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

 

Last edited: Dec 10, 2025 at 7:29 PM

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.