UA no longer providing "free" path to native plugin

"We added sidechain"

Real explanation from UAD. Actual quote.

How much for front chain?

I thought pricing on the native ssl and Channel strip odd.

Neither are actually new plugs , old uad2 code ported to uadX and no one would pay list price for them: personally, I think $149 too high, but that’s UA.

Agreed it’s a bummer move by uad, but it’s understandable. Just wish they handled the PR better. The rep on GS replying to complaints (annd even some non complaints) comes across as totally unprofessional and more than a little bitter. Not a great look for uad OR for the rep.

I like my go-to UAD sounds, and haven't found a way to get quite the same results elsewhere, but I feel the kind of thing you're talking about when I'm not connected to the internet and go to open a session.

None of the plugins that I own perpetual licenses for will load because UAD insists that I be connected to the internet, every time.

Somewhere, mixed up in all of the hires below, lies a lot of the problems. When you look at where these guys came from, I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that things have gone tits up. They're all either big tech people or guys that came from other audio/music companies with less than stellar reputations.

My money is on Gupta (Amazon) and/or Bigay (Izotope), but I imagine it's all of them, to one degree or another. Ruzicka and Kaplan haven't been there long enough to truly fuck things up, but they respectively came from Avid and Live Nation 🤮 before that, so give it time...


2019
Allan Timms VP Engineering, came from Logitech

www.uaudio.com/press/releases/2019/allan-timms/


2021
Sandeep Gupta COO, came from Amazon

www.uaudio.com/press/releases/2021/sandeep-gupta-joins-universal-audio-as-chief-operating-officer/


2022
Gordon Mattingly CFO, came from Arlo/Netgear
John Bigay CRO, came from Izotope

www.uaudio.com/press/releases/2022/universal-audio-expands-leadership/


2024
Dana Ruzicka COO, came from Avid
Ethan Kaplan CDO, came from Fender Music, Live Nation Labs, Warner Music Group

www.uaudio.com/press/releases/2024/2024_july_UA_new_leadership/

I could be wrong, but I want to say that Bigay guy was around when Izotope got run into the dirt.

Edit: Yep. He was around at Izotope when all of that shit happened a few years ago. I don't remember all of the details. I just remember a lot of unhappy people.

As an example:

www.reddit.com/r/audioengineering/comments/mgn9ey/wtf_has_happened_to_izotope/

Obviously UA is not the only one that is restructuring for maximum short-term gains (i.e. profit for investors or shareholders) and we all know what that usually leads to in the longer term (which may only be a couple years or less for some)

I sorted this out with Drew on RGO in the past. If you only have the native plugs (I guess that's UAD X?) you have to be online (and allow UAD Connect to phone home) when you open the DAW to get them to run. Drew confirmed that this is the case and that there is no interest in changing that at this time.

*Or* have a physical iLok, but that's not worth it to me.

If I've paid for a VST and I already had to install the proprietary installer/authorization software in addition to the VST itself, I think it's unreasonable to require me to be online or have a hardware dongle connected at all times. That's my take, and I get that it might not be shared by everyone here.

Yeah, at the end of the day it's just annoying and it is pretty rare that I would be somewhere with absolutely no internet connection whatsoever. It's just the principle of the thing. It's more worrying that UA Connect is always going and is very aggressive about relaunching itself and pushing for updates.

For what it's worth, a brief consultation with Google shows that no one has managed to crack them yet, which means their authorization/protection approach is doing what they need it to do.

Sure, I’ve never had a problem with ilok, cept it’s botched relaunch like 5 year’s ago, so I very comfortably use ilok.