Of course, if they hadn't they would have been boycotted as an audio company. But that's not the point. Most plugins have been purchased by UAD-2 users above $169 over the years, and today can be purchased native at $39. The UAD-2 versions have not been updated for years now, VST3s are updated almost every month. It is clear that even UAD-2 users will work practically native now, but at a very high price compared to a new or Spark user. For me, UA Native is a blessing, but I also understand the resentment of old users who realized they spent crazy amounts of money to work natively in the end.

 

The users you are commenting about being angry would be more than happy to be using all their plugins natively without the smaller UAD interfaces. They think they somehow "invested" whatever large sums of money; and now other people get to use them for such a dramatically lower cost. Like they were buying shares in the company, or something. As long as it is some perceived "advantage on the competition", those kinds of users are not worried about what they have; they are complaining about what others now get to use, too.

 

thank you for that! Strange I didn't received any email from them since I hold a lot of their plugins

 

You still need UA Connect installed to even download/install the plugins unfortunately, but other than that it can be shut down without issue if you have an iLok key. If you use the machine/cloud authorization, I've heard it has to open and call home when you first load the plugins. I still see UA open in the menu bar on my Mac when I open a Cubase project, but I close it down and can keep working. I haven't bothered trying to remove the background services that keep it running or anything though, UA Connect doesn't really affect anything here aside from opening up quietly and staying out of the way in the background. Folks make it seem like it drags the machine down (just like iLok) but I don't even notice its open most of the time until I'm done working and close Cubase and happen too see it in the menu bar.

FYI Plugin Boutique has an 'Essentials' bundle on sale for $50, includes the actual LA-2A collection, the Pultecs, the Space Echo and a few others.. Grabbed that shit when I woke up this morning so now I've got all my old Waves shit replaced finally with those LA-2A's.. Gotta put the Space Echo up against the Arturia and my RE-20 later today when I get a chance. They give you another license for the free LA-2A too, but I already grabbed that here last night hehe.

 

Not angry as didn't have the money to spend on UAD plugs when they were expensive. Nice they're now more in my price range. This one is a steal at $0, but what isn't?

 

The iLok activation probably has to call home, but the user above wouldn't still be able to use it after deleting UA connect. To pull the license and auth into your ilok web account, all you have to do is link UA to it. So technically I "own" the plugin, wether I can use it on this machine or not. I was able to "trick" Logic into opening their other LA-2A's past the AUValTool, but they disable themselves because they are not the plugin I "own" on my iLok. I'm not certain if this sneaky way will get it to work, but if the matching component was able to be dropped in without their bs software, it might be worth the minutes I have spent fooling around with it. I was reading a little on their forums, and between the angry people posting on there and this little "free" La-2a; I have had my memory refreshed about why I will never buy another thing from them. Good products from a bottom of the barrel company. That 50$ bundle looks like a great price for a date with the devil.

 

Last edited: Oct 10, 2023

I'm waiting for R2R .. I'll never install legit ILok ...Never

 

UA Connect does not need to run, or be running, to load and use plugins, whether activated to iLok Cloud, or the dongle.

 

Right, but it (ua connect) has to be used to "download" and install the actual vst or au plugin. The old style UA software installer used to dump nearly 200 plugins onto the system immediately during install, but it does not contain anything newer than the day it was uploaded on their website. UA Connect has current minimum MacOS requirement of Catalina, and that's not going to happen no matter what this one plugin does.

 

not even with the dosdude1 patch??? (if you mean to get catalina)

 

Going that route will fake out installers where the developer has forced a required version, which is the minimum they want to provide support for. For simple applications, no problem. For non-Metal compliant GPU, it's more than just a developer like iZotope pulling a new min requirement number out of thin air. And by design, Catalina breaks audio over usb; which is the more important factor for me. A new one is in the cards soon anyway. But if I can get this freebie working, I have a decent chance getting the 55$ bundle to work also, the same way. I would just rather know before handing any money to UAD; you can kiss that goodbye.

 

Last edited: Oct 11, 2023

Out of curiosity, what is the USB audio issue with Catalina? As in USB headsets don't work correctly?

 

You ever happen to notice a folder HAL next to your VST and Component plugins folders? It is acronym for Hardware Abstraction Layer, and that folder contains driver software. They changed it around with the Catalina update causing some drivers to no longer function correctly. Not to mention, Catalina is the first MacOS version where 32 bit plugins will not run, even with solutions like Jbridge. Many of the early, but still "untouchable" iLok1/Pace protected plugins like Sonnox, Soundtoys, mcdsp plugins from XVX; and all the TC Electronics plugins more recently unlocked for Powercore PCIE cards go out the window because they are all 32bit. For an OS with barely any improvements between it and Mojave. It's not worth losing use of those; for 11 plugins I am only slightly interested in, from a company that I do not think very highly of.

 

Well, macOS is 4 generations furter now (Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma), so picking Catalina as the lowest OS is pretty generous. If your Mac is too old, use OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

 

This is false Info! The 32 bit architecture was dropped in Catalina which only contains 64 bit intel instructions (that's why it's the smallest of any current macOS versions). If you need 32 bit support you have to install Mojava. Big Sur and newer only contain ARM and 64 bit Intel instructions.

 

Yep. I truly understand your alarm over "false info"!!!!! However, there is no problem with 32bit plugins on High Sierra. Nor will patching replace my GPU. So I really don't get your point at all. You should chill out with the exclamation marks. Catalina does not have 32bit support at all, which makes my post correct and you yelling some nonsense. If I need new OS it's on my laptop because that is Ventura, not Sonoma. My 5.1 will stay on HS because I want it to. I was unaware I needed to check with anybody.

Thanks for your concern.

 

There are hundreds of LA2A emulations out there, why should I choose an iLok one?

 

It's not about the plugin, you see, it's an intricate plot to get the plugin and then try to resell it once it's no longer free. At least that's what some did with polymax.

 

thx. that was easy.