Hi guys. I'm thinkin' about investing some money buying that UAD Mixing bundle. Should I do it or should I go with plugin alliance instead? Thanks in advance.

 

500 dollars for 23 plugins is not a bad deal, so i would go for it. alongside that, it has a lot of ''uad basics'' (or must have), so it is worth

 

As a UAD Apollo owner, I would say go for the Plugin Alliance. It's better value for your money, with more than just analog emulation in their offer, and the plugin are great (some are in UAD version). If there are some UAD plugin that you really want, you can use the money you save with PA to buy those individually.

The great thing about UAD is with their DSP version, which can be use with 0 latency for tracking and stuff, but other than that, the "UAD hype" is just this, hype, the plugin are great but same as other brand you'll find on PA (and if you really after that "analog sound" the best would be Acustica Audio).

I'm not sure if UAD give the possibility to try their native version (we have 14 days demo with the DSP version, which can be reset sometime), but the best is to try both, specially the one that would make you choose one over another bundle, and see what's fit the best your workflow. They both give coupons and do promo all the time so you can buy the bundle with the best value for you and add later the plugin you really want in the other bundle.

 

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it

 

Thanks my friend. That answer helped me a lot. I'm gonna do that. I'll go Plugin Alliance then and if I really need something from UAD, I'll buy it individually. (I own the UAD 2A Comps and the Plate Verb already)

 

UAD Apollo User here. I honestly regret buying into it at all.
First, the good: Real time tracking with their Unison Audio IS reason enough to get one of their interfaces. When you've experienced near zero latency for tracking, you don't want to give that up. It's the only reason I haven't sold mine.
That being said, if you have a near zero latency set up, it may be worth switching to UAD if you like their plugins that much. They have some fantastic plugins imo. But they're not so fantastic that they're going to change the way you mix or even change your sound.

And speaking of plugins...

I didn't know that an Apollo Twin X would only have enough DSP to use but a few instances of their plugins in a given session. I've had DSP run out after using just two or four of their plugins in the DAW. That left a bad taste in my mouth.

This makes you want to upgrade to get more DSP. IMO this is prohibitively expensive for most people. To be able to use UAD plugins all through a session like your other plugins, you're gonna have to spend two expensive laptops worth of money for enough DSP to not have to worry about it. And Lately, they're going native with SOME of their plugins...Leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

And then the plugins...they're so expensive. At least they have sales...but say you buy some of their plugins...you have to buy knowing that the more processing heavy star plugins like Capitol Chambers is going to require a lot of DSP...It's kind of not worth it to buy just plugins, or just DSP...

It all means that you better be ready to spend a lot of money to really get into the UAD ecosystem. It's very Apple like. You're paying for good products, but not so good that it just knocks out the competition. You're really paying for a name...for an aesthetic.

And then there's the practice of installing ALL of their plugins alongside their driver, so that you have to look at all the plugins you're missing or manually hide them all one by one in the UAD software and in your DAW. And when they update the plugins, they send it along with the driver, whether the driver is updated or not. And then you gotta re-organize or re-hide plugins after updating. Their forums are full of people complaining about this. Those complaints are never answered.

It doesn't run the best on Windows...It's rock solid on Macs. Another very Apple-like quality.


Their sharc chips are rapidly becoming outdated. And as it stands now, they charge way too much for them.

With all that being said, I'm kind of partial to the idea of being rich enough to fully invest in UAD's ecosystem. And even THAT leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'd buy their stuff if I could afford it. I'd just rather spend my money with a company who is less predatory/greedy.

 

UAD is selling these Native licenses as NFR (not for resale, which is illegal in most countries and it contradicts their own EULA terms). Plus it's only ilok cloud or usb dongle, no local machine activation.

 

always trial and compare (narrow it down to 3 plugin companies and or type of hardware emulated) and see which plugins actually help you out in what you are searching for. my exemple: I bought Pink from Acustica a long time ago, with UAD going native I compared it to UAD API and boom UAD was an instant eureka moment and sold Pink. But that's just me, for some people it's the total opposite.

Money can be an issue, not for resale policy, sister site availability, daw compability and so on.

Having a billion choices for the same plugin type is not healthy. Marketing will always sell you a "better incredible magic" new plugin.
I like UAD. But I also like DMG, Tone Projects, Acustica and... the fact that my monitoring is decent enough that I can actually hear what I'm doing
Actually what I like to most is working fast. When I find a tool that gets me there in seconds without overthinking and or fidling around for hours is usually a winner.

good luck !

 

I tried many plugins and I find their 1176 and la2a are the best (for me) Lexicon and Studio D Chorus is also cool. But i think thats it. (until they release the distressor and dbx native)

 

Another Apollo user here. Go for Plugin Alliance. Except for the few boutique plugins that I use in every mix, I mostly use PA to save DSP power, so I don’t really use those “essential” plugins. Don’t get me wrong, UAD plugins are awesome, but so are other manufacturers’ plugins.

 

I completely agree with this. I don't own an Apollo interface myself, but I've been working with them from time to time. The zero-latency tracking with amp sims, and pre-amps for vocals, is fantastic. The interfaces themselves are very high quality as well. However, I will not buy into the Apple ecosystem just to be able to use Apollo interfaces. I rather use a PC with RME interfaces and the zero-latency effects in TotalmixFX. They are nothing special, but they do everything you need for cue mixes and tracking. MOTU also has their own DSP for the same reasons (as well as Steinberg and Avid, but they are tied to Cubase and PT IIRC).

I will not be buying any native plug-ins from UAD since they are really nothing out of ordinary. The whole thing about their plug-ins is to use them with their interfaces or DSP accelerator cards to lessen the load on your CPU or track with amp sims in realtime. Softube's and PA's amp sims also sound a bit better when recording through an Apollo with Unison enabled, but they are also not the best amp sims out there. Now that CPUs are powerful enough that you can use however many plug-in instances you need, the only reason left to buy an Apollo interface is to use the Unison zero-latency tracking, and that's not enough of a reason for that pricetag IMO.

 

Damn! I didn't know that

 

Thanks for all the info. I appreciate it I'll trial some today

 

Thanks for info. I think I have all the info I need to make a decision now. Cheers

 

try demo/trial and decide yourself,
if you don't manage to get demo/trial, then it's good enough reason to completely skip UAD, simple as that

 

Since I'm not rich to fully invest in UAD's ecosystem, I think I'll go PA then. And Like you said my friend, there's no magic, their plugins are really good but won't change the way I mix and won't do any kind magic. Having so many variations of the same products is not healthy at all. Thanks for all the info

 

not sure if thats accurate. How does it contradict the EULA? All over the EULA it says they cant be resold, but they can be transferred. I didnt see anwhere that said their licenses could be SOLD, only that they could be transferred which is different.

Selling something that cant be resold is illegal??? SOunds like a euro thing lol. as an american... thats laughable

 

I apologize for bit of offtopic, but have you looked at Overloud GEMS yet? depending on what analog emulations you seek, those definitely are serious competition for UAD and PA

 

From UAD website (https://www.uaudio.com/eula-ua.html):

" B) NFR (Not-for-Resale) Licenses. NFR (Not-For-Resale) Licenses are licenses to a given UA Software Product that UA issues to: (A) a UA employee or contractor for the purpose of enabling them to execute UA’s rights and obligations under Agreements that UA has with its licensing partners; (B) a third party for testing, evaluation and demonstration purposes or (C) an industry professional for supporting UA’s marketing and advertising efforts. "

Where is the letter (D) here saying: "UA clients that bought our Native Bundles"?

So, if UAD's EULA states licenses CAN be transferred, then why are they selling them as NFR? It's not possible transfer ilok licenses with NFR status so that's a huge contradiction.

The right to sell your purchased digital licenses is not just an Euro thing. AFAIK that's the standard in most countries, including Brazil which I know for sure it is.

To be fair, UAD Support said the following about the NFR licenses in another well known internet forum: "Anyone in this situation can easily contact Support and be taken care of. We will of course abide by each country's laws.". So, I opened a support ticket on UAD website asking them for a written statement that they will revert the NFR status if I buy a bundle, pointing it's legally abusive to sell untransferable licenses in my country. No answer yet.

 

so if you change your ilok account info you cant transfer NFR licenses to your new account? I didn't know that about ilok that you cant transfer NFR licenses, so I see what you are saying now.