Do any of you use any subscription based services for plugins/packs etc? If so what do you have and which ones would be the best value?

I was thinking of subscribing to SonicAcademy to get Ana2 with all the expansions.
I'm also thinking of subscribing to East West yearly.

They are running good deals for the black friday.

 

If I would ever go for a subscription I would always prefer rent2own anything else suxxx imo

 

I think a subscription can be good if you want to check out stuff. If you know that you want to use something in the long run, buy it. Otherwise, you will have to keep up the subscription for as long as you want to use it, which will amount to more money than you have to spend buying it in the first place.

As for Sonic Academy, I am not sure if the instruments (Ana 2 and Kick 3) are part of the subscription. It says plugins, but it only lists SA76 and JU-60 as part of it. Make sure to double-check.

East West seems to be a nice deal, but you will end up having to pay for it every year, if you want to continue using it, or even to have full access to old projects if needed. Sure, you can bounce everything to audio, but you will not be able to make changes later on.

Probably next year, they will start charging you full price too, which you might want to consider. You will have to cancel and wait for another sale every time otherwise, which can be a pain too. Another thing to consider, even if you are willing to pay for it every year, contents of the subscription might change, which means some instruments you used might not be part of the subscription anymore.

Overall, I don't think subscriptions are a model that benefit the consumer in most cases.

 

The question should actually be: what is the least bad subscription?
With every subscription we're the loser in the long run.

Think about it carefully.
The serious disadvantage of this subscription is that:

• you get only ONE single auth on ONE USB iLOK OR bound to a PC (not as with other plugins 2 or 3 auths)
  If you use it on > 1 computer you need to plug in/out the iLok or move the auth back and forth OR most ugly, buy more subscriptions! And there is no iLok cloud option that would make it a little bit more convenient.
  If you use e.g. VEP to distribute the load over several PCs, that really sucks/is unusable.
  If the iLok gets lost, the auth is lost. Thats a showstopper with a single auth!
• Your setup should match to the gigantic amount of space the libs use. Even if you install only the newer libraries you'll need 2,4 Terabyte (!) of free space for 3,4 million files preferably on a 10G LAN and NAS.
  
• If you decide to cancel the subscription you can't use your compositions anymore.

That's why I cancelled my subscription a few days ago. Freezed the projects and bon voyage.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2024

If there is no Black Friday witch activity on them, I would get UAD or McDSP. Whatever you put through them content-wise will sound better.
As it stands, your only option to using them, is paying for them.

 

But its not a subscription isn't it? At least not the majority of their plugins (yet)

 

https://mcdsp.com/subscriptions/

Or do you mean UAD Spark? I'm not doing any subscriptions, but those are the ones I would pick if I was going to. For $150 a year for McDSP, that's the price of only a couple good plugins. You can "Extended demo" most other effects plugin lines that I would consider.

 

iRacing!

 

You're right in the long run you do end up paying more. Like you said if you canceled the subsription and you had a project using those plugins of libtaries you would no longer have access, thats a jhuge draw back too.

Yea I'm definitely going to make sure but $7 a month is one of the cheapest I've seen as far as subscriptions go.

I was thinking of doing the EastWest deal at $149 that saves over a $100 for the year, but again if you canceled you no longer have access to the libraries and plugins, so they kind of stick you.

That's true too, its always unknown the changes the company will make with their offereings.

I'm seeing it too now why most are against it and bash the company for the service. They are making way more off you than just bying the product straight out.

 

haha you're right we are the sucker in the long run for sure.
Wow well damn that fucking sucks. I hate that iLok shit, it's freaking annoying.
Wow holy shit 2.4 TB?? damnn
Yea I didn't think of that until the post up above by Mino.
I think I'm going to hold off, but if sonic academy offers ANA 2 and all the expansions for $7 a month you can't beat that surely.

 

what all comes with UAD spark?

 

lol man I know a guy who does that shit, he makes bank too lol. He has a real chair and gas pedal and all that shit LOL

 

https://spark.uaudio.com. Scroll through and look. They have intro plan now for 3 months $0.99. I like the idea of a UAD subscription I could cancel, because I never want to buy anything from them. All their plugins are excellent, but I dislike them as a company, if compared with almost all others.

I would consider UVI, but it is way more of a content-based subscription. They include plugins, but they do not have that many for mixing. Most or all already released by R2R. The same thing with Plugin Alliance.

I'd rather have legit copies of synths and content, than effects plugins. If later on down the road, you have to replace some compressor or EQ; whatever. That is easy enough. If you can't get a synth or other content open, that is a bigger problem.

I would not subscribe to anything which has been cracked and released. I'm not into paying good money for something everyone else can use for free. And that obvously will be mostly iLok'd software. I have somewhere around 50+ iLok activated plugins, and I have never had a problem with a single one of them. No dongle, just a silly software manager app, like nearly every other dev now. On Mac, iLok web is seamless for me. 0 issues.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2024

The best subscriptions are the ones where you can choose to own a product outright. It might be good for people who do not have a lot to spend at the time and can afford to pay a small amount monthly. It also gives them an opportunity to see if they will use it all of the time and maybe buy it outright later.

The worst are where the subscription is the only model giving everyone no option to own it, or get the remotest feeling of ownership. It means all you are doing is perpetually hiring the product.

 

A subscription that is not rent to own is simply a scam

 

Now any perpetual license from slate digital is 270 dollars tax included add an ilok usb to that it's ridiculous they push their customers into their subscriptions and it's disgusting

 

"Best subscription based service" causes me brainrot just reading it....

....since when are subscriptions any good to begin with?

back in the day there were demos and trials, nowadays people defend subscriptions for being buy and try instead of try then buy wtf

 

i like hulu and spotify

 

next -
insurance for losses while www disturbances for subscription models of profesional software forcing to be online
owned by.....

/
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anything subscription , available as warez is legitimatly not hurting your karma when making money with it

 

And everyone thought AVID with ProTools subscriptions were bad....they are, but that is really bad.