Beware of UAD native plugins...

[beely]

It is only vaguely telling you about ilok requirement. But the normal ilok soft license doesn't require internet while usage.

It actually expressly says not only that it requires iLok, but explicitly the two iLok authorisation methods they require - none of which are machine authorisation. That's not vague, that's explicit, without being over-wordy (which people also gloss over). And it's the same blurb on the PluginBoutique pages too.

But if you have comments on how you think a dev should change their website, info or purchase mechanisms, then contact them and tell them directly.

BTW I'd prefer machine authorisations for these too - both of the other methods have some inconveniences for the end user - but we are where we are...

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

No, customers do not need to know the internal tech speech of ilok. Also, 99% do not have a dongle and also don't want a dongle.

That 99% is hyperbole and nowhere near reality. UA has tens of thousands of customers, very likely hundreds of thousands. Spark is wildly popular along with their native plugins. Do the math: if 99% of their customers did not know what iLok was, and did not have one, or were bothered by the Cloud requirements, the forums would be absolutely FLOODED with complaints like yours. UA support would be completely underwater with emails. 99% of their customers would be massive!

This hasn't happened. UA communicates pretty clearly (someone posted screen prints earlier in this thread) and people know what iLok is and understand the various choices and trade-offs. There's been discussion about it, some of the anti-iLok crowd has been caught off guard, but there's no massive uprising because UA is being unclear about their requirements. Based on what I've seen, I think it's much more like 99% are fine with the iLok offerings for Spark plugins, and 1% are vocally opposed or confused.

[jamcat]

I wouldn’t mind the iLok dongle if it was less obtrusive. If you travel and do music on a laptop from the road it is a major inconvenience. It’s too easy to damage a USB port on a laptop, or leave it behind somewhere. And being permanently online is not always an option either. You can tether to your phone, but if you’re going through an area with spotty cell service, your plugins will stop working. If you are traveling outside your country/bloc, it’s even worse, as it can get expensive quickly.

One time my internet was down for a few minutes and I didn’t know it. I opened up a song and everything sounded different, but I had no idea why. It was of course my UAD plugins, which other than being blurred out when I opened the UI, gave no indication they were disabled. I made some regrettable changes to that song…

So of course I would much prefer machine authorization. I have a lot of iLok-protected plugins and I use machine auth for all of them, except for UAD. UAD throws a wrench in the whole system.

But at the end of the day, I would rather use UAD than not. They’re the backbone of my virtual studio gear now, so I have to make do. Life is full of imperfect choices, and it just comes down to your priorities.

[aMUSEd]

UA Connect just won't start on my system right now, just updated to the latest version but it still won't open

[beely]

"Performance issues"
https://status.ilok.com

No problems with Cloud, those plugins are working just fine - it's account management/activation stuff (which includes UA Connect as well as iLok Licence Manager) you can't do until the servers are back up.

[briefcasemanx]

Wait, if you buy a native plugin you can't use it on UAD hardware? There are separate buys for the hardware version and the native version?

[beely]

Wait, if you buy a native plugin you can't use it on UAD hardware? There are separate buys for the hardware version and the native version?

No, if you buy a plugin that comes in both native and DSP versions (and you own hardware), you get both versions. Not sure where you got this "separate buys" thing from.

If you buy a native plugin that doesn't have a DSP version, then you can only run it natively, of course, and if you buy a DSP-only plugin, you can only run it on the hardware and not natively.

Also, if you own a DSP plugin that doesn't yet have a native version, but UA then release a native port of that plugin at a later date, you also get the native version for free (although recently UA have introduced time limits you had to "claim" the native version for, after which there is a small fee).

[Uncle E]

I have disabled UA Connect from running and only run it for updates/installs, and then quit it (not "hide", but quit) immediately afterwards.

Unfortunately, doing this didn't fix the problem I'm having, which is the authorization warning when the computer goes to sleep. Maybe it's a Luna issue.