Hate is a strong word. What did they do to you?

 

To me? Fortunately, nothing. I hate the companies' policies and marketing strategies, as well as the treatment they reserve to some of its customers (and that you can check on UAD's forum).

 

I suppose i've been lucky, they've been great to me. I bought a bunch of plugins just a couple of weeks before a big sale. When I told them I could have saved a lot of money they gave me a refund, plus an extra voucher for the sale. I kinda like that marketing strategy. I'm only an amateur but I think the Apollo interfaces with Unison pres and zero latency monitoring/recording are a really great combo.

 

I purchased a subscription on sale and we gradually purchased all the plugins we like. Gotta say, (having borrowed my mates Massive Passive on many occasions) the plug in is really good. They're great tools. This hate stuff is ridiculous, just don't buy them if you don't like them. A plug in business would be the last thing I would invest in, especially in a saturated market. I think their marketing and pricing is reasonable, unlike Waves who are total asshatted wankspanners.
Would I recommend UAD? Absolutely they do the job.

 

Don't hate the product though. There is a very good reason trademarked companies do not let just anyone use their name in front of their vst product. I never used them and could not see the hype for a LONG time. Honestly, the Manley Variable Mu Limiter Compressor is so close to the hardware, I reckon you'd need someone who has worked with one for over a decade every day of the week to tell even the slightest difference on mastering. Trademark companies generally do not give out their schematic circuitry to anyone, unless they are totally confident they will reproduce it authentically.

I dislike the authentication method, but it is a tiny inconvenience because the quality for some of their products is excellent. The Avalon much the same. With the Avalon on a track I did yesterday, the amount of time I needed to get a decent drum sound from a real acoustic kit was cut back by two-thirds. Cheers

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 21, 2024

I don't hate the product, quite the contrary, my point was that they were tripping, UAD emulations are really good! Wish they weren't iLok cloud bullshit based tho.

 

Yeah, that one is annoying for many people. I use iLok USB to keep my licenses on offline machine and no such issues.

 

So, I bought the Waterfall organ, but since UAD doesn't support an iLok tied to the computer, like many other developers, I had to spend another $70 on a usb dongle. It is a pain in the ass trying to use it in a "live" situation, and I told UAD they they lost another purchase because of the additional $70 to meet their ridiculous iLok policy. I refuse to purchase from them any more, until they lose the dongle and use iLok tied to the machine, or force me to use the internet. They never thought of anyone using their products live. I did express my feelings about it to the company, but no return.

 

You've heard the saying "For everything you gain, you lose something" ?

Pretty much it. There has been talk of R2R bypassing this. Anyone who owns this knows that none of the files even though downloaded in full are vst, aax or anything remotely looking like a plugin or library. They are single multi-encrypted hexadecimal files without an extension that change their numbers every login. Random encrypting. There is no windows file other than the cloud executable. Honestly, I cannot see an R2R version for a while.

 

In my eyes they are steal if you buy Signature bundle on sale for example 250$( using 50$ coupon)
I've bought most of them individually only on sales and using coupons so I have spent little bit more but I dont' complain.
In the category "Better then alternatives from other companies and you are gonna use them frequently"
1.Ampex® ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder(only DSP powered at the moment but I believe we will see it going native this year)
2.API 2500 Bus Compressor (better then Waves and PA , great for electronic music )
3.Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor Compressor (THE Distressor plugin , modern classic )
3.1176 Classic Limiter Collection (bread n butter compressors)
5.Teletronix® LA-2A Leveler Collection. (smooth opto)
6.Helios Type 69 Preamp and EQ Collection (very nice for boosting and sweetening)
7.Capitol Chambers( best chamber reverb plugin I've encountered )
8.Pultec Passive EQ Collection (sometimes simplicity and twisting knobs will get you there sooner)

These are great and have special flavor but you gonna reach for them occasionally .
1.UA 175B & 176 Tube Compressor Collection (warm and tubey )
2.API Vision Channel Strip Collection (for certain individual who is used to mix on classic sonsole it should go maybe in the first category )
3.dbx® 160 Compressor / Limiter(smack)
4.Fairchild Tube Limiter Collection ( when it works on individual elements it delivers)
5. Lexicon 224 Digital Reverb (80's BladeRunner reverb)

Studio D and brigade chorus are the best chorus plugins on the market .For delay you have much better alternatives like Replika XT, Echoboy, ValhallaDelay . As for the Minimoog emu - it's top notch in the same category as Softube Model 72.
I haven't dive into Manley Massive Passive and Vari-Mu because I own Pulsar Massive and Mu .

 

i tried UAD plugins all the native for a limited time i love them.. they are good