You are spot on with the subscription issues. I find it hard to buy in to plugins I can never own. So that makes me avoid it. The Apollo Solo and Apollo bundles were also a smart move and finally allowed me to join the UA club. The native concept was smart and also key to me joining the ecosystem finally. The fact that owning the plugins also gets you the native version is a solid product decision and they should never let that go. That’s why I continue to focus on owning the versions that are also native.
@@oinkooinkI see a lot of down talking UAD, but correct me if I’m wrong UAD ultimate 11 are just about all native and a 1 time buys a huge array and you flat out own them
@@oinkooink I wouldn’t say a stone cold con, and trust me I’m not a fan of the subscription (exclusively) model. I think if your a pro and it makes sense financially as part of your outgoings, then yea it can 100%. But how many users a making an actual “living” out of it vs those who aren’t. That’s where I see the issue.
You've made a lot of good points..part of the reason I didn't go with UA for my interface and went the Apogee route was because I didn't want to be forced to have my interface with me every time I want to use a plugin...needing an Ilok was already enough..but IMO a big part of people using UA stuff wasn't completely about elitesm solely but also the dip factor, where the interface could take some of the load of your computer and have the interface do some of the heavy lifting when using plugins, but now that has drastically changed with computers, especially when Apple started making their own silicon chips and we dont need external dip like we used to, I can run sooooo many more tracks and plugins than I could 10 or 15 years ago, or even 20 years ago on a $40,000 ProTools TDM system , I think UA had to go native because a lot of people just aren't going to buy their interfaces and be chained down just to use their plugins.
I dont think you mentioned the whole point of UA was tracking through plugins, that did a pretty get job emulating hardware, in a near 0 latency situation. I was more used to tracking through a little bit of basic hardware, but the UA setup is nice. I can def see older school engineers migrating easy to UA as they kept the workflow very similar. But just for mixing? Yea, any plugin vendor will do. I only by on sale no matter who the company is so, the pricing is all pretty similar.
Spot on! Excellent video…. Also you are touching on the phycology of how this is a mind game, especially to new producers who are just breaking in. All companies will hit then hard and fast before the new person realizes just what is going on…
You make lots of great points and express your thoughts extremely well! The issue though, and the real reasons that not many successful musicians started out their career as Certified Public Accountants, is that that extra 5-10% of sound difference has a compounding/exponential effect on the listener, and historically made the difference on whether something ended up in the top 10 of the charts or not. Industries everywhere bemoan why 5-10% of the producers in that industry are making 90% of the profits, and this is why.... they realize the value of that last percentile. Thankfully I don't have to worry about beancounting when it comes to making music, its not what I do for a living. But the concept applies everywhere. That last few % makes all the difference in the world. Can it be quantified on paper to investors? Probably not. But I'm never letting an investor guide my musical decisions anyway.
Also about subscriptions with software. This is a tough one, because I work in the software development industry and know all too well that software cannot just be purchased and expected to work correctly forever. The ecosystem around the software changes (patches to the OS can break existing applications and plugins or cause them to behave differently). And you can't just lay off programmers and hire more later when things break, you need the original crew that knows the product inside and out. And they are expensive... and you have to maintain that staff. And that costs. So who pays for that if you sell a perpetual license with an offer to maintain it for free going forward? Nobody can do that. It means you have to disconnect the laptop from the Internet and get what you can out of it until the hardware dies. Don't get me wrong I HATE subscription software models and this is one reason I am investing more in hardware that I can get multiple decades out of instead of plugins. But I get why subscriptions are necessary. Apple is the chief offender in all of this, developing for their platform is a nightmare because they constantly change the underlying hardware.... planned obsolesence at its best. Microsoft is much better about backward compatibility and why I use that as my DAW platform.
I have a lot of love for UAD plugs because using just a uad-2 solo card back in the early 2000s I was able to compete with and wind projects over producers who had $20,000 pro tools rigs. When my laptop with a Express 34 card slot died I gave up UAD for along time. I did however miss them very much. I don't do subscription but lately have been picking up really great deals our native versions with the Tuesday special deals. Also I've gotten some $25 off coupons left in my account. So without hardware and without a subscription I have got some amazing deals on some fantastic plugs. Their quality it is second to none
I agree with you about subscriptions, I also have the Roland Play4Life subscription. To add to the topic of subscriptions, I also have an issue with these update subscriptions like Waves and Native Instruments have. Those are also nefarious, I mean... if you purchase a product, why should you have to pay for update (not upgrade) costs to keep them operationally stable?
Waves has similar issues with subscriptions, updating and backwards compatibility after updating when opening an old mixing session where you used the previous Waves Shell release.
I agree, I can not fork out the money for the price or subscription. I will go to Waves unfortunately for UA. Also, I have so many compressor and EQ plug-ins at this point. I think I have 5 versions of an 1176. Everyone is giving their version away like candy during Halloween. At this point any upgrade I make now has to make a significant benefit to the production.
UAD plugins are expensive ONLY WHEN you pay full price. They have great sales monthly, half year and year end sales. Plus they don’t use your CPU with the DSP which is why i like them. You can load up a session and not effect your CPU at all, assuming you have enough DSP to handle them.
I'm not sure if the CPU-load matters anymore. I use hundreds of plugins (no UAD) in a mixing session, and I really have to go overboard even with very CPU-intensive plugins to get to the max limit. And my Mac computer isn't high end by any means.
The Apollo Solo can load just 2 to 3 plug-ins, then it's over. That is not up to date. The whole thing is almost consumer deception. The headphone amplifier is also mediocre in my opinion. It was advertised as the best headphone amplifier in its class. On the one hand, I now have UAD plug-ins, most of which are not included in Spark and thus cannot be loaded as ordinary plug-ins. On the other hand, I have third-party plugins that I can't load in UAD's console because I'm supposed to buy them from UAD again. The whole thing is ridiculous.
@@e.d.8215 Well yeah….an Apollo Solo wouldn’t help much. I’m referencing satellites. You would need at least a couple Octo’s to comfortably have a session with multiple UAD plugins.
Thanks for the video. If I have a plugin that's available on both UAD h/w and native and I switch between using the h/w and without, does the DAW automatically switch between the two versions? So if I go native, do I have to unload the h/w plugin, reload the native equivalent and then reset the plugin settings? Thanks for your content :-)
I got an UAD interface before the Native thing. I got few plugins for my UAD and then I bought same plugins from Plugin Alliance (they are actually the same plugin developers selling for UAD and Plugin Alliance). When I compared them I realized they sound identical, so no need to spend money on UAD interfaces :)
@@jimhardiman3836 Vertigo, Maag EQ, anything by Brainworx, Elysia compressors, Friedman amp sims and a few other amp sims. That's a few of them. Lately people have been complaining that they have the Plugin Alliance version and the UA version and they don't null. Dirk of PA said that they update their plugins with small sonic improvements behind the scenes now and again, UA is still using older code. That's why some no longer null. Anything UA I'm considering buying, I look to see if PA has it first due to the Native factor.
"I bought same plugins from Plugin Alliance (they are actually the same plugin developers selling for UAD and Plugin Alliance)." what are you even saying?
@@brmbklexample: Marshall JMP 2203, is sold for $80 on Softube's website (used to be sold on Plugin Alliance years ago), but on UAD website is $200. This plugin is made by Softube, not by UAD. And it's the same plugin, performs identical doesn't matter from where you buy it. Same with many other plugins sold on UAD's website.
One question, so I brought the native UAD Electra 88 vintage keyboard will this plugin work without Kontact 7 ? I’m using windows 10 And Cubase 13 pro do need a dongle or does it work like all of my Waves plugins?
A bit late to the party, love the info and breaking down the business side of things. But I must say not needing to lug around my interface to use some of my go to plugins has been a massive game changer!
Totally agree. A financing option would have been great or even to have the ability to choose 2 or 3 plugins every 12 months. A more customer oriented service would have been brilliant. As it stands now. it's just something that only caters to a specific group of people. That being said, UAD plugins are awesome. Going native was a solid step into the future.
Very interesting points. I agree with most of them. I don't think "elitism" is that much of a reason to buy a product. Ultimately, it's about monetization and you are spot on in that regard. Is that extra 10% worth multiples in cost? For the vast majority of musicians with DIY studios, making essentially no significant income, subscriptions are a real genuine problem. Especially when it's not just ONE that people find themselves entangled in. I used to subscribe to Composer Cloud by East West. Superficially, it was a wonderful deal but then I wanted to give them up because I was only really using a very tiny percentage of what they offered. Now, a couple of years later and I want to remix a couple of tracks. I neglected to stem what I had and I now need to find alternative instruments that I outright own instead. I will never go down the subscription route. Never. It's just poor value. You were very right to point out the value when it comes to Adobe type products which are rarely purchased by hobbyists, vs musical subscriptions which are probably majority hobbyists. Thanks for this enlightening discussion!
I've been trying to 'warn' UA in their FB forums about not catering for existing customers for a very long time now but they don't seem to be listening, which is very unfortunate...in fact I was the one who suggested that PA should adopt their now very successful 'rent-to-own' model in one of their posts a long long time ago, and look at where it's taken them. Not saying I was solely responsible for it but at the time they posted something on FB asking us what did we think about them adopting this subscription model, and that was my answer to it (didn't see anyone else talking about it but got a reply from the main guy at the time thanking me for it). Anyway my point is I agree with everything you said, so well done for putting out this video. Who knows, maybe now they will start listening. Both Avid and Waves did, so why not UA....
They do. I have almost all the plugins from Spark cuz I had the DSP versions of the plugins. So I purposefully bought all the plugins I wanted that were in spark over Black Friday, so now I have both DSP and native versions. Win win! Haha
@@BYCWELL unfortunately, as I've looked into this a bit more, they offer some of them that you buy additionally for free, but of the ones that come with the Apollo, they do not do all of them. Possibly in the future though.
So they said if you buy a volt Interface i think a new one you get the compressors for free untill the 30.04.23 can i use them ? If i buy it ??? Or does it tell me you need a apollo twin ???
Dawg you are completely spot on with this videos. Almost everything you brought up is exactly what I’ve always questioned about UAD. Like $300+ for a single plugin?? When Waves has its equivalent for $30. I’ve always felt at the end of the day the average music consumer can’t even come close to telling if you used their Pultec EQ or Waves (for example)…their Transient Shaper or Kilo Hearts’ FREE one. So like you mentioned, it’s really hard to justify why we as customers are paying hundreds of dollars for a plugin when the end result of your song or beat can still slap with plugins for less than half the price compared to using all UAD.
But they're not equivalent. That's why. The UA plugins that are expensive are the Unison tech plugins. So when I select a Unison Tech plugin like for instance the SSL 4000 .Or like you said the Pultec which is also available in Unison Tech form. My Apollo interface goes thru a change physically and all the impedances change to become that SSL Unit or that Pultec. I have both SSL plugins. NO COMPARISON when the UA is in the Unison Tech slot. Night and Day difference. They have the legacy versions for people without Apollo Interfaces who just want a basic plugin . And they are a lot less money. And even those ones are better than waves. UA has been making these units since there fifties. Waves only came out with software . UA has a lot more knowledge and years of experience building the real stuff. You get what you pay for. Why would all the pro engineers use UA products if it wasn't worth it ?
yup tracking live is a big push of the Apollo. I don't think it's just a dongle as many have said. It offers a physical interface to help you record a bit easier, it also saves configurations (both in console) and if when you turn it back on it goes back to where it was before. As @@billesposito2112 mentioned it also have UNISON.
I think it's great that UAD plugins can now be bought as a lifetime license. I'm curious to compare them to plugins from companies like Waves, iZotope and IK Multimedia. Also the UAD reverbs seem great and I want to compare them to reverbs from Acustica and Native Instruments.
This is actually really fantastic. I was never actually a huge fan of UAD. They had their place, but....at least for what I do, the value wasn't there. But....that's the case with the vast majority of plugins/companies.
The reason I stopped using UAD was Slate. They beat them at their own game, with no hardware tie, for far cheaper. And when they did that, UA had the cheek to charge double to update the plugins you already bought so they could keep up with slate (by adding the transformer and pre amp modelling slate had), AND if you did fall for that, you found that you could only run 1 or 2 of these new plugs on a $1000 card. They went from being Avids flexible alternative, to the same greedy anti consumer company as Avid.
@@brmbkl well if you don't understand it then sure, it's meaningless, to you. Let me clarify then: I mean before Slate arrived, UAD were the only plugin maker to be able to model analog processors with accuracy. not only did Slate surpass them, they did so on a more user-friendly business model with no hardware lockdown and fairer pricing, this was before the subscription option too. Is that making more sense?
In a perfect world, the model of subscription based plugins is no different. Ultimately if you feel the mix improves with the UAD plugins , that mix which has been created is there for all to hear, so it does in someway become permanent, certainly no less permanent than someone doing a business course or life-skills course, they still have to take that knowledge, or advantage they feel they are getting in the sonic world, with the plugins, and make something of it. Subscriptions are not entirely business savvy entirely, it does not work for everyone, however you can try the plugins for a few months, create some amazing material and then the rest is down to marketing and other factors in the industry. I for one am extremely please UAD are starting to put out plugins on a native platform, and unlike some pricey movie subscription, something constructive can be done with the plugins.
He may sound ridiculous about "buying status" but He is soooo right about it! in the industry here in Nashville TN, great gear or 'hard to get' gear including plug-ins does give you a certain status, of course it comes down to what you can do with it. But recently it is starting to make more sense to go for a Waves version for someone stating out that doesn't own an Apollo, you get to have more stuff and more opportunities to learn how to use different gear.
Like you I have thousands invested in the Apollo plugins and I know that I will get all of the ones I already purchased that go into spark but if they don't go into spark am I still entitled to receive them seems unfair if that is not the case
I bought the Volt last summer and there was no real pull to get the UAD plugins. However, after upgrading to the Apollo, I got a bunch of plugins with the purchase and the value is pretty hard to argue with.
deciding whether to purchase pulsar audio massive or wait for universal audio to release a native version of uad massive.... I'm not too optimistic about massive native being released anytime soon....
I'm about to change my interface (currently using an SSL 2+) and I'm looking for a Apollo Twin X Quad Heritage because of all this UAD plugins. I make beats and also mix when the singers record my beats. Should I get the Apollo Twin X Quad Heritage? I mean, it looks like if I am not recording there's no point. Am I wrong?
I love them and I wouldn’t use anything but their product’s honestly as far as the price they absolutely deserve that and more them giving people a chance to LEARN AND EXPERIMENT from home is a privilege.
? After purchased a volt I kno u get plugins u already own from ur apollo in ur account for ur volt. Can u then use the plugins without a volt if u wanna work on a beat on a laptop since they are native ?
Probably because is better than you can think ... the last version has great improvements and you pay only one time, lifetime free upgrade... it's not fruity it's FL studio
The reason I went subscription on most of my plug ins is because even with ownership, you never really own it due to the fact that in a year they'll try to charge you $50-$100 per plug in to update.
Yeah man, Monetizing is having a HUGE EFFECT on everything. I have UAD and LUNA and APOLLO, but I cannot use SHAPE outside of LUNA, which doesn't make any sense. They have the other plugins available, but I already a Synth and a Moog and a Piano....For me, SHAPE is the undeniable GEM in LUNA, but you can't get access to it outside of LUNA...
The subscription model in most cases becomes this "support" of them thing... as in "child support." these companies like any other software company have to address defects, as well as deliver a certain amoutn of improvement over time. A new user buying the software will always get whatever the latest version is, but these companies have developed an expectation of being taken care of buy existing customer. Only a handful of them actually GIVE something every now and then to it's customer base. Over time the subscription price everntually outweighs the purchase price.
I dig the volt 76p i got. And came with some plugs. But of course you have to have Internet to use the plugs. I wanted to use the verb for a live gig. When got ready to play the verb wouldn’t load unless i got online…. So i went with fuse audio verb. Volt is great for mobile recording tho. Plugins still annoying unfortunately
Thanks for pointing out the UAD plug-in issues. I recently bought some (native) and I got the same issues you got. Could not continue working if no internet or using early y2k-style USB key. I could never imagine this was the case. Have Apogee, Soundtoys, SSL, Waves and many more that works great, at all times. I don’t use the UAD for the same reason you mention. Bad decision from UAD 😠 Not cool
Your point is so correct is like a demo trial,it makes no sense,why give a small out of a massive.they should really see what waves,softube and plugin alliance are doing and fully learn,
Currently there are 36 or so plugins available through Spark. I got a holiday discount code for $99 for the first year and $149/yr after that. So for less than $1500 spread out over ten years I have access to those 36 native plugs plus whatever they add in the future. Or with the current sale I can bundle 20 plugins for $999, more than the cost of 6 years of Spark. In six years will we even be using DAWs and plugins? Spark was an easy choice for me.
I think they offer the native plugins FREE if you own the other matching plugin which was not the native version. But please check their support documentation
Subscriptions are going to die out, they make zero sense in music. I've been a professional musician and producer for 15 years, it's my sole income, and for all that time, income is all over the place year to year, that's just the nature of music as a living. Renting licences penitently for life is just untenable. I'm not going to rent the plugs until I can't afford them, and then lose every session I used them on. Ridiculous.
I did the trial from UA plugins... I can't even find the plugins. I have everything in my custom folder for vst's, and my daw won't for the life of me, find the universal audio plugins
thanks for the vid. i bought in to uad apollo and it came with a satellite free and it works great but you cant use a lot of instances of the plugins unless u get more satellites. then i stumble upon waves soundgrid.. night and day difference. if i knew what I know now i would of went with waves soundgrid. you can use them with the impact server or native. with the server you can run hundreds of instances of the plugins. i got the impact server and horizon bundle for 800 at the time i just upgraded to mercury for 400 and waves came out with 2 plugins that are included in the mercury bundle and i got those for free last month.. i tell anyone i know i choose waves over uad any day for bang for buck work..
It's a low monthly subscription and you get massive plugins. And they add more just about every month. Spark is awesome I think . Just the API would take you a couple years at that price and u get a ton more plugins. I would rather spaend a little and be able to cancel at anytime then come up with a lot of money for ONE plugin and if you don't use it you're stuck with it.
That's an interesting perspective. Do they allow you to own anything after the annual subscription? Isn't that just one long demo? My main objection is that it will force people to make a business of what most deem a hobby. As a consumer, I want to own what I buy.
So in phase with what you'r saying, there is a big gap between some of the companie's pricing policy and the reality of some professionals (And I mean professionals) in the business.
Hmm … trying to follow but this is really confusing. Are you familiar with UA’s history? Not trying to diss, but it seems like perhaps you are not. For a company with a history as rich as theirs, they are providing a LOT of options for different price ranges but all of their gear (software or hardware) is absolutely made for serious musicians and producers. Also, if your business plan is built around the plug-ins you own or the tools you use, then you’ve got things a bit are backwards. People hire based on skill, taste & your relationships / connections.
I'm not debating your point. The new interface and Mics are targeting the podcast market. For people who are not in the music world, I mentioned the missing value ladder.
I'm a new UADx perpetual customer. After years (decades) without buying into the DSP, I gotta say UAD lives up to the hype. Pure Quality. Even their old plugs can still be better than new interpretations of certain hardware from arturia and others. I'll only buy on sale tho!
You get what you pay for. Some people have the luxury to buy more expensive hardware and plugins, others have to go a cheaper route. There's plenty of flavors and price structures out there for everyone. UA's 3 bundles that they are selling right now are pretty fairly priced. That's a ton of plugin's for less than 1k.
Back in the day I used to have a TC Electronic PowerCore and learned the hard way that these hardware dsp's needed to be replaced sooner or later and maybe the company quits support. Lost a lot of money, so I never bought UAD, now I have most plugins that I like and use, so no need for UAD plugins, but I might try a few to see what it is all about, but I will never do subscription.
for the subscription I think you're only using your own perspective as a producer. You said as a consumer it doesn't make sense, but named off multiple different other types of consumers that could benefit from the subscription. Maybe the subscription just wasn't made for producers and it was more for audio engineers, recording artists, and live performers like you mentioned.
Man i wish i saw this video a week ago... I have a vault 476p... Cool, works pretty good, sounds alright, free uad plugins that i can use while offline... The other day i bought the 1176 suite and went to open a session while offline and couldnt use it. Of course, its part my fault, i didnt do my homework but i cant help but feel a little tricked. The other uad plugins work fine with the ilok and being offline. Now i need an ilok isb or need to be online to use the 1176's? You live, you learn i guess... Not sure where im gonna go with uad from here, but i am glad i bouth the 76 suite for only $40
Same. years ago I had a big uad and uad2 rigs with multiple cards for professional work. Anyways I realised how underpowered they were when sonnox released their native plugins as a UAD option, it was the first time we could compare. Then Slate arrived and beat them at their own game so I dropped the platform. 8 years later When I heard announced going native, I thought a) of course and b) I wonder how much of my £8000 ($15k then) of plugins I spent will be available to use? The answer = £0. They got their money out of me they won't get any more.
That’s not true about not being able to use the UAD native plugs. If you bought the plugins and they have them on the Spark level plan, you get those plugins for free in native format. They don’t put all the UAD plugs in Spark, but the ones that are there are there for you if you bought them with your DSP.
"Anyways I realised how underpowered they were when sonnox released their native plugins as a UAD option, it was the first time we could compare. " how would one compare a dsp to a general use cpu?
I never liked subscription based purchasing. I use both waves and UAD and funny enough I have similar plug ins from each one. I like the flexibility of both plus I only buy on sale. Once you get a nice amount that do everything you need. You're good to go. The key is learn how use what you've got and make sure you only buy what you cannot do without. After all its a cost of doing business but it is a business. If your revenue isn't matching your overhead can get out of hand real quick. I say like smokey's mom on the Friday movie " Make it Enough " lol
I wasn't really interested in the UAD or Antelope Audio plugins without having the separate device. I have waves, arturia, soundtoys, eventide and NI, amongst others. I don't think I really need UADs line.
My beef with UAD is that they didnt give an all access pass to ALL of there plugs ins so you can experiment. Slate Digital is killing the game with there $15 full access pass.
You don’t need to buy the interface back in the day I just used a UAD-2 worth the money….and you only need about 5 mixing pieces of software regardless what you use….
They go for the masses with volt and try and sell subscription based plugins (which I guess the masses won't get into as they just want to produce music in a home studio), so straight off the block they've potentially missed their largest laudience! Now you don't need the hardware, I think stock plugins will be used in the main and companies like UAD will be forced to compete will all other companies producing plugins that can just be used as is in memory. In your Bedroom. :)
the Dongle is DSP. People always leave this part out. And Softube isn’t cheap. Plug-in Alliance is great and affordable (with the sales and coupons), but Softube is just as expensive as UAD.
It is a bit irresponsible of you to suggest that their plugins cost $500. They don't have any plugins that cost $500 and I do not understand why you would choose to this figure. As your own example of the web page showed, none of the prices are anywhere close to that. You also fail to state that if you own the plugin, you also get to use it natively for free. Innovation? I believe they have released several high end plugins, like the Motown EQ and Reverb at no extra cost to the Spark subscribers. They have also done several updates. Yes the plugins are expensive, hence why they offer the subscription model. Just because someone buys one of their cheap Volt interfaces doesn't mean they have to use UAD plugins. The real problem is that at one time their plugins were on another level, however many have caught up and are offering the same quality for less money.
I was just looking to buy $500 worth of plug ins with UAD and realized I could get a couple years sub for the same price. Id rather have what was in the Sub package for a couple years than have the 4 plugs (during the half yearly sell) for life.
I'm glad I got the LA-2A for free since I would've regretted buying any UAD plugins. It writes a settings.dat file in the project folder that does not wanna backup to the cloud en then prevents all my other files from being backed up. I uninstalled all UAD software and won't look back.
