UAD Spark Subscription model opinions?

[elxsound]

How much actually is it? Their website is very cagey about prices and products included. I need more information than a few videos and a trial link.

$20 per month. I ran into the same problem looking for a price.

https://www.engadget.com/amp/universal- ... 55221.html

[trackbout]

The reason I’ve always avoided UA is that they’ve always been economically incentivized to write inefficient code.

It's possible that some of their plug ins could have been more economical. In the early days they had lower cpu SE versions. I think their user base really just wanted the highest quality plug ins. Their aim really is to replace studio hardware. Many studio users were happy to grab multiple UAD cards because that was still less than a few hardware compressors.

For sure, I'm definitely not knocking them for sound quality. If people were comfortable shelling out for some extra DSP cards relative to other options like analog gear, I'm not knocking that either. I could just never get comfortable with their inherent incentives, human nature being what it is.

It seems likely that at some point in time they'll make their entire library available natively, at which point everything they do will be benchmarked against other native devs on an apples to apples basis, and their conflict of interest related to selling DSP cards will no longer be an issue.

[_leras]

The reason I’ve always avoided UA is that they’ve always been economically incentivized to write inefficient code.

It's possible that some of their plug ins could have been more economical. In the early days they had lower cpu SE versions. I think their user base really just wanted the highest quality plug ins. Their aim really is to replace studio hardware. Many studio users were happy to grab multiple UAD cards because that was still less than a few hardware compressors.

For sure, I'm definitely not knocking them for sound quality. If people were comfortable shelling out for some extra DSP cards relative to other options like analog gear, I'm not knocking that either. I could just never get comfortable with their inherent incentives, human nature being what it is.

It seems likely that at some point in time they'll make their entire library available natively, at which point everything they do will be benchmarked against other native devs on an apples to apples basis, and their conflict of interest related to selling DSP cards will no longer be an issue.

I hear what you're saying, and it's not to say I haven't wished some had taken less DSP!

I'm not sure if the cpu usage would become an issue - it's still more about the sound. If I want low cpu I'll use the DAW native plugins for the less prominent tracks before sacrificing what I want on my buses and master.

[cel4145]

what is great though is the cpu usage on my system is decently low, compared to other similar native plugins from other developers

That confirms to me that UAD has finally admitted their hardware DSP is a boondoggle that cripples users with an expensive, glorified dongle that can't keep up with native CPUs.

Well now. Half true?

UAD-2 was released in 2008, boasting "ten times the power of UAD-1". It is therefore based on 15 year old technology. I doubt anyone believed that the UAD-2 units in 2008 were dropped from Vega with technology that didn't exist anywhere else on planet Earth - it was just (at the time) a cost-effective way to increase audio processing power rather than using a whole other computer to do the number crunching.

Since then there have been hardware units offering double, quadruple the grunt, but it's still small beer compared to the improvements in host CPU. The M1 series in particular should leave it for dust.

So any talk of the hardware only ever being a dongle or that there was some great fraud perpetrated I think is a bit silly. They had a good product and a good model that worked brilliantly, still works perfectly well but yes with each successive year the performance - relatively - has decreased. In 2022, the hardware offerings don't make much sense any more. I think they've done well to keep it going this long - longer than Avid managed with their own DSP solutions - but it's high time to move on.

EDIT - forgot to say that the hardware platform still allows for much better real time use when tracking.

I'm a newbie to this, so I could be wrong. But it isn't it also that the competition in the plugin market is more fierce than it was say even in 2015?

The other thing I suspect is that the % of market revenue has dramatically shifted in the plugin market from studios with a lot of gear to bedroom producers and small home studio buyers. And then during 2020, a lot of people found that they could get by doing their work on their laptop at home.

So the shift in technology which negates their hardware, more plugin competition, an expansion in the plug-in market with lots of people who are not going to buy their hardware anyway, and even more professionals wanting the ability to work remotely would suggest they finally figured out their business model was stagnant and dying compared to the growth that other plug-in manufacturers are seeing. And it was only going to get worse for them if they didn't do something.

[elxsound]

what is great though is the cpu usage on my system is decently low, compared to other similar native plugins from other developers

That confirms to me that UAD has finally admitted their hardware DSP is a boondoggle that cripples users with an expensive, glorified dongle that can't keep up with native CPUs.

Well now. Half true?

UAD-2 was released in 2008, boasting "ten times the power of UAD-1". It is therefore based on 15 year old technology. I doubt anyone believed that the UAD-2 units in 2008 were dropped from Vega with technology that didn't exist anywhere else on planet Earth - it was just (at the time) a cost-effective way to increase audio processing power rather than using a whole other computer to do the number crunching.

Since then there have been hardware units offering double, quadruple the grunt, but it's still small beer compared to the improvements in host CPU. The M1 series in particular should leave it for dust.

So any talk of the hardware only ever being a dongle or that there was some great fraud perpetrated I think is a bit silly. They had a good product and a good model that worked brilliantly, still works perfectly well but yes with each successive year the performance - relatively - has decreased. In 2022, the hardware offerings don't make much sense any more. I think they've done well to keep it going this long - longer than Avid managed with their own DSP solutions - but it's high time to move on.

EDIT - forgot to say that the hardware platform still allows for much better real time use when tracking.

I'm a newbie to this, so I could be wrong. But it isn't it also that the competition in the plugin market is more fierce than it was say even in 2015?

The other thing I suspect is that the % of market revenue has dramatically shifted in the plugin market from studios with a lot of gear to bedroom producers and small home studio buyers. And then during 2020, a lot of people found that they could get by doing their work on their laptop at home.

So the shift in technology which negates their hardware, more plugin competition, an expansion in the plug-in market with lots of people who are not going to buy their hardware anyway, and even more professionals wanting the ability to work remotely would suggest they finally figured out their business model was stagnant and dying compared to the growth that other plug-in manufacturers are seeing. And it was only going to get worse for them if they didn't do something.

I think there’s lots of yeses in there.

Though I’m never surprised by bigger companies trying to capture a piece of that subscription market.

Developers have shared before that with perpetual licenses the money usual comes in for new releases, updates and sales. Most everything else experience lulls until the next of those event/cycles.

With UAD to get into this market/model means sacrificing the their self-contained product. I’m sure they’ll have success.

I don’t believe they’re ditching the hardware… I actually believe they will market the UAD Spark as a gateway to their hardware, for the purpose of freeing up processing power.

[cel4145]

I'm a newbie to this, so I could be wrong. But it isn't it also that the competition in the plugin market is more fierce than it was say even in 2015?

The other thing I suspect is that the % of market revenue has dramatically shifted in the plugin market from studios with a lot of gear to bedroom producers and small home studio buyers. And then during 2020, a lot of people found that they could get by doing their work on their laptop at home.

So the shift in technology which negates their hardware, more plugin competition, an expansion in the plug-in market with lots of people who are not going to buy their hardware anyway, and even more professionals wanting the ability to work remotely would suggest they finally figured out their business model was stagnant and dying compared to the growth that other plug-in manufacturers are seeing. And it was only going to get worse for them if they didn't do something.

I think there’s lots of yeses in there.

Though I’m never surprised by bigger companies trying to capture a piece of that subscription market.

Developers have shared before that with perpetual licenses the money usual comes in for new releases, updates and sales. Most everything else experience lulls until the next of those event/cycles.

With UAD to get into this market/model means sacrificing the their self-contained product. I’m sure they’ll have success.

I don’t believe they’re ditching the hardware… I actually believe they will market the UAD Spark as a gateway to their hardware, for the purpose of freeing up processing power.

Yeah, I would not think they are ditching the hardware. They can keep providing it for whoever wants it. But that's an ever shrinking part of the market segment, in a market that is expanding. Music production is also an ever growing hobby market now, with people in their twenties who will have more disposable income to spend on plugins as they get older.

As a side note: if they want to be cutting edge, they need to be developing plugins that can use GPU processing. That's the hardware that's just sitting around waiting to be used.

[trackbout]

Actually I do expect them to ditch the hardware at some point. Certainly not right away, they’d have a pitchfork army at the gates and probably a few lawsuits. But when you look at the trends in computing that drove their decision to create Spark, those trends are not going away, if anything they may accelerate.

The real question is, 10 years from now, given where CPUs will likely be (and GPUs if someone successfully taps them for audio processing), do you actually believe anyone is going to pay money for a SHARC chip? I don’t, which means the choice to ditch the hardware will be made for them. Alternatively, do you think UA will invest the resources in developing a brand new DSP platform to replace their ancient SHARC platform, rather than simply coding against native platforms like everyone else? I don’t.

[elxsound]

Actually I do expect them to ditch the hardware at some point. Certainly not right away, they’d have a pitchfork army at the gates and probably a few lawsuits. But when you look at the trends in computing that drove their decision to create Spark, those trends are not going away, if anything they may accelerate.

The real question is, 10 years from now, given where CPUs will likely be (and GPUs if someone successfully taps them for audio processing), do you actually believe anyone is going to pay money for a SHARC chip? I don’t, which means the choice to ditch the hardware will be made for them. Alternatively, do you think UA will invest the resources in developing a brand new DSP platform to replace their ancient SHARC platform, rather than simply coding against native platforms like everyone else? I don’t.

I do think 10 years from now UA will still have their hardware available for processing their effects.

The draw is the idea of using effects just like analog hardware, but with the bonus of that hardware unit being able to perform any number of available effects and chains.

There will always be different markets to cater to. The hobbyist, professional, and semi-pro/or aspiring professional. Different needs for different groups. Spark just broadened its consumer base and visibility.

[trackbout]

The problem with that theory is that a UAD2 Satellite like an OCTO is not likely to be considered a "pro" product when it gives you less than 1% of the DSP processing power of a bog standard CPU, which is an inevitability.

[elxsound]

The problem with that theory is that a UAD2 Satellite like an OCTO is not likely to be considered a "pro" product when it gives you less than 1% of the DSP processing power of a bog standard CPU, which is an inevitability.

External processing already has its appeal to some users even if you're not among them. You're also suggesting they won't have products that also improve over time with regard to processing power.

I wouldn't be surprised if they kill off their satellite range (as it's not even navigatable from the front page) but after reading the Spark info, it does seem they intend to continue to market what they imply as the benefits of using their hardware as an advantage over processing effects on a computer.

I have no stake in this. I'm not a UA user, but I'm going by what I see in their marketing. I don't see them abandoning the idea of processing plugins using their hardware range (just maybe not the satellite range).

[trackbout]

Well I think you can be pretty certain that SHARC chips will remain radically underpowered relative to native CPUs until the end of time. With everything else who knows, time will tell.

I can see them keeping SHARC chips in the audio interfaces for real time tracking through the unison preamps, that can't be replicated 1 for 1 with native processing, and you would generally need fewer plugin instances for tracking vs mixing so the chips being underpowered is less of an issue. I don't think anyone has a preference for outboard DSP chips though, they just don't want to hit CPU limits. Eventually we're all going to have excess CPU coming out of our ears so that whole paradigm falls away.

[Plaster]

Subscription is terrible. I wish companies would stop forcing them down our throats. That said, i wouldve loved to use these native UAD plugins if they could be owned perpetually. Hopefully in the future UAD will see the light! Even WUP is better than subscription only imo.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Subscription is terrible. I wish companies would stop forcing them down our throats. That said, i wouldve loved to use these native UAD plugins if they could be owned perpetually. Hopefully in the future UAD will see the light! Even WUP is better than subscription only imo.

But you can own them perpetually. I've got perpetual licenses for the 1176 and LA-2A collections as well as the Studer. You just currently need some UAD DSP hardware registered to your UA account. Now I've got two licenses in my iLok account for the native versions of them. I can even buy perpetual licenses for the Minimoog and B3 if I were so inclined. Good stuff.

[elxsound]

Well I think you can be pretty certain that SHARC chips will remain radically underpowered relative to native CPUs until the end of time. With everything else who knows, time will tell.

I can see them keeping SHARC chips in the audio interfaces for real time tracking through the unison preamps, that can't be replicated 1 for 1 with native processing, and you would generally need fewer plugin instances for tracking vs mixing so the chips being underpowered is less of an issue. I don't think anyone has a preference for outboard DSP chips though, they just don't want to hit CPU limits. Eventually we're all going to have excess CPU coming out of our ears so that whole paradigm falls away.

History is not on your side (or our side). Generally the excess CPU is short lived. As one developer mentioned before (and I’m paraphrasing), as the capability of processing increases, the demand and incentive to “optimize” isn’t there.

Anyway, we’ll all see how it plays out 10 years from now if we’re all lucky enough still to be around.

[j wazza]

to buy their plugins can you have any uad hardware? eg could you get the cheapest one, i think the volt, and buy plugins to run natively?