The Pultec trick is what it is famous for, so it's worth getting it just for that.

 

Last edited: Dec 10, 2025

Why not grab both of them if they are free?

 

Is there a way to get more than one plugin? If you open a different account with another email can that plugin be transferred to the other account with the previous plugin?

 

Thanks for this rule, I don´t care to read AI.

 

If you feel like creating 10 emails, 10 UAD accounts, and 10 iLok accounts then knock yourself out.

You can't transfer them.

You can activate them all to the same machine ID in iLok. I can think of few things more fun than registering and switching between 10 iLok accounts while also getting UA Connect to play nice with 10 account switches between itself and iLok. But if you do hate yourself, once activated to machine ID you wouldn't need to deal with ilok for them again and could uninstall UA Connect.

Or be patient. These 10 are in the 'freebie/extra incentive' pool. EG... they just gave away another select from this pool 2 weeks ago for BF, Galaxy Tape could've been had for $1 last week at pluginbotique, Pultec can be had with a loopcloud sub, Poly, LA2, 64 were given away in the last couple months...etc.

 

The iLok "portion" of UAD concerns is nothing compared to the UA Connect side of things. People say you can get rid of UA connect but that is not my personal experience with them at all. I do not remember iLok manager ever trying to update itself, or even needing to install some new version of it. When I block UA Connect from even running, I have to let it run at some point for it to quickly re-establish a connection to the mothership with UA Connect or the plugins will remain blurry when loaded in DAW. I'm sure someone else will try to tell me about the plugins on my own computer.

I'm not sure why an iLok dongle would fix it. This is with native versions with perpetual licenses, not Apollo format plugins; but it would be kind of strange for them to let hardware owners not need to run UA Connect as often as native users. Most people leave their audio interface at home. The dongle will solve the iLok portion of the puzzle if someone wants to do that. But in my experience, you are stuck with UA Connect needing to eventually be reconnected to their site for a minute.

 

Yeah, I'll amend that bit... my brain was preventing me from trauma memories of all the fuckery I've dealt with ua connect and didn't elaborate. But you've awoken them. Thanks....

My solution has been to uninstall it, reinstall once every three weeks or so, run it... then uninstall again. UA Connect + VPN (or any dynamic ip situation I suppose) is all sorts of ass. Ime it want's a connection within 30 days, but if it runs and encounters a new ip then all sorts of fuckery starts, the fastest solution to which is often times reinstalling anyway. So I turn off vpn, reinstall, run, delete. Repeat every 3-4 weeks. It's less hassle to just reinstall than leave it, because if it updates it's the same problem.. and if I block the updates, I've still had issues when opening it once a month to update then. So reinstall it is to ensure ver is latest. Just easier, 1 min vs worthless troubleshooting.

I too am just running native versions. Spark was completely unusable for me because of this. I'll spend a min a month to this. I'm not going to do it every single time I want to open a project.

 

Thanks for your answers - it makes sense to wait and add one by one as they are free.

 

I was able to get the Pultec and The Oxide Tape Recorder for free, by reloading the page and adding the OTR immediately after checking out for the Pultec. After I checked out, I tried with a 3rd item and it just gave the message "The HOLIDAYFREEBIE discount code has already been used". Thinking there was a lag in the server updating that the code had already been used on my account.

 

I'm not using Spark. My issue with UA connect is I'm not about to update my OS on my DAW computer. Their UA Connect program wants to update itself to a version that won't run on it. I made a script that deals with it because it's a little more complicated than just uninstalling/reinstalling. So it just does everything in 1 shell command and in under a minute.

One thing I really did not like is that every time you update all in UA Connect is that it reinstalls all the intel and ARM u2b fat plugin binaries. So if you have all 60 native plugins installed, it adds gigs of junk to your system. So it strips all those, and I included a mode for DSP users also. Needs some testing still

 

Last edited: Dec 13, 2025

Gotta have most of them for free not just one :D

Teletronix LA-2A
UA 1176 Classic
Galaxy Tape Echo
Pultec Passive EQ Collection
Oxide Tape Recorder

 

Last edited: Dec 13, 2025

YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE ENTIRE HOLIDAY FREE (INSTEAD OF ONE PARTICULAR PLUGIN)

 

Sorry, this is a newbie question.

Will installing the UAD + UA Connect + iLok plugins conflict with non-UAD cracked plugins that use iLok?

Thank you in advance.

 

At this point, looking at the UAD library, Purafied bundle, Soundwide welcome bundle in the past, now Soundtoys junior plugins, I can say my younger self would be shaking head how well stocked I am for such minimal expenses.
I'm grateful for what I've got and can re-route my support to other great (independent) devs like Valhalla, Audiodamage, Klanghelm, Purafied etc.

 

Um how?

 

None of this is a problem on Mac. If you can run legit iLok plugins alongside R2R iLok releases on PC you are home free.

 

Side note, and maybe it doesn’t matter, but the free versions of some of these plugins seem to differ from the retail versions. I say this because I tried the m4L wrappers for these, and the wrappers don’t work with the free LA2A or 1176, but does work with Galaxy Echo.

 

What is your method?

 

There are none.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2025

UAD plugins are very cheap right now. I'm demo'ing some of them to see which promo can fill my needs. The 10 plugins for 99$ sounds attractive, but i don't know if i can find usage for 10 plugins from them.

For the freebie i grabbed the 1176. First thing i noticed it was the fact that it doesn't have that 'bitmapped' sound on the distortion, that a lot of plugins have. Plugins generally distorts more than hardware in a bad way, and i don't feel that with their 1176. But for the amount of controls versus soundtest i still prefer DMG TrackComp for the 1176 which is my go-to. They sounded really close, but the DMG extra stuff is a win for me. I'm kinda disappointed for now, not because the plugins sounds bad, quite the opposite. But the lack of parallel compression, no gain link, no SCHPF... Why?