Just received an email from UAD for Apollo Twin owners ... obviously you'll need to have a UAD account and an Apollo Twin to take advantage. I ended picking up EL7 FATSO, EMT250, and Eventide H910... saving myself $400

All this month, we're giving you the chance to take your pick of any two, three, or six UAD plug-ins and save up to 60% — an exclusive offer for you that’s not found in our Online Store.

• 2 for just $299
• 3 for just $399
• 6 for just $799

The only way to take advantage of this special offer is through this link:

https://www.uaudio.com/my/systems/specialoffer

And to help you decide which plug-ins are right for you, we’ve reset all of your 14-day demos. Just download and apply a new authorization file to try before you buy.

Hurry — this offer expires July 31st, 2016.

 

you really think you saved $400, don't you?

 

It's more about mindful buying. If one plans their purchases, UAD plugins are more affordable than Waves or Slate offerings. In some cases, UAD plugins are unmatched by native versions. As for myself, I am going to buy the Fatso and the Culture Vulture. I'm still analyzing my options, but I can only afford two.

 

UAD sucks overpriced & overhyped "modeled" plugins my own dick dude

 

Oh c'mon everybody. You don't have to piss in the dude's post toasties. He's happy about a new purchase that he's made. He felt like he got a good deal and he's trying to pass it on to anybody else who might be interested. I wish I had the dough to run over to UAD and do the same.

Thanks anyway, aymat. Good lookin' out.

 

Between 2012 and 2015 I bought an UAD-2 Satellite Duo for €508,- and 19 plug-ins for $1858,49. Including price reduction through sales/discounts/coupons/vouchers > $2158,51 !! So yes, clever buying will help a lot
Sold everything last year with no regrets so far. Of course, they have some great emulations and great toys to play with but there's nothing you can't achieve with some (cheaper) native plug-ins. Although I have to admit, a special processor like the Fatso would still be very helpful.

 

I envy you, not that into UAD either but still would love to test drive fatso, and see how the eventide holds up against the one in the eventide bundle.

 

95% of the people claiming that other native plugins are cheaper and better use cracked software, IMO.
Uad plugs are the best professional, hassless, well sounding, powerful (dsp), and with a very good customer care, available.
A sort of "the Fox and the Grape" effect.
The UAD prices, often discounted and with voucher, are perfectly in the average of the market, but with more CPU room.

 

I'm no John Forbes Nash Jr., but I can say with almost complete certainty that $800 - $400 = $400. So to answer your question, YES, I do believe I saved $400.

 

Buying UAD and Steinberg products is a smart investment,since none are cracked you can always resell them for almost the same price you`ve payed for it,if at certain point you feel like switching Daws/plugins.

 

You are entitled to your unsubstantiated opinion. However, let me set a few facts straight that might help those people with an interest in modelled dicks as you claim:

I paid $1100 for an Apollo Twin Duo. In my country things get a bit overpriced because of import taxes, but it was purchased from the official distributor, no eBay stuff. This may seem a lot of money, but while I was wrapping my head around the idea of saving up for any Apollo interface for way over $2000, the emergence of a lowered price interface with 2ms latency, high-grade converters, ADAT expansion, full 192k resolution, 2 Unison technology pres, where impedance and gain staging are controlled by the plugin at use prior to conversion, sounded too good to pass. Of course, at this point in time, other manufacturers have stepped up their offerings as well, but in mid 2014, these were breakthrough specs for the price.

You can happily live with stock plugins. They are that good. Beyond that, Universal Audio's policy of constant coupon giving and semestral store-wide discounts makes wanting to buy a no brainer. A visit to their Online Store will display many commonly used plugins that everyone has modelled already: You get your 1176, LA2A, Fairchild, Pultec, SSL, Softube and Brainworx stuff, but you also find boutique plugins that you only get through the purchase of the hardware unit or the UAD plugin. These are the things that UAD users take advantage of when they are offered two plugins for 300 bucks.

Nothing beats the price of plugins at the sister site. I know.

However, past that cynical attitude, take a look at my purchase history at Universal Audio. I have spent a bit more than $700 dollars in plugins, but I feel it is well-spent money, a bargain compared to the same offerings from Slate or Waves, as I posted before:

- Manley Massive Passive EQ: $124.00
- Fairchild Bundle: $124.00
- 1176 Bundle: $24.00
- LA2A Bundle: $74.00
- Guitar Amp Engl E646: $19.00
- Guitar Amp Chandler Limited GAVT19T: $19.00
- Tonelux Tilt EQ: $0.00 (two coupons)
- Teletronix LA3A: $0.00 (one coupon)
- Pultec EQ Bundle: $74.00
- Helios 69 EQ: $0.00 (gratis with the purchase of my Twin)
- Precision Enhancer kHz Plug-In: $0.00 (one coupon)
- Two-plugin especial offer: $300 (I bought Ocean Ways Studios room modeller and Neve 88RS unison-powered preamp.)

Now that Apollo twin owners have been given another 2-to-6 plugin bundle purchase, I'm weighing in the options. I believe it's worth it and it will be two of those exclusive UAD plugins (Culture Vulture, Fatso, Vertigo VSM-3, the Studer or Ampeg tape machines, I don't know yet. I'm testing demos right now).

One last thing. I am at the bottom of the food chain here. People who buy Satellites or the big Apollo rack interfaces get way juicier coupons because they pay way more than I did for my Twin.

 

Last edited: Jul 3, 2016

Dont sweat it man,you are not in the bottom of the food chain,i know wealthy people with expensive studios that dont even know how to properly start a daw.
Its really a matter of perspective,what you use and how you use it.
You would be amazed at some people in the movie scoring industry working with cheaper audio cards and making nice money.
With knowledge and experience you can really squeeze out 100% out of your software,while another man may run a lot more expensive gear while getting only a small percentage out of it.
That is the magic or should we call it the zen of music production.

 

I think there's a lot of things that people overlook about UAD. I'm by no means a UAD fanboy, but when I initially purchased my first UAD-1 card back in 2004, it was done as an investment. Around that time, there was nothing else like it in terms of quality and DSP processing. Looking back over the last 12 years, it's obvious that the quality of native plugins has changed significantly, but that doesn't change the fact that UAD plugins are still some of the most incredibly designed and useful plugins out on the market.

I've said this before, but investing in a closed system like UAD is not for everyone. You have to be ok with knowing that once you commit to purchasing their plugins, you are stuck with that commitment and everything that comes along with it, good or bad. Luckily, UAD is a good company with great software and support (at least in my experience), and although they certainly haven't always hit the mark with some decisions they've made over the years, all in all, I've been very happy with my investment and hopefully will continue to be for a very long time.

 

Cool! Being happy is the best thing I can think of.
Of course I think some UAD plug-ins are excellent.
But I also think this is pure marketing and that they are excellent to sell you a dozen times the same EQ with just one different curve or internal parameter and then rebranding it.

 

I understand why you would think that. Although I enjoy making music, a good portion of what I do as a media developer and sound designer involves critical listening, so I feel quite confident in my listening skills to be able to tell how signal is affected as its processed. In short, I'm not all that concerned about that sort of thing because I don't use or need a dozen eq's to do my job and I'm also quite selective in addition to being frugal when I purchase plugins.

Just out of curiosity, do you own a UAD system and have you taken the time to really listen to and use their plugins? Don't mean to put you on the spot, I'm just curious as to what you're basing your opinion on.

 

For workflow reasons I don't want to base my productions on UAD plug-ins (because other musicians cannot load the session, and I cannot work when I am away from my desk without the hardware).
I still use the hardware because I have come to the conclusion it's one of the best.

And for plug-ins it's extremely difficult to make comparisions/blindtests. When I carefully did (Pultec, la2a), UAD came in first or second (Wave was the other top brand most of the time). But eventually top brands are all good to go for a production mix. You'd be surprised about what tools be used in some hit songs these days...

Finally there's my music which is all what matters in the end. For my genre I put an extreme emphasis on vocals. So I was thinking let's still use UAD for vocals despite the poor workflow.
But using la2a, 1176, pultec, maag eq4, and cooper for a long time was not my best decision.
For compressors, Wave is equally good.
For EQ, Eiosis airEQ kills both pultec and maag. It's much easier to EQ a vocal and the result is very very natural and pleasant (air being just one parameter here).
For delays, there's no good stuff at UAD. Cooper is a strange delay. Anything like Relayer/Replika/Imperial is a better choice.
For reverbs, I bought the EMTs but now I don't use them anymore, it's DSP-consuming, hardware-dependent and I can achieve even better result with even basic stock reverb (space designer) which I find excellent (and again, every good musician with a Logic Pro installed somewhere can open my sesssions if they use space designer).

EDIT: but I do recommend buying the hardware for the preamps and implementation, it's worth every penny in plug-ins if you can record a natural voice at the first place.

 

Last edited: Jul 4, 2016

I have to agree with you on the compressors and delays, not that they're bad, quite the opposite, but I find myself using native solutions more often than not. I tend to use Replika these days for almost 90% of my delay and reverb needs, but cycle between it and the EMT/Lexicon emulations quite often. Also, I bounce back and forth between Cubase and Maschine, and find myself using the default Cubase eq, which is great, nearly all of the time. In Maschine, I use the TDR stuff almost exclusively for eqing/compressing, along with the default Maschine compressor/limiter and Presswerk, but I'm looking forward to using the Fatso for some of my compression needs moving on.

However, where I think UAD excels at best is in the odd emulations. I love the AMS and AKG reverbs, even if they dont always fit a particular project. I'm also really looking forward to using the H910 for vocal experiments and the Moog filter and Studer/Ampex tape sims are still some of my favorite plugins.

I do agree with you about UAD hardware. My previous audio interface was an Audient iD22 which had amazing preamps, but the build quality and preamps on the Apollo Twin are just as nice with the added benefit of DSP. Also, being able to custom tailor a recording chain in the Apollo virtual console is a thing of beauty.

Personally, I'd like to see less eq/compressor/amp emulations from UAD and have them delve into more uncharted territory. Things like vocal processing, mic emulations,experimental effects... hell, even custom virtual instruments would be a nice change.

 

Last edited: Jul 4, 2016

I'll care when they offer a discount on the Apollo istelf.

All the same, thanks for putting everybody onto it