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Post by bossanova on Oct 1, 2022 20:25:57 GMT -6
Spark quietly dropped for Windows  I was interested for the UAD exclusive verbs (the storied plate algo, the only official 224 emulation) and so far they don’t disappoint. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2022 23:02:04 GMT -6
Spark quietly dropped for Windows I was interested for the UAD exclusive verbs (the storied plate algo, the only official 224 emulation) and so far they don’t disappoint. Once I started turning the modulation up, the 140 is really hard to beat. |
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Post by copperx on Oct 2, 2022 12:51:28 GMT -6
Spark quietly dropped for Windows I was interested for the UAD exclusive verbs (the storied plate algo, the only official 224 emulation) and so far they don’t disappoint. Once I started turning the modulation up, the 140 is really hard to beat. Are you talking about the UAD Pure Plate reverb? Is that modeled after a 140? |
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Post by copperx on Oct 2, 2022 13:01:09 GMT -6
I can't say I blame UA for the lean offering that is Spark. I'm sure they're deathly afraid of iLok being compromised (this is the same company that sold multi-thousand-dollar dongles), so they're only dipping their toes in the pool of native. I'm sure that if, after a few years, iLok stands strong, eventually we'll see most if not all of their plugins on a subscription.
But for now, they will keep their family jewels under the safety of hardware DSP.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2022 14:59:05 GMT -6
I can't say I blame UA for the lean offering that is Spark. I'm sure they're deathly afraid of iLok being compromised (this is the same company that sold multi-thousand-dollar dongles), so they're only dipping their toes in the pool of native. I'm sure that if, after a few years, iLok stands strong, eventually we'll see most if not all of their plugins on a subscription. But for now, they will keep their family jewels under the safety of hardware DSP. Uh ilok is compromised! The only reason it hasn’t been cracked wide open… again is because the scene groups are too lazy to keep up with Apple CPU changes and OS updates. They also don’t try to crack certain digital pioneers plugins anymore. |
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Post by copperx on Oct 2, 2022 21:00:38 GMT -6
As far as emulations go, I'd argue that only the Pulsar and Pulsar modular stuff gives me that same sense of 3D depth and punch.
Which Pulsar products? The 1178 is atrocious (esp. when compared to UAD), the Mu is okay-ish, and I haven't had a chance to try the other offerings. |
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Post by copperx on Oct 2, 2022 21:19:55 GMT -6
Uh ilok is compromised! The only reason it hasn’t been cracked wide open… again is because the scene groups are too lazy to keep up with Apple CPU changes and OS updates. They also don’t try to crack certain digital pioneers plugins anymore. As far as I know, the best reverse engineering software is only available on Windows, which makes it a more dangerous platform and explains why UA took 6+ months to release the Windows plugins. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 2, 2022 21:57:48 GMT -6
Once I started turning the modulation up, the 140 is really hard to beat. Are you talking about the UAD Pure Plate reverb? Is that modeled after a 140? The EMT 140. Is it not in Spark? |
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 2, 2022 22:00:27 GMT -6
As far as emulations go, I'd argue that only the Pulsar and Pulsar modular stuff gives me that same sense of 3D depth and punch.
Which Pulsar products? The 1178 is atrocious (esp. when compared to UAD), the Mu is okay-ish, and I haven't had a chance to try the other offerings. Uh…what. The 1178 is literally one of the best plugs I use. I use the UAD stuff all the time, but if you think the 1178 is “atrocious” you might need to look at how you were using it. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2022 0:32:00 GMT -6
Which Pulsar products? The 1178 is atrocious (esp. when compared to UAD), the Mu is okay-ish, and I haven't had a chance to try the other offerings. Uh…what. The 1178 is literally one of the best plugs I use. I use the UAD stuff all the time, but if you think the 1178 is “atrocious” you might need to look at how you were using it. yah it is one of the only circuit modeled plugs that can take the peaks off at highest oversampling. the uad 1176 can't and the psp fetpressor is iffy without tweaking the high pass. pulsar 1178 just doesn't give you any depth but it sounds a million times better than the plugin alliance purple |
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Post by bossanova on Oct 4, 2022 21:36:48 GMT -6
Well...they might have hooked me already. I got a really great vocal sound with the Rev A 1176 and LA-2a. I could probably get it matched with other plugs but it's one of those "why work harder?" cases.
I'm not wild about the prospect of an ongoing $20 per month though. I know that's not a lot but in the past couple years I've been really strategic about my plug-in purchases to avoid subscriptions and get perpetual licenses for everything that I use on a regular basis.
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 5, 2022 3:53:30 GMT -6
@boss, the ua 76 and 2a regularly are on sale and currently ua has a bundle sale: maybe crunch the numbers spark $20 monthly forever vs a one tine sale price on a 2-3 plug bundle
Yoy may have a $50 coupon in your ua account as well.
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Post by craigmorris74 on Oct 5, 2022 8:36:20 GMT -6
@boss, the ua 76 and 2a regularly are on sale and currently ua has a bundle sale: maybe crunch the numbers spark $20 monthly forever vs a one tine sale price on a 2-3 plug bundle Yoy may have a $50 coupon in your ua account as well. Don’t you have to have UAD hardware to buy individual plugs? |
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Post by bossanova on Oct 5, 2022 9:11:28 GMT -6
@boss, the ua 76 and 2a regularly are on sale and currently ua has a bundle sale: maybe crunch the numbers spark $20 monthly forever vs a one tine sale price on a 2-3 plug bundle Yoy may have a $50 coupon in your ua account as well. Don’t you have to have UAD hardware to buy individual plugs? I wanted to ask Drew since I know he's on here, but I have gotten the impression that anything that is available (and has been ported) as part of the Spark subscription can be purchased and used without the monthly subscription. But I don't know if that's the case. |
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Post by Quint on Oct 5, 2022 10:26:35 GMT -6
Don’t you have to have UAD hardware to buy individual plugs? I wanted to ask Drew since I know he's on here, but I have gotten the impression that anything that is available (and has been ported) as part of the Spark subscription can be purchased and used without the monthly subscription. But I don't know if that's the case. But you do have to have an Apollo or Satellite to do so, because the only way to get an individual Spark plugin for free, without a subscription, is to get said Spark plugin for free when you buy the UAD2 version, which requires hardware to run on. So.... 1. Buy a Satellite or Apollo if you don't already have one. 2. Buy a UAD2 plugin that has already been ported over to Spark. 3. Get the Spark version for free. No subscription required. Otherwise, a subscription is required to use any of the Spark plugins. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 5, 2022 10:58:07 GMT -6
@craig yes, to buy any you need hardware in your account.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Oct 5, 2022 11:30:06 GMT -6
@craig yes, to buy any you need hardware in your account. Do we know that for sure? Obviously, you can't use the uad2 version without hardware, but perhaps you can buy and just use the spark version? Dunno. |
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Post by bossanova on Oct 5, 2022 12:39:27 GMT -6
The pricing and the addition of the the new $299 eq at no extra cost underscores UA’s dilemma. Whose going to pay $299, when someone else gets to use the same plug for practically nothing? I understand the own vs rent paradigm, but I think UA is going to have to be very cagy about which and how many plugs get added to spark. There is no dilemma. We're actually pleasing everyone. Even if we add 1-2 a month, it'll take years to do the whole library. If you're UAD2 now, you keep on keeping on with all this free added value. If you're Spark, sit back and enjoy the additions! This is win win for everyone. So Drew, definitive question: can Spark users without UAD hardware buy the individual Spark plugs outright and have them stay working even if they cancel the subscription? |
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Post by brenta on Oct 5, 2022 12:51:26 GMT -6
@craig yes, to buy any you need hardware in your account. Do we know that for sure? Obviously, you can't use the uad2 version without hardware, but perhaps you can buy and just use the spark version? Dunno. Yep, UA has been clear about it. You can either do the monthly subscription which you don't need to own hardware for, or, if you own UAD hardware, you can buy the plugins, which will then work natively or on the sharc processors. If you don't have any UAD hardware registered, you can't buy the plugins. |
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Post by Quint on Oct 5, 2022 13:46:42 GMT -6
There is no dilemma. We're actually pleasing everyone. Even if we add 1-2 a month, it'll take years to do the whole library. If you're UAD2 now, you keep on keeping on with all this free added value. If you're Spark, sit back and enjoy the additions! This is win win for everyone. So Drew, definitive question: can Spark users without UAD hardware buy the individual Spark plugs outright and have them stay working even if they cancel the subscription? You can't directly buy Spark plugins. You can either rent Spark plugins as part of the Spark subscription or buy UAD2 plugins, which require hardware, and get the corresponding Spark plugin for free, for those UAD2 plugins which have been ported over to Spark. |
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Post by Drew @ UA on Oct 5, 2022 13:53:27 GMT -6
There is no dilemma. We're actually pleasing everyone. Even if we add 1-2 a month, it'll take years to do the whole library. If you're UAD2 now, you keep on keeping on with all this free added value. If you're Spark, sit back and enjoy the additions! This is win win for everyone. So Drew, definitive question: can Spark users without UAD hardware buy the individual Spark plugs outright and have them stay working even if they cancel the subscription? Not currently. |
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Post by bossanova on Oct 5, 2022 20:43:38 GMT -6
So Drew, definitive question: can Spark users without UAD hardware buy the individual Spark plugs outright and have them stay working even if they cancel the subscription? Not currently. Thank you (to you and the others who said the same thing) for clearing that up. I was having a hard time interpreting a clear answer in the wild. In that case it’s hard not to entertain paying the $20 a month when the alternative for long-term ownership is dropping ~$500 for a single channel + the cost of the individual plug-in licenses. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 6, 2022 6:20:47 GMT -6
Depends: buying the HW, gives you access to all ua and 3rd party plugs, 14 day demo and if you buy a plug that is also in sparc, you get uadx version included.
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Post by bossanova on Oct 6, 2022 13:51:34 GMT -6
It’s something to think about. I don’t know that much about the non-Apollo hardware but I have seen that it’s available for cheaper.
Another point for UA: I tried to replace the 1176 Blue-face plug with the PA MC77 set to the same settings and GR (12:1-6-7), and the comparison wasn’t even close. The PA Purple keeps the dynamics in check but it does *terrible* things to the tone. The UA Rev A is as smooth as can be.
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 6, 2022 14:26:10 GMT -6
If you mean interface comparisons, remember that all apollos have onboard sharc dsp, the X have 6 chips, previously moseks 4 or 2, so you have to factor that into price ?
Or just buy a quad (4) or octo (8) card, used are down around 450-800, often.
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I was interested for the UAD exclusive verbs (the storied plate algo, the only official 224 emulation) and so far they don’t disappoint. 
