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Post by bossanova on Oct 9, 2024 22:22:12 GMT -6
We've gone off-topic again, but I don't see any difference in UA expecting you to be connected to the internet to use iLok cloud vs. Avid expecting you to do the same with Pro Tools. If you are using iLok cloud then you have to be online, right? Or you use physical iLok and then they both can authenticate locally and without internet. That is what I do. I like that other plugins (like PA, Waves, IK, and more) can authenticate to a local drive (I put it all on a removeable USB drive) but they don't all do that. Either way I can be offline and it doesn't hurt.  I don't use Pro Tools but it sounds like parts of the industry are shifting that way re always online. There is a program I use for live keyboard and notation display that always needs an internet connection to function, no exceptions. All of my other iLok plugs are machine authorization that get stored locally in License Manager and don't need to be reauthorized or online as long as that's installed and working. Same deal with Waves, IK, etc. As you said, there's a way to do this that doesn't require external dongles or always-online spyware. UAD are the only ones I have that need to phone home every time I open a session. I know that's a newer iLok cloud option that's not exclusive to UAD, I still don't like it. The first time I saw that was on a freebie Slate plug, which I promptly uninstalled. Again, I understand that this probably wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for piracy, and that's unfortunate, but it also sucks to put the burden on paying customers. I also get that I'm an outlier because I didn't use any iLok plugs until they offered machine licensing, so the dongle was never normalized for me. |
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Post by vvvooojjj on Oct 10, 2024 0:59:18 GMT -6
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. Yeah. The rep you speak of is Drew Mazurek. He handles all of the public interactions on the various online forums. He even posts here, on occasion, although he's thankfully been absent from RGO for the last few months. The way you describe him is just how that guy is. He's awful. I have a difficult time understanding how can a company keep such a passive aggressive person writing on public forums on a payroll. |
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 10, 2024 4:54:00 GMT -6
When I was reading Quint’s list of hires and considering how UA has changed over last 5 year’s, I started thinking about group think and Drew’s hitting it out of the park comments.
If the ua brass really think they are doing great, they are borderline delusional.
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Post by thehightenor on Oct 10, 2024 5:49:40 GMT -6
In think ALL the BS and strange pricing schemes are designed to "herd the sheep" towards taking out a subscription.
I just got included in my subscrition
All three new amp plugs - the ones that are in their pedals and they apparently want $199 each for - yeah sure!
The new Topline suite apparently another $199 .... sigh as if - it's looks like old code recycled with a new GUI - useful for scratch writing but's that's it for me.
And the SSL strip and bus compressor (not useful to me)
All part of the sub.
So if they think they'll get me hooked on the sub plugins and then try to "boil the frog alive" (so to speak)
by creeping up the prices they'll get a rude awakening when I (and I imagine everyone) stops their subscription.
The UAD plugs are very good and whilst the sub remains good value, I'll continue - if they get greedy and up the price ....
Well here in 2024 UAD are no longer the only game in town.
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 10, 2024 6:12:06 GMT -6
The other wrinkle for higher priced native plugs is I believe, you can’t sell them, unless UA has changed this, which I doubt.
So, another good reason, to only buy uadx during sales.
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Post by Quint on Oct 10, 2024 7:03:55 GMT -6
In think ALL the BS and strange pricing schemes are designed to "herd the sheep" towards taking out a subscription. I just got included in my subscrition All three new amp plugs - the ones that are in their pedals and they apparently want $199 each for - yeah sure! The new Topline suite apparently another $199 .... sigh as if - it's looks like old code recycled with a new GUI - useful for scratch writing but's that's it for me. And the SSL strip and bus compressor (not useful to me) All part of the sub. So if they think they'll get me hooked on the sub plugins and then try to "boil the frog alive" (so to speak) by creeping up the prices they'll get a rude awakening when I (and I imagine everyone) stops their subscription. The UAD plugs are very good and whilst the sub remains good value, I'll continue - if they get greedy and up the price .... Well here in 2024 UAD are no longer the only game in town. I don't know why I never went and looked before, but digging into those UA press releases for the various CXO hires they've made in the last five years was illuminating. No wonder the company culture has also shifted in the last five years. They've hired a bunch of corner office exec asshole types to run the company. You may be right about herding people towards subscriptions. Bigay was at Izotope when everything got out of whack over there, similar to the sort of disruption happening at UA now, and Izotope ultimately ended up with a subscription model and other things that their customer base hated. The UA press release even touts Bigay's SAAS experience. So 1+1=2, I'd say. |
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 10, 2024 7:09:06 GMT -6
Bingo !
“No wonder the company culture has also shifted in the last five years. They've hired a bunch of corner office exec asshole types to run the company.”
I was concerned when Gannon left UA, he exemplified how to get the job done and how to treat people respectfully and in an engaging way.
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eq
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Post by eq on Oct 10, 2024 7:33:12 GMT -6
"We added sidechain" Real explanation from UAD. Actual quote. How much for front chain? 😂🤣😂🤣 |
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Post by Quint on Oct 10, 2024 7:34:04 GMT -6
Bingo ! “No wonder the company culture has also shifted in the last five years. They've hired a bunch of corner office exec asshole types to run the company.” I was concerned when Gannon left UA, he exemplified how to get the job done and how to treat people respectfully and in an engaging way. Yeah, Gannon was great. He was around during the good times. Drew looks to have come on board in 2018. So Gannon leaving and Drew replacing him roughly corresponds with the observable shift in company culture over the last five years or so, as we've been talking about. |
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Post by Dan on Oct 10, 2024 7:34:36 GMT -6
In think ALL the BS and strange pricing schemes are designed to "herd the sheep" towards taking out a subscription. I just got included in my subscrition All three new amp plugs - the ones that are in their pedals and they apparently want $199 each for - yeah sure! The new Topline suite apparently another $199 .... sigh as if - it's looks like old code recycled with a new GUI - useful for scratch writing but's that's it for me. And the SSL strip and bus compressor (not useful to me) All part of the sub. So if they think they'll get me hooked on the sub plugins and then try to "boil the frog alive" (so to speak) by creeping up the prices they'll get a rude awakening when I (and I imagine everyone) stops their subscription. The UAD plugs are very good and whilst the sub remains good value, I'll continue - if they get greedy and up the price .... Well here in 2024 UAD are no longer the only game in town. I don't know why I never went and looked before, but digging into those UA press releases for the various CXO hires they've made in the last five years was illuminating. No wonder the company culture has also shifted in the last five years. They've hired a bunch of corner office exec asshole types to run the company. You may be right about herding people towards subscriptions. Bigay was at Izotope when everything got out of whack over there, similar to the sort of disruption happening at UA now, and Izotope ultimately ended up with a subscription model. The UA press release even touts Bigay's SAAS experience. So 1+1=2, I'd say. they’re committing harakiri in real time like avid, native instruments / izotope / plugin alliance, ik, presonus, and the reanimated corpse of ssl. |
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eq
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Post by eq on Oct 10, 2024 7:37:38 GMT -6
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. Totally agree and you're being kind in your description of their rep. I make it a point to avoid the UA threads on GS after reading some of his responses. smdh |
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 10, 2024 7:56:20 GMT -6
I gave up on the UA forum threads, used to be very active there.
Another change over last 5 year’s, pretty well all the active non UA mods there, all really good people, quietly folded their tents and seem to have largely disappeared.
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Post by doubledog on Oct 10, 2024 8:05:34 GMT -6
So if they think they'll get me hooked on the sub plugins and then try to "boil the frog alive" (so to speak) by creeping up the prices they'll get a rude awakening when I (and I imagine everyone) stops their subscription. The UAD plugs are very good and whilst the sub remains good value, I'll continue - if they get greedy and up the price .... I don't think the goal is to jack up the prices really high. They would rather just get a bunch of people locked into a subscription (contract) like the phone companies did 20+ years ago. Then you have predictable income and shareholders love that. That's why everyone is trying to do it. On top of that you only have to make a couple new releases a year to keep those subscriptions going (look at Avid and others). Otherwise once everyone has the pieces they need they will stop buying and your revenue will drop -- unless you are constantly developing, supporting, etc. The development costs money (also why UA is not developing new hardware and even when they do it's mostly a facelift). Free phones used to cost a lot too and now that everyone has a subscription they don't need to do that anymore. But sure, they will slowly raise the prices like Amazon or your insurance company has so that you say "ok, I'll let this slide this time and maybe I'll switch/cancel next time... but then you don't again. |
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Post by bossanova on Oct 10, 2024 8:13:13 GMT -6
In think ALL the BS and strange pricing schemes are designed to "herd the sheep" towards taking out a subscription. I just got included in my subscrition All three new amp plugs - the ones that are in their pedals and they apparently want $199 each for - yeah sure! The new Topline suite apparently another $199 .... sigh as if - it's looks like old code recycled with a new GUI - useful for scratch writing but's that's it for me. And the SSL strip and bus compressor (not useful to me) All part of the sub. So if they think they'll get me hooked on the sub plugins and then try to "boil the frog alive" (so to speak) by creeping up the prices they'll get a rude awakening when I (and I imagine everyone) stops their subscription. The UAD plugs are very good and whilst the sub remains good value, I'll continue - if they get greedy and up the price .... Well here in 2024 UAD are no longer the only game in town. The strange part is that there seems to be a pattern where almost all these companies, going back to Slate, have tried to force a reckoning with prices to migrate users over to subscription, but then they fold or something happens and you have subscriptions and cheap VSTs coexisting. The Waves debacle is its own thing, but I remember when Plugin Alliance went to the subscription model and also said that the constant discounts and PA poker were going away. Now their licenses are cheaper than ever as long as you're patient. I remember iZotope saying the same thing, that they were going to start a subscription service where you could purchase their base tools but only subscribers were going to get new updates, and as far as I know that never came to pass either. |
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Post by Quint on Oct 10, 2024 8:44:30 GMT -6
I'm not really a subscription guy. Never will be, at least if I have the option, the exception to that being streaming services. Though I think the difference between streaming services and plugins is that there is no way I could ever own all of the movies or music that I want to stream, nor would I have any real desire to try own all of those movies and music. Plugins are different. I don't need nor want to use 5,000 or 10,000 different plugins (either thru ownership or subscription). I don't need anywhere near that many plugins.
In any case, I was originally okay with UA's decision to offer a subscription model (Spark) as long as they kept a perpetual model going as well. However, if the end game is to slowly ween people off of perpetual and ultimately make it a subscription only model a few years from now, I'm not interested in that.
The concern here is that, as we talk about this and dig deeper into it, the potential of an eventual sub-only model at UA becomes more apparent. UA's commitment to DSP seems to be in question now, in ways that I don't think it was prior to this new Apollo release. DSP customers were always going to be the biggest impediment to UA going sub only, if/when UA was to ever try to do that. So dropping a commitment to DSP customers now (whether it be explicit or only inherent) would probably be a necessary step towards ultimately going sub only. The powers that be at UA would, I imagine, certainly be okay with a sub-only model if they felt they could get away with it.
Maybe sub-only will never come to pass at UA. I'm just saying, don't think for one second that it hasn't at least been talked about over there in a UA boardroom.
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Post by bossanova on Oct 10, 2024 9:39:44 GMT -6
I'm not really a subscription guy. Never will be, at least if I have the option, the exception to that being streaming services. Though I think the difference between streaming services and plugins is that there is no way I could ever own all of the movies or music that I want to stream, nor would I have any real desire to try own all of those movies and music. Plugins are different. I don't need nor want to use 5,000 or 10,000 different plugins (either thru ownership or subscription). I don't need anywhere near that many plugins. In any case, I was originally okay with UA's decision to offer a subscription model (Spark) as long as they kept a perpetual model going as well. However, if the end game is to slowly ween people off of perpetual and ultimately make it a subscription only model a few years from now, I'm not interested in that. The concern here is that, as we talk about this and dig deeper into it, the potential of an eventual sub-only model at UA becomes more apparent. UA's commitment to DSP seems to be in question now, in ways that I don't think it was prior to this new Apollo release. DSP customers were always going to be the biggest impediment to UA going sub only, if/when UA was to ever try to do that. So dropping a commitment to DSP customers now (whether it be explicit or only inherent) would probably be a necessary step towards ultimately going sub only. The powers that be at UA would, I imagine, certainly be okay with a sub-only model if they felt they could get away with it. Maybe sub-only will never come to pass at UA. I'm just saying, don't think for one second that it hasn't at least been talked about over there in a UA boardroom. And just to remind everyone, they were saying that non-subscription, non-DSP/native licenses were not going to be a thing for the foreseeable future, and were pushing users who liked Spark to buy an UAD interface or other hardware if they wanted to get into the perpetual license ecosystem. Then a few months later, BAM: a la carte licenses are now available. I get it, they're a business, they were trying to move that last bit of hardware before they dropped it as a requirement, but the way they did it was still sketchy. |
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Post by Dan on Oct 10, 2024 10:15:57 GMT -6
In think ALL the BS and strange pricing schemes are designed to "herd the sheep" towards taking out a subscription. I just got included in my subscrition All three new amp plugs - the ones that are in their pedals and they apparently want $199 each for - yeah sure! The new Topline suite apparently another $199 .... sigh as if - it's looks like old code recycled with a new GUI - useful for scratch writing but's that's it for me. And the SSL strip and bus compressor (not useful to me) All part of the sub. So if they think they'll get me hooked on the sub plugins and then try to "boil the frog alive" (so to speak) by creeping up the prices they'll get a rude awakening when I (and I imagine everyone) stops their subscription. The UAD plugs are very good and whilst the sub remains good value, I'll continue - if they get greedy and up the price .... Well here in 2024 UAD are no longer the only game in town. The strange part is that there seems to be a pattern where almost all these companies, going back to Slate, have tried to force a reckoning with prices to migrate users over to subscription, but then they fold or something happens and you have subscriptions and cheap VSTs coexisting. The Waves debacle is its own thing, but I remember when Plugin Alliance went to the subscription model and also said that the constant discounts and PA poker were going away. Now their licenses are cheaper than ever as long as you're patient. I remember iZotope saying the same thing, that they were going to start a subscription service where you could purchase their base tools but only subscribers were going to get new updates, and as far as I know that never came to pass either. the subscriptions are also giving the house away. You get it all for 30 bucks? Say you need a specific tool. I needed izotope rx twice in the last couple of years. I got two months of it. Less money for them. They got surpassed by other tools for many tasks too. They stopped updating them. Didn’t hire anymore geniuses like Alexey Lukin and Vadim Zivalishin. The subscription guys are able to inflate the user base to increase their value on paper that way. PA also barely makes new tools and clones other companies. They don’t even make cool new toys outside of the better third party developers like Neold and LTL. The best thing in the whole bundle is Pro Audio DSP DSM and then various cool distortion plugs. WUP was basically a subscription plan and Waves kills it at larger live sound venues because what’s on the non avid boards is crap. Avid, you can get sonnox. |
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Post by mrcel0 on Oct 10, 2024 11:11:14 GMT -6
I spent way too much money on their plugins when I had an apollo, now I can’t even use half of them, unless they’re supported by iLok which is its own pain to deal with on different locations/ systems.
There’s just many plugins out there that can do the job better or just as well as UAD.
I also think it’s a joke how a $200 interface can have a $1K+ apollo beat with better AD-DA conversion and ability to bypass pre amps.. I don’t see the point in using their old chips for plugs when my cpu runs just fine with plugin monitoring.
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Post by Quint on Oct 10, 2024 11:12:31 GMT -6
Yeah. The rep you speak of is Drew Mazurek. He handles all of the public interactions on the various online forums. He even posts here, on occasion, although he's thankfully been absent from RGO for the last few months. The way you describe him is just how that guy is. He's awful. I have a difficult time understanding how can a company keep such a passive aggressive person writing on public forums on a payroll. Probably because the people that hired Drew are also passive aggressive persons. |
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Post by Dan on Oct 10, 2024 11:23:27 GMT -6
I spent way too much money on their plugins when I had an apollo, now I can’t even use half of them, unless they’re supported by iLok which is its own pain to deal with on different locations/ systems. There’s just many plugins out there that can do the job better or just as well as UAD. I also think it’s a joke how a $200 interface can have a $1K+ apollo beat with better AD-DA conversion and ability to bypass pre amps.. I don’t see the point in using their old chips for plugs when my cpu runs just fine with plugin monitoring. or direct sale hifi like schiit and emotiva. Or what tascam sells. Tascam. The da 3000 is really good |
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Post by Quint on Oct 10, 2024 12:06:34 GMT -6
I spent way too much money on their plugins when I had an apollo, now I can’t even use half of them, unless they’re supported by iLok which is its own pain to deal with on different locations/ systems. There’s just many plugins out there that can do the job better or just as well as UAD. I also think it’s a joke how a $200 interface can have a $1K+ apollo beat with better AD-DA conversion and ability to bypass pre amps.. I don’t see the point in using their old chips for plugs when my cpu runs just fine with plugin monitoring. or direct sale hifi like schiit and emotiva. Or what tascam sells. Tascam. The da 3000 is really good I have the DA3000. It is good. |
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Post by bobeschism on Oct 10, 2024 14:59:00 GMT -6
"We added sidechain" Real explanation from UAD. Actual quote. "We added yanking-your-chain" |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Oct 10, 2024 18:10:59 GMT -6
We've gone off-topic again, but I don't see any difference in UA expecting you to be connected to the internet to use iLok cloud vs. Avid expecting you to do the same with Pro Tools. If you are using iLok cloud then you have to be online, right? Or you use physical iLok and then they both can authenticate locally and without internet. That is what I do. I like that other plugins (like PA, Waves, IK, and more) can authenticate to a local drive (I put it all on a removeable USB drive) but they don't all do that. Either way I can be offline and it doesn't hurt. You're not wrong but this is also why I hate Pro Tools. So... |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Oct 10, 2024 18:13:12 GMT -6
Yeah. The rep you speak of is Drew Mazurek. He handles all of the public interactions on the various online forums. He even posts here, on occasion, although he's thankfully been absent from RGO for the last few months. The way you describe him is just how that guy is. He's awful. I have a difficult time understanding how can a company keep such a passive aggressive person writing on public forums on a payroll. At this point I've decided that he must reflect the UAD's attitude. I can't imagine that nobody up the line is aware of what a jerk this guy is so obviously he's representing the company the way they want to be represented. This is the reason I've started to dislike UAD. The only reason really. I'm just assumed at this point that Drew is an accurate reflection of their attitude towards their customers and really towards the world in general. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 11, 2024 4:04:28 GMT -6
sketchy: UA in a word now.
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