Beware of UAD native plugins...

[bite_me]

... it´s iLok Dongle (totally not loving that) or cloud (which means you have always to be online).

Man, I never read that before - no hint - no nothing.
I´m a longtime UAD user, loads of dollars sunk in their ecosystem and I never regretted that until now, when I bought 1 plugin in the actual sale.
GUI gets hazy when UA Connect cannot call home after MINUTES!

I think they fool their customers in a shady way.

Where is a puke-emoji???

[zvenx]

https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articl ... D-Plug-Ins


rsp

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Yep. On their website. All over the internet. This was not a secret or surprise. In fact, I'm surprised anyone would be surprised.

[bite_me]

Yeah zvenx!
Do I want to read through Q&A before I buy a plugin?
THAT´S part of the shade.
It´s hard to believe that they don´t go the softube way with licenses which can be put on the computer.
It´s NOT written, that I constantly have to be online.
That´s part of the shade, too.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

You might want to demo a product or do the bare minimum research before you buy it.

[bite_me]

Their plugin info is clean and tidy with no hint to this. I knew that their Spark-Demo was crap with 14 days subscription and such, but they promoted that bought plugins are outside of this hassle.

[bite_me]

@ Funkybot: I think you didn´t demo a Spark plugin, right?

[mothra]

Considering how locked down with hardware they used to be, you didn't think UAD was just going to let you input a serial number you can give out to friends or share on the internet did you?

As a long time UAD user, don't you have hardware in your system for it to fall back on?

[_leras]

GUI gets hazy when UA Connect cannot call home after MINUTES!

I think they fool their customers in a shady way.

This sounds like they could implement the auth a bit better. There are lots of reasons people could temporarily lose internet connection. At least some hours, or a couple of days, would be more reasonable.

The ilok thing itself I think it fine though...

[bite_me]

@ mothra: Yes, got a uad quad-card in my computer and I always liked it. But their instruments don´t make use of their sharc chips.

[susquash]

None of that bothers me about UAD. It's the inability to not have their connection app to not start on computer startup. It has the option to manually turn it off, but if you disable the auto startup in windows/mac preferences, it will not connect the next time you try to use their software.
It's a horrible software implementation and they should really consider changing it. There is enough background processes running already. We don't need more. These businesses are helping in lessening your computers life by doing this.

[_leras]

As a long time UAD user, don't you have hardware in your system for it to fall back on?

Can't speak for the OP, but I have UAD cards in my studio PC and installed whats available on a laptop. I get that it needs internet for authorization, but it sucks a bit if I can't e.g. reliably use the synths on the laptop on the go...

[bite_me]

@_leras: They should do better!
A few years back I lost about 30 licenses because my iLok dongle was damaged - NOT broken. Simply not working any more. I do have to send it to the US, which is not very funny.

[kritikon]

I'm absolutely NOT a fan of iLok, purely because PACE, not the dongle itself. But seems a bit odd that a previous UAD user gets the shits about a dongle though...the whole UAD hw is the essence of dongle. And it really is not a secret that they use iLok - the main reason I won't buy them. I found out within 3 seconds of them releasing native plugins that they were iLok, hence never to be bought. Shame really, as I'd be happy buying a few of theirs, but as they're in league with Satan...

[wangeroge]

iLok works great compared to Codemeter or other stuff.