multiband transient designer
  • Multiband saturator
  • Multiband gate
  • SPL Vitalizer-style enhancer

What’s your take on this?

1 Like
2

999,- € sounds like a steal to me. Why this card is offered at that prize from your dealer, I have no idea/insight.

I bought the card right after its announcement (and after heavy testing) for mainly one reason: the included reverbs.

Before the UFx card I used a external reverb processor (Quantec) for my vocal reverb needs. The UFx card could totally take over that position. The reverbs are really excellent! I use them for vocals, drums, brass.

Most of the other effects offered by the card are of no interest to me. I do not need any tuning with the bands I work with. Harmonizer does not the sort of micro pitch a H3000 does (at least I couldn’t find a setting for this), Saturator does not do the things I would expect (described and measured in another thread).

I do use distortion for vocal effects and am starting to play with the new delay. Still not sure, if it will stay.

So even, if most of the fx offered by the card are not used by me, it was still worth it for the reverbs.

Of how much use a broad variety of other flavours would be, I can’t tell. 8 available slots brings you to a limit very fast.

3

For 999 bucks I would totally get it. The reverbs are really good, the Pitch Shifter and rhytm delay is great for modern voice fx, the auto and hard tuner works great. I love it. Also you get some regular auxes back.

4

https://support.allen-heath.com/hc/en-gb/articles/39827415078033-DEEP-Processing-RackExtra-FX-and-RackUltra-FX#section-47

As others already mentioned, the reverbs are very good.

5

I bought the upgrade shortly after it came out, for my C1500/CDM32 rig. The reverbs are very good, the saturation is also quite nice. On occasion I do use the tuning as well. Haven’t spent any time with the delay however…

Regardless of what I use or don’t use, getting the update for me means I have an advantage against other rental houses in the area who haven’t updated their desks. This package goes out on tours often, as a dry hire, and the engineers taking it love to see the UFX card onboard

6

Thank you! my A&H distributor wasn’t able either to find the list…

7

The card has been installed in every new DLive Mixrack produced since it was initially released. So the notion that “very few units have actually been sold” is not really accurate.

Obviously we have no idea how many units have been purchased for retrofitting Mixracks that were produced and sold prior to the RUFX card being released, but I suspect it is higher than you think.

Ultimately the card simply works as intended and as such there hasn’t been a lot of “discussion” around the card because it always works reliably. If you want the new RUFX engines and the plugins that it supports, you have to purchase the card. Do I think the card is worth it? 100% it is worth it - especially at the price your dealer is offering it.

As far as desiring more plugins, that is nothing new. Everyone wishes their console does something that it currently doesn’t do. It is only natural to “wish” for bigger and better things. You are free to formally request these things in the DLive “request” forum, or by reaching out to A&H directly. As with every request, there is no telling if A&H will want to implement it or not.