IK and UAD = Serious deals!

[sakarik]

UA Connect is horrible.. it just pops up in the middle of recording/editing/mastering and in windows it's elevated prompt (THERE IS UPDATE AVAILABLE FOR UA CONNECT INSTALL NOW), so it blocks everything else (So i'm rather picky when to use UAD plugins, especially NEVER for recording and make sure ua connect is not running then). I've asked them to make it have only notification in the taskbar that there is update available but they simply are not professional enough to make it work. some of the plugins are good, though.

I rename UA Connect.exe to UA DISConnect.exe. When I want to install/update plugs, I temporarily remove the `DIS` in DISConnect.. do my thing.. and then rename it to UA DISConnect.exe again when done. Works like a charm.

haha! didn't even cross my mind. will try!

[vitocorleone123]

I bought my first UA plugins yesterday, was going to buy some of them months ago, but they kept getting cheaper.

Got 6 plugins for about $10 more than i was
going to pay for a single. I cant complain, so
far anyway.

of course, i wouldnt have been too happy,
had i bought them when i was planning on it.

Just know that they'll always be for sale more cheaply soon. That's the UAD way.

[pekbro]

I bought my first UA plugins yesterday, was going to buy some of them months ago, but they kept getting cheaper.

Got 6 plugins for about $10 more than i was
going to pay for a single. I cant complain, so
far anyway.

of course, i wouldnt have been too happy,
had i bought them when i was planning on it.

Just know that they'll always be for sale more cheaply soon. That's the UAD way.

Heh, it was low enough for me not to care overly. Anyway, im familiar with UA through
their HW if not SW. Thats the least of their
customer service shenanigans.

[SoftSynthLover99]

I'm trying not to play the role of the perpetually disgruntled customer. I like UAD plugins very much, but they essentially do the opposite of rewarding customer loyalty.

On the other hand, they are businesses. It's like cellphone companies. The best deals are ALWAYS for new users. It's just good business I suppose. But can indeed be frustrating.

UAD is one of the most unethical plugin companies in the industry. In fact, I can't think of another plugin company who has done worse to its customers. Customer support will gladly help you get the best deal and spend money for sure, but after that? You don't exist.

No issue with them offering new users extremely low prices personally. As you said that's just good business. But what they are doing now is removing value/features/promises from existing users purchases and making them re-purchase plugins they are already own.

User 1. Paid $350 for the SSL collection 5 years ago. UAD: We need $50 more to give you the native version even though we promised it would be free for you.
User 2. Pays $25-$50 for the SSL Collection today. UAD: You get the native and the DSP version with your single purchase!

UA's big response to the backlash? "Policy Changed".

IK Multimedia are angels from heaven in comparison to UA.

[MillerSam]

And SampleTank 4 Max v2 is 27€ at Humble Bundle

[beely]

UAD is one of the most unethical plugin companies in the industry.

Somewhat of a hyperbolic opinion, imo - note the company name is "Universal Audio" (UA) - UAD is a platform of products made by UA.

User 1. Paid $350 for the SSL collection 5 years ago. UAD: We need $50 more to give you the native version even though we promised it would be free for you.

Hmm, check your facts on that - if you already owned the SSL Channel Strip MKII and the SSL Bus comp, then it was $10 to upgrade to the native versions. The people who had to pay $49 were the people who only owned *one* of the plugins, not the Collection - essentially, if you only owned one but wanted it natively, you had to upgrade to the bundle of both plugins, whether you cared about the other one or not, which some people were annoyed by (with some justification imo).

Actually, they were a little more flexible on this in my experience - I had the original UAD1 4K Channel Strip and 4K Bus Comp, and had upgraded the 4K Strip to the SSL branded MKI version (that was $50 back in the day and the customer had to pay $50/each for the branding update ), but I didn't own either the MKII SSL Channel Strip with the newer modelling and I/O stages, or the SSL-branded Bus Comp, and I was still able to update to the SSL Channel Strip MKII and SSL Bus Comp for $10, which was a pretty no-brainer offering. I was expecting to have to buy the MKII Channel Strip as a new product, so I was pleased with that.

Being someone that started with UA back in the early UAD1 days, and then fell off the UA wagon for a bunch of reasons too tedious to go into here, it's great to have (nearly all) my UA plugins back running natively, and I've bought a bunch of newer ones at prices that were much less than buying/upgrading them back in the day, thanks to the current general over-saturated plugin marketplace. No, UA are not the same company they were back in the early UAD1 days, but they make good products and the sale/discount prices are good deals imo, and the native offerings have won me back as a customer.

ymmv of course...

[SoftSynthLover99]

UAD is one of the most unethical plugin companies in the industry.

Somewhat of a hyperbolic opinion, imo - note the company name is "Universal Audio" (UA) - UAD is a platform of products made by UA.

Not really, they are really unethical as far as the software/plugin side goes. I can’t think of another plugin developer who could even attempt to get away with flat out lying and deceiving potential customers like UA did.

[SoftSynthLover99]

UAD is one of the most unethical plugin companies in the industry.

Somewhat of a hyperbolic opinion, imo - note the company name is "Universal Audio" (UA) - UAD is a platform of products made by UA.

User 1. Paid $350 for the SSL collection 5 years ago. UAD: We need $50 more to give you the native version even though we promised it would be free for you.

Hmm, check your facts on that - if you already owned the SSL Channel Strip MKII and the SSL Bus comp, then it was $10 to upgrade to the native versions.

I own all the SSL plugins including the bus comp, and my upgrade is $49. When the native first dropped it was cheaper but that was for a limited time. After December to get native, even if you own every UAD SSL plugin ever made, you gotta pay $49 for the same exact plugin you already own.

And what makes it really unethical is that they advertised to users who bought DSP bundles like Ultimate and Complete, that they would never charge for native ports ever. You can find the official UA reps in Reddit post and on various forums telling potential customers that DSP purchases will always included the native versions whenever they release in the future.

I was one of those users they tricked into spending more on DSP for the added benefit of native down the line, only to be told “Policy is now changed” when the SSL native rolled out.

If that isn’t unethical, I’m not sure what is.

[comfortablynick]

I rename UA Connect.exe to UA DISConnect.exe. When I want to install/update plugs, I temporarily remove the `DIS` in DISConnect.. do my thing.. and then rename it to UA DISConnect.exe again when done. Works like a charm.

haha! didn't even cross my mind. will try!

I tried this on Windows and eventually got some kind of error when using the plugins; I can't remember what it was exactly, but this didn't work for long. Unfortunately it seems I will have to put up with the elevated prompt popping up during a session. This is really something they should fix.

[Scotty Ellis]

And SampleTank 4 Max v2 is 27€ at Humble Bundle

Try asking IK what the price is to update to next version of SampleTank....

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

And what makes it really unethical is that they advertised to users who bought DSP bundles like Ultimate and Complete, that they would never charge for native ports ever. You can find the official UA reps in Reddit post and on various forums telling potential customers that DSP purchases will always included the native versions whenever they release in the future.

Are you 100% sure that's exactly how they phrased it? I would like to see those quotes from Drew. I work for a big company - granted we don't sell plugins. But it would be unheard of to make any kind of promise in perpetuity like that. It's just typically not something you do in any business.

Even financial results are required to have a disclaimer about forward-looking statements.

[SoftSynthLover99]

And what makes it really unethical is that they advertised to users who bought DSP bundles like Ultimate and Complete, that they would never charge for native ports ever. You can find the official UA reps in Reddit post and on various forums telling potential customers that DSP purchases will always included the native versions whenever they release in the future.

Are you 100% sure that's exactly how they phrased it? I would like to see those quotes from Drew. I work for a big company - granted we don't sell plugins. But it would be unheard of to make any kind of promise in perpetuity like that. It's just typically not something you do in any business.

Even financial results are required to have a disclaimer about forward-looking statements.

Yep they did phrase it that way especially Drew. They had to rewrite the entire FAQ section of the official uaudio.com website regarding native ports when the SSL native was released.

Drew was inside of a reddit thread many months ago assuring users who were considering DSP purchases that the native would be included as well. Found this screenshot from a thread on the UA forums (which has since been locked and closed and all users who spoke out about the issue were banned).

IMG_1094.jpeg

[nusound mind]

I'm happy to have uad plugins at all, esp. at great prices. A few years ago that wasn't in the cards at all b/c it'd be an investment I wasn't likely to make b/c of the specific gear you needed to run them.

That's said, I'm not a fan how they'll say one thing and do the opposite, then delete history/ rewrite it to try and hide it. I'd respect it more if they said, "yeah we did say we'd do that, but now we're not going to."

As for ua connect I've done this every time and it works perfect.

a) get new plugin/s
b) dl & install ua connect
c) activate & install plugin/s
d) unistall ua connect

Takes 5 minutes and I've never had an issue. Not to say that others haven't, but to me this makes the most sense. Plugins work fine. I do that w/ most all of my installers.