In fact, why exactly 1073? In my opinion they always leave something unique to each business model. We will have some plugins that will be hardware bound forever, some that will be Spark exclusive, and the vast majority of their products full native.

 

If you need alternative stuff

Massive passive eq = Schaak audio analog Q or Magenta from AA
Culture Vulture = Overloud Sculptube
Distressor = Empirical Labs Arousor or Sknote Disto or Deflector from Sly-fi or again Deathcore from Modern

Enjoy !

 

The Ampex is a great plugin, that and the Studer for tracking. It's true, those are plugins worth considering as well. However, to be honest, a lot of times I sacrifice the goodies of the Ampex for saving up DSP real estate for more instances of Massive Passive and Distressors. I can get the tape goodies so many other ways or just ignore the whole tape thing. Besides, Satin does a great job, too.

I've never tried Overloud Sculptube or Magenta from AA, but I'm not really using Acustica plugins because of the strain on my CPU. I'm sure Magenta is a solid piece of gear, but so is UAD Massive Passive, and my computer gets to breathe some more. As for THE Distressor, I own Arousor and Disto. They just don't compare. Arousor is a different kind of sound and Disto falls short in headroom and color. The only thing I believe can beat it is the hardware unit, which is unreasonable for me (for now).

 

I can agree with that. UA Distressor is the best emulation out there, hands down.
I don't use it very often, but when I do it smashes the sound like no other.

 

Please R2R do not hack, crack, warez this. Support the developer who is at the beginning and tries to offer quality plugins at the lowest price.

 

and Sweetwater rushing to justify it

 

It's like magic. You slap it on a snare drum, leave it default, then play with the attack and release until you hear the "pah" sound just bounce with the rhythm of your track. For rock music, that alone makes it worth the price.

 

UAD Massive Passive = Pulsar Massive

 

I am pretty sure prizes will crumble down to Waves niveau (30 bucks) once people realize that AU plugins are actually not as superb as their marketing and the previous requirements for an additonal DSP card suggested. AU lost the only reason why people would buy into their eco-system: exclusitivity. Now they have to battle against the rest of the whole "native" plugin world (including freeware).

 

yeah, the universal audio emulation is like 99% similar to the hardware (Tested with exact same settings, although i don't have the audios anymore)

 

They are selling these Native licenses as NFR (not for resale, which is illegal in most countries and it contradicts their own EULA terms) and it's only ilok cloud or usb dongle, no local machine activation. I do purchase all the plugins I use but when it comes to unfair business practices and archaic software activation methods I tend not to support developers until they become more reasonable.

 

Anyone who uses the Capitol Chambers or the Hitsville Reverb Chambers?

 

I just want to demo it without registering my payment card

 

Use a Revolut virtual card with no money on it. Demo will end you're safe since it cannot charge you. Create another UAD account and virtual card. Repeat

I'm doing this for many things, I save hundreds.

 

Yeah I guess so too!

 

Last edited: Feb 19, 2023

Side question: I've been using UAD plugins with Spark for 2 months now and a Motu. I'm planning on replacing the Motu with a UAD sound interface soon though.

My question is when I will get a UAD interface does it mean I can use both the 'UAD DSP plugins' and the native UAD plugins from the Spark subscription?

Is there any advantage left to use DSP plugins vs. the normal ones, in terms of latency? Do they sound the same? Is the only advantage left with DSP plugins to not use your Mac internal memory, or do the DSP plugins also offer a 'better analogue sound' still?

 

1. Yes, you can use both DSP and SPARK plugins. UAD-2 DSP plugins and SPARK ones are separate products/accounts and you can mix and match them as you wish.

2. The advantage of UAD-2 DSP plugins is that you can use them in real-time in UA Console for tracking. This means preamp/compressor/EQ and other emulations. Also, only about 20 UAD plugins are currently available as native - the others are still DSP only.

3. Both DSP and SPARK/native are same code so yes, they do sound same. Some argue that DSP ones are using internal oversampling so they sound "better" but I honestly didn't bother to check. Totally irrelevant for me even if it's true.

Hope this helps

 

Not sure how it compares but Kiive Audio's Xtressor isn't too shabby. It even has a preset literally titled "Big Snare" which gets you most of the way there.

EDIT: Just a heads up, Xtressor is on it's way to Plugin Alliance.

 

Last edited: Feb 28, 2023