the solid state logic uf8 is a premium DAW controller that can give you a more console-like
feel when working with your music so let's check out some of the key features to see if it's worth
the hype but first if you're looking for a DAW controller or any gear for your home studio be
sure to check out Sweetwater they have a huge selection of gear at competitive prices and
they even offer payment plans to make purchasing easier now let's check out the first feature of
the SSL UF8 alright so the first thing I want to talk about is the build quality this thing
is solid it has an all metal chassis with this nice brushed aluminum top on here the faders on
here feel excellent the rotary knobs feel nice the buttons on here feel great so not only does
it look like a premium DAW controller but it feels like one too alright so the next
thing I want to talk about are the motorized faders so these will automatically adjust to
whatever the track is set to if you're opening up a project that's already been worked on and maybe
some of the settings have been changed these are going to adjust so let's try that out right now
you can see they've adjusted to whatever position my tracks are in on that project they feel great
there's a little bit of a tightness to them so they're not wobbly or anything like that
they're really nice feeling faders so next is the fact that the SSL UF8 easily integrates with most
of the major DAWs it has workflow ready templates for Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Studio One, Cubase, logic
pro, Luna, and pyromix now that doesn't mean it's not going to work with other Daws it just means
those ones are already mapped and ready to go and I did try this out with tracktion waveform
and it worked really well the only thing that didn't work was the plugin control feature and
I also tried it out in Cakewalk and the same thing all of the faders and everything like
that worked well except for that plugin control feature and speaking of DAWs I know some of us
like to work in multiple programs maybe even have multiple programs open at the same time well you
can control up to three DAWs at the same time time with this you just press these layer buttons here
and it's going to switch between the different DAWs so I have layer 1 set up for Studio One I
have Layer Two set up for my cakewalk and I also have a layer 3 set up for Pro Tools
you can set that up really easy in the SSL 360 software you just go in here you can see DAW one
Studio One DAW two I have it set to Ableton Live because you can only choose from a few in here
so I put it to Ableton Live but it works in Cakewalk like that and then DAW 3 I have set
to Pro Tools next let's have a look at a couple of ways that we can control plugins but if you're
already convinced that you want the SSL UF8 be sure to visit Sweetwater they have these plus
a huge selection of Studio Gear and software and if you aren't sure if this is going to
work with your system you can contact one of their sales engineers and they will guide you
through the process to make sure that what you get is going to work for you these are people
that are actually musicians and producers they know the gear that they're talking about and
they won't have you second guessing plus their shipping is always super quick I'm in Canada
and it usually only takes a day or two for my orders to arrive the next time you're looking
for Studio Gear software or instruments be sure to visit Sweetwater now let's get back into the
SSL UF8 and this feature will allow you to quickly edit a plugin setting just hover the mouse over
the setting that you want to control press the focus button and then use this knob here
and you can see we're controlling that setting it's that easy I didn't have to map it or
anything like that if I wanted to control this one same thing focus is on I clicked on that
that easy but if you want even more control over your plugins then this next feature is for you
so what we need to do is press the plugin button and now you can see the settings for the plugin
that I have on the screen right now you can see gain is this one so I'll use that to control the
gain Peak reduction is this controller here and then I have the Vu display setting right there
the comp limiter plus the other settings in here this next feature is really helpful so you can see
what you're doing it's these high resolution OLED screens on each of the eight tracks I can easily
see what each one says I can see the smaller stuff in the lower part of the window and the small
stuff in the higher part of the window on some of these tracks these are excellent and you can
see them on an angle with light shining on them in the dark they're nice and bright they are a great
feature now if you normally use keyboard shortcuts like maybe ctrl+alt+z for undo or Ctrl+alt+s
to save you can actually set it up so that your shortcuts are saved to buttons in here so you
can see in the SSL 360 software I'm On Studio One and if I go to my quick Keys which are these three
keys here I've changed it so that save is on key two and undo is on key three and that's going to
keep me away from my keyboard even more when I'm working on my music now one thing I really love
about daw controllers is the transport controls and they've made this really easy on the SSL UF8
we just hold down the channel knob you can see now it's in transport mode so if I push up that's play
push down that stop over the side that's fast forward rewind and if we wanted to record I
don't have anything armed for recording right now let's just arm a track for recording arm this one
alright if I press record
you can see I've recorded on there now let's just undo that that easy you also get a couple
of SSL native plugins you get the vocal strip 2 which is right here it looks great and you also
get this drumstrip plugin now I haven't had much time to work with these yet but if they're like
any of the other SSL native plugins that I've used these are going to be excellent so so far
is the solid state logic UF8 worth the hype well for me it definitely is this is a solid companion
that's going to last me in the studio for a long long time and you can actually daisy chain up to
four of these together so you can control up to 32 tracks with uf8s which is excellent you just
use the onboard USB a port to plug the other ones into and each one will have that so you
can plug one into the other into the other I've actually got the SSL uc1 plugged into that USB a
port get more info on the uc1 by clicking the video on the screen if you liked this video
please give give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel for more videos like this thank
you so much for watching for audio tech TV I'm Zane keep creating fist bump thumbs up