Does anybody know how much we get paid per hour for all this shit work we do installing UAD Connect bullshit and iLok?

I'm sure they owe me a fortune already.

It seems that somehow I tied two accounts to one iLok key. So I deleted that today, but didn't remove the activation connected to it. So now I can't get into the account to remove that activation and its stuck on the key.

It seems that for some dumb fuck reason, these geniuses at UA have managed to make it possible to lock yourself out of activating your plugins. I had them active earlier but Windows did a load of bullshit updates that I didn't want and locked me out of some shit, so I had to reformat. I had them working somehow, but now they just refuse. Repeated all the steps but its not happening.

I wonder how far R2R are from letting me use this shit that I've paid for?

 

It will be glorious when it happens.

 

For my own future reference when this shit happens again... And for anyone having the same issue, I've managed to hack this shit...

I've logged into the Cloud and transferred the licenses over to there. I think it was a single license. Then switched the 'License Location' in 'Settings' to Cloud. Booted Reaper in demo mode and it activated. So I switched it back to the hardware iLok and switched the location back to the hardware. It activated again...

I'm not kidding about the hourly rate, these fuckers really owe the world in time wasted. I wonder how many hours they've stolen globally?

 

I always vote with my wallet. No i-KoK for me thanks.

 

Don't worry, the new "shit" is already here! Meet CryptLex Synchro Arts now on Cryptlex.

 

Last edited: Jul 16, 2024

I've got UAD connect, iLok and UAD2 plugins with a Octo satellite, all working offline, never had any issues with it. I found it fairly straightforward. I was concerned it'd be more of a mission but it just worked flawlessly for me. I guess you just got unlucky.

UAD automatically registered my username against an iLok account, I logged into that, all my native plugins were there. Installed the iLok software activated everything to the iLok dongle, installed UAD Connect, installed the UAD native plugins, and it all just worked with no issues.

Prior to that, I'd already installed my UAD2 plugins and authorized against my satellite etc. Everything worked a expected.

My Win 11 machine is offline and I put it online every few months to update windows, drivers, UAD etc and it all works the same afterwards.
My experience has been smooth.

I bought the Ultimate 12 bundle and a few extra plugins in their Xmas sale, and a month later it was slightly cheaper, I emailed them, they refunded me for the bundle and let me buy it again at the cheaper price, and I got a good deal on the satellite in the same too.

The experience I've had has been decent. I know some people knock them, and have had different experiences but for me it's been flawless. I just wanted to give my perspective because we see some of the bad experiences but people don't tend to mention when they have a good one.

I hope you manage to have a smooth ride from here on in now you've ironed out the problems.

 

I ve around 80 UAD plugins everytime playing with them on MAC so far no problem online or offline sessions... Viva UAD!

 

Well... This series of fuckabouts caused me to format the computer and I thought I'd backed up all my work from the past 6 months since around January. Turns out that somehow it didn't back up. Some files copied across but I must have not hit 'overwrite' so the bulk of my work, vocals etc is all gone...

So FUCK UAD and iLok. When that shit goes wrong your head starts spinning, especially when you can't fix it no matter what you try. I took my eye off the ball because my head was spinning and I didn't take the time to check before the format...

My own dumb fault, but this still comes back to UA being absolute cunts with all their policies when shit goes wrong.

I don't even know what the devastation looks like right now, but the vocal takes can't be got again and its just devastating. The emotion was in the moment and that's forever gone now.

I think I've even deleted the prints I make as well. I can't find those at a glance... No idea what damage I've just done but I'm heartbroken right now.

I really fuckin hate UA.

 

Its more than just bad luck. I installed an update a few years ago to try their new Moog thing. They added some dumb shit to the Windows Apollo USB that caused it to break basically. Only a few people were affected so it kind of slid under the radar but for me and at least one other person I found it was devastating. I lost a month of my life trying to get that piece of shit working again...

So now I have to be careful, having finally got it back to a working state to never update it. I just don't trust them.

It seems you didn't get hit by the month of downtime either, where they basically just shrugged. Didn't hit me because I never trusted them to install the Spark shit... First time I try bringing it into my system and workflow and its trashed months of my life.

The iLok thing just isn't smooth and as I'm sure you'll appreciate having already bought a ridiculously expensive dongle from them, when they already have cables coming out of our ears we've got enough protection. Its hard to understand how they couldn't tie the software into that already. That system has been solid for decades now. Nobody ever cracked it. But this piece of shit has two layers. If it was just iLok it probably would run smoothly but they're wrapping layers on layers in their paranoia. iLok is already about 3 years I think, maybe more. UA has a rock solid protection system and its already tied into our hardware dongles. So when they add another dongle that we have to pay extra for its a series of insults when the shit doesn't work.

When i posted this I was taking the piss, light-hearted still that they were making me work, but having to redo 6 months of work, vocals etc, I'm just pissed now.

Yeah its my own fault for somehow not backing up properly but I have a bunch of disorders and I've no idea what happened. My filing system is pretty solid so its devastating to see that it has been failing somehow, which is all on me...

But UA are still cunts.

 

I'm lucky enough to already own the UADx plugins I need, and they're quite excellent in my opinion.
But I really wish R2R released them so that everyone can try them out too and so that we can get rid of this iLok crap.
It would allow us to avoid tracking and gain some precious resources as they usually do as mentioned in their NFO "our release loads faster ...".

I also had some Internet issues lately and having no physical dongle, it took years to load projects in my DAW due to the poor connection.
This was really a pain in the butt to realize how work, spontaneity and efficiency can be affected so easily by such a ridiculous thing, despite I'm being a legit customer.

This said, seeing the new pricing policy UA is having which tends to be more accessible and democratic, I don't understand why they keep sticking to that type of licensing anymore.

 

Last edited: Jul 16, 2024

Yeah you nailed it in that one line about connection issues. Its probably down to us to make plans around this kind of thing and whenever a Dev tells us that 'its ok because of X and Y, you'll always have zero downtime' etc, but no... The solution is always cracked software. If you keep the computer offline and get it running stable they can't possibly get in the way...

And all the excuses about not losing out, its so disrespectful. We lose hours of our lives fixing this shit, but more importantly is 'the flow' that you mentioned. That can't be repeated. You get into this state and think you're about to make music and these fucks just take that moment away from you because shit crashes or whatever. So that puts you in a nervous state because you never know when this shit is going to fail on you, so you stop performing and this natural level.

It must be nice to have never come across these issues and to brag about how stable your system is for whatever reasons, but in real life many of us have these issues, so they do exist and singing praises makes people look like stooges sent to counter negative shit. If you aren't the only person experiencing it then chances are its not really something that you did wrong and its not down to bad luck. Its one thing after another with UA.

When I got the Apollo during lockdown the USB3 cable didn't work. Their response was to 'try another cable', like we all have rows of these things on the wall to choose from or something. I've never seen a full size USB3 cable before and ironically I nearly ordered one when I bought it, but they told me on the sale 'it has one in the box'. That's bad luck to some degree, but putting my trust in them is dumb on my part because they can't be trusted.

And its not like they ever sent me a replacement. That shit was effectively broken, so if they sold it with a cable as a package deal they should be fixing it, not putting that burden on us... If you end up on the wrong end of UA's bullshit you see the true colours. Its worlds apart. One section is singing how amazing they are and others experience bullshit.

You just can't put that level of chance into their hands because they're going to abuse it... Then they'll come out with the tissues talking about how piracy is ruining them. Well how about you cunts ruining our creative moments, causing us to quit making music, cutting off your own income? Doesn't that matter at all? Are we supposed to just keep giving you money for shit that doesn't work? Or is it a case that you'll silence it on every forum by removing posts, so you don't need to deal with anything negative?

The shit side is that in moments like this I could turn this into something creative, if only my DAW was up and running... Oh wait, they shut that shit down for maybe weeks until I get the mic set up properly again.