UAD?What are your thoughts with Native vs Satellite plugins?

The only difference is what they run on and where they are stired on your computer: two different folders.

As of a few months ago, Drew stated they are still committed to cards, the large majority of its plugs are not native, why would they abandon selling what processes those plugs?

There are demo videos of Capital, you can demo it for 14 days through ua connect, what’s the issue: am demoing it here now.

I am liking it, compared it to using my warm ssl clone on 2 bus: am selling the Warm.

Will likely buy it and sound city with 2/99$.

for sure yo have your ilol links in place between your ua account and ilok?

Given what I've read about single core speed still being an issue even with processors that have twice as much as this Ryzen 1700 I have, I'd prefer if they kept making DSP plugins. And if they could adapt something like Satin for DSP, get more companies to port stuff over.

What would substitute them? Even a fully pimped up MAX in native will run into latency issues pretty fast without a sat, especially with increasingly cpu hungry plugs uad puts out.

I would believe uad3 might be the next step.

What will UAD do long term ? That’s the million dollar question?
Native and low cost will mean growth, but will it be profitable growth? If and when you decide to go completely native how much of your DSP market will you lose? Will it affect Native growth because your native growth was based on the reputation built on DSP? What are the costs of going native and the growth.

First, personally I think UA in general is trying to be too many things at once, guitar pedals, trying to establish 3 mic lines ( Bock, their lower priced mics and the modeling mic ) at once, Luna, Native and low cost interfaces is just to much. My evidence, we have a thread about customer service!
Someone at UAD is probably crunching the numbers on how much more of a premium Apollo owners were willing to pay vs how much more would these same customers pay for the same box without DSP? They need to take a deep dive into how many DSP customers are buying their plugins, not because they are good but because it’s part of the ecosystem, UAD has existed on an island where the plugins sell the interface and the interface sells the plugins.
A lot of UAD’s reputation in the marketplace is based on mid level guys who have found it’s scalable DSP a reasonable priced alternative to HDX with reasonable latency, the second you get rid of the DSP your just a generic interface and plugin vendor with a DAW ( think MOTU).
If I was in charge before going native I would probably have developed some more basic upgrades for my DSP based customers, a easily integrated monitor mixing system, a nice matching affordable 8 ch Converter for those who want more I/O, either my own controller or made sure my native plugins were going to be supported by Softube Console 1. Ease of incorporating these obvious growth opportunities would have been worth a premium price.


I’m sure at some point UAD will try to move to just native, but there will be 3. Tells
1. A full featured rack mount interface that feature wise are rack mount Apollo’s without DSP
2 a new plugin that is introduced for native before a DSP version.
3. The Native version of a plugin where they license the copyright drops under a Generic name ( in other words API becomes “ Classic American Console”) this is a single that their license didn’t include native.
When either or both of these happens start rethinking your UAD investment.


The Goodnews they have a pretty deep catalog that they have to code for native before they abandon DSP. They will never admit this but their timeline can be interrupted at any time by a major OS or CPU change .

Better processors.

First, if UA releases all their plugins for Native tomorrow, I bet that more than 50% of the Satellites users would sell their Sats.

Second, in the future processors will be faster, that's a certainty, so less reason to rely on DSP.

*

In summary we have 2 facts: UA is going to release their plugins as Native and CPUs will get faster. That's all you need to "kill" (or almost kill) DSP. But, like I've said, that can take years to truly happen.

Sure, but that would mean that uad would drop the whole idea of recording and performing live thru uad plugs, changing impedance of mics, set aside the sole philosophy of uad that defines the brand today. That would likely turn luna redundant too as it will never take off as a standalone daw outside uad ecosystem. 

i am not saying you are wrong, you might be spot on. But then the debate is rather will uad seize to excist as more than just a generic plugin vendor. Taking into account that quite a few of their plugs are not theirs but just licensed to dsp. 

I think something to spin on also is that the uad eco system has been rather niched until very recently when the native versions appeared. I come across plenty of people who got into uad thru native system and has absolutely no idea about the uad system. That also tend to be a loud user group on several forums including uad’s own. So it depends a little from what perspective we look at the issue. From one side dsp makes no sense and from the other the native plugs are just a marketing way to get a new user group interested in uad. Now the question is how does uad look at it? Building a legacy or doing an Apple, in other words, turning a professional tool into a toy… We can see certain similar developments as the customer service going to shits, reaching out to masses trying to compete with freeware… ignoring the professional users with possible life long commitments to the brand. Uad is not quite yet there.. but if the chosen path would be down the 99cent for all plugs per month, it could easily be just another waves. Waves dropped the dsp, but they didn’t have a hybrid system behind it and a solid legacy.

If I am recalling correctly, when I first got my UAD cards more than a decade ago, it seemed that at the time, UAD was a frontrunner in high quality plugs. So getting a UAD card was important if one wanted very good plugins. Now, as you all know, there are many native plugins that match or exceed the ones that required the UAD card. And as stated, the apparent load off the processor many years ago, is not important now. It seems that UA was hoping that they would have some sort of monopoly years ago and to some extent they achieved that years ago. But now that objective is completely unrealistic.

It would seem that the original reason for getting a UAD card, to have access to great plugins, should still be a guiding principle for UAD today - meaning - UAD must have plugins that are better than most on the market. It is likely that such is no longer possible. And if it does not happen, then UAD will just be another Plugin Alliance, or similar distributor of plugins.

I have not discussed the hardware side of this, I do not think that UAD mics or other hardware is going to make much of a mark anymore, as in that area as well, there is intense competition.

I have generally had great experiences with UA, but I am not optimistic about the future for them.

UA must learn from Kodak (who actually invented the digital camera) about how to still be ahead of the pack today. This will require a larger paradigm shift than simply making plugs native. Maybe something revolutionary - like an AI program that only works with UA plugs, that analyzes a track and a mix, and provides recommended presets for tracks and the mix as a whole, and perhaps even a marketing aspect of UA that takes UA plugin used creations and gets it to market to help the users, with a cut to UA? Just thinking out loud here, so to speak.

Here is the issue, one very, very powerful dealer always preaches the growth you will see if you go mass market. You will see growth but that dealer doesn’t offer any after sale support so all the growing pains are on the dealer. Mass market looks good when you consider with a stiff MAP program the selling playing field is even. For Amazon, NFM, Microcenter, you don’t need a rep so an extra 7% you don’t need a Spiff program approx 3.5% the seller isn’t paying commission so it’s cheaper to sell.
The thing nobody ever points out is your giving up your niche to go generic, generic price wins every time.
I honestly would not be surprised if nobody involved in the native push even checked if their licensing agreements covered native, I’ll bet the guys who wrote those agreements are long gone.

There is no such thing as a zero latency plugin and especially when tracking with plugins, try explaining why your rig has all that latency and DrBills doesn’t to top talent. If your doing audio for video in ADR and Foley minimal latency is a must.

Speaking for myself, I don't want to have to swap out the plugins at a later date. I want to basically be mixing from day one, and not worrying about what plugins I might eventually swap out.

And I want to do it all without having to worry about latency or CPUs or buffers or any of that stuff. DSP is still king for that sort of thing.

Yep. ADC.