Ditching UAD-2

I sold all my ua stuff about 2 years ago when they trialed ballooned the subscription model idea in their annual survey: wry worries it would completely undermine the value of a sizeable investment in Ua.

That coupled with UA’s continued intransigence around not allowing the sale of which ever purchased plug ins I wanted caused me to question the value of owning many plug ins I no longer used.

The combo of the above caused me to not want to buy anymore ua plugs and finally I wasn’t that knocked out with the bf after also having the sf and spending close to a grand on the bla sf mod and not getting a penny for that when I sold it.

I do think ua makes very good products but they are not the only game in town. I can sell any of my current plugs ins and bought ob pres and comps, so if you are not tracking with ua plugs, you have other options.

I do think about X and the current deals are very good but very hard to actually jump back in.

It’s a personal work flow value proposition decision: bern there, done that, am honestly very happy with my symphony mkii, soundcraft board, ob and other plug ins.

I have an Apollo twin and a satellite.  Been thinking about changing interfaces to one that has more I/O so I can come out of the box with more than 2 tracks at a time and still be able to monitor.  However, I also have several UA plugs that I like using in “unison” mode, especially a couple of Ampeg bass amp sims.  

When you switched, I am assuming that you lost unison capability and use those plugs as inserts.  

I use an Octo as primarily a reverb platform. Capital Chambers, Ocean Way, etc, plus the ATR 102 and the IBP phase tool. I got most of the other standard plugs as part of the hardware purchase, I've not used them ever.

I use my UAD dsp mainly for the LA2A and 1176. Looking to buy the Capitol Chambers when the price is right. I normally prefer native alternatives for the rest of the plugins.

I find the Unison modes ok. Not a day and night difference to me. Tracking with it is good because is faster and you commit to something while tracking, which is a nice thing. A nice bonus, but not a game changer to me.

One thing I don't like is recording guitar or bass with the amps in Unison, because it's way easier to edit them when it's a DI signal.

While I respect Universal Audio, I also opted out and sold my Silver Twin a couple years ago and my octo and UA Plugins yesterday to be completely out.
  The more time went on the fewer UA plugins I was using as the quality and price competition from other plugins Co's increased that are also native without the dongle.
I still like their 1176 and LA2A but wasn't using much else consistently and I also had bought more hardware pre's and comps in recent years.

I don't blame UA for the smart business model that works well for them, but I resented somewhat the all or nothing resale of plugs we've already purchased and owned at typically high dollar cost compared to many competitors were all contributing reasons I got out wondering if my overall investment value would decrease as time went on.

The Day may come when I opt back in a little for a Twin some day for portable applications and some careful plug choices, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with my Symphony, Hardware pres and comps and using plugs from other co's that usually cost less, sound good and I can sell individually.

UAD pricing is messed up. They can offer all the sales they want but their pricing is still fukked.

I got out a couple years ago too. Just felt precarious having all this plugin spending tied up in a closed system where resale value is almost nothing (because you have to find someone who wants your hardware AND the suite of plugins you've bought). Felt crazy to confine myself to that ecosystem. I took it on the chin of course, getting out. And I had to deal with all sorts of customer service hijinks getting the plugin licenses transferred. It was worth it though for me. I also always hated only being able to run a handful of the UAD plugs I'd spent so much money on.  And because of that, I needed native options anyway for covering the bases the UAD DSP wouldn't handle.  It's cool stuff though and if the Unison thing does it for your ears and you can deal with UAD pricing, an Apollo rig is pretty great.

Once I got out, the only plug I really missed very badly was the EMT140. Nothing sounded as lush in the native offerings. But then Lustrous Plates came out and solved that problem. Happy camper here.

Big time.  I went through the usual suspects trying to get that EMT140 smoky/lush thing going (which the UAD does well) and couldn't do it.  Even had thoughts about getting some little UAD Solo thing off eBay just to run the 140.  But Lustrous Plates saved us on that one.  

Yeah with modern plugins CPU is sometimes almost equally precarious as UAD DSP meter.  There are some heavy native plugins out there.

If you run out of one you can use the other, I guess.  It is sometimes a little nice that they are not the same load.

Sound Toys Little Plate is really good, too. I think I got it for free.

UAD is still important in overcoming these single core limitations of modern processors. That or AAX DSP or Soundgrid. But the Avid stuff costs a fortune and I find UAD a lot better than either of these other two. There aren't really great alternatives for some of the UAD stuff.