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Using UA plugin software with a non-UA DAW - also see the $49 UA Holiday special bundle...

tothemax

tothemax

Supporting Member
Nov 1, 2013
1,467
1,704
Annapolis Area
#1
UA has special $49 - software bundle, and from my reading it is available as "Native" for Windows. The package looks great, but in the past since I use Cakewalk I was never interested in the UA products as they seemed to be proprietary. When I was looking at the software descriptions on the UA website, I saw this holiday freebie for registering - the Pure Plate Reverb plugin. My DAW is Cakewalk and it wasn't listed as a supported DAW, but with a little digging on the Cakewalk forum I found that the native UA plugins are available as VST3 . So I figured I give the Pure Plate a try for free, before purchasing the bundle.

Anyway after signing up and downloading and installing the UA Connect app, and then iLOK for licensing, I was never able to get Cakewalk to see the plugin. One article said to register the .dll, I found the .dll but there wasn't a config file. While I'm not looking for Cakewalk support with UA, I am wondering has anyone used UA plugins on Windows, and the process they had to use to install them. The plugins in the package look great, and for $49, plus supporting the arts.

Will appreciate any info or links... I really don't see a UA support url, just FAQ pages...

 
#4
I did the UA Connect reinstall and re-downloaded the Plugin and now I can see it in Cakewalk, can't seem to get the license working from the Cloud, seems to register to the local machine iLOK session. So making progress... that plugin package looks great if I can get the UA plugins to work correctly.

Thanks
 
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#5
tothemax said:
I did the UA Connect reinstall and re-downloaded the Plugin and now I can see it in Cakewalk, can't seem to get the license working from the Cloud, seems to register to the local machine iLOK session. So making progress... that plugin package looks great if I can get the UA plugins to work correctly.

Thanks
Click to expand...
The only UA plugins you won't be able to use are labeled as UAD 2 or Unison (which requires a UAD hardware interface with DSP to run). Or the few ones specific for LUNA (specifically the summing plugins).

Generally the bundles they have been advertising are for native plugins that should work on any DAW with VST compatibility.
 
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#6
I'll probably need to reach out to UA support, it seems the plugins default to the iLOK cloud licensing and the iLOK app shows the license as available either locally or with the iLOK USB.

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The UA Connect only gives me the iLOK cloud as the default. So I think it will probably work, just might take some time to figure it out. The bundle is available through the 24th, so that gives me some time to figure it out.

1734887728090.png


Free, is usually not "free" - Cheers​
 
#7
Wish I could be more help...my memory isn't the greatest when it comes to how I did stuff on my DAW.
Linking the accounts together would be my best guess for UA Connect andiLOK.
UA support was really great, like 5 min responses between emails during business hours.
 
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#8
Really appreciate the feedback... took a few tries. Went through the UA support videos again for Windows and reinstalled. This time from iLOK website with VPN disabled, there was new version of the iLOK available. With the fresh UA Connect and updated iLOK Installed, then reinstalled the plugin and everything seemed to come together. Restarted my PC, VPN enabled and it still seemed to be working... cool. Looking forward to trying out the UA bundle, some cool tools.

1734902137517.png
 
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#10
Yesterday did a bit of testing with the UA Pure Plate Reverb plugin on some old recordings. Was pleasantly surprised at the excellent sound quality and functionality. I did the original licensing and plugin testing on my home office PC, I have Cakewalk installed and listen and play around with mixes. Yesterday, I did the install on my studio system and now familiar with the UA Connect and iLOK config. it went really smooth. One thing I was concerned about with UA and Cakewalk was the resource overhead, not even noticeable - worked fine.
It actually sounded so good, that I purchased the UA Holiday bundle for $49, and from downloading the free Pure Plate Reverb got a $25 discount on any purchases over $50. To use the discount I added the Fairchild Tube Limiter that ended up being $4.99.

Though I'm nothing close to an engineer, this seemed like a pretty good deal and the plugins work really well in Cakewalk. It seems UA is really pushing the holiday deals, Apparently like the Pure Plate Reverb which was free last week, the Pultec EQ is now free. Since the Pultec EQ was included in the holiday special UA sent me a coupon for $29 which seems pretty cool. For a $53 investment, there are already more new toys to play around with than mix time in the studio. The $29 coupon expires on the 31st, so I'm kind of between the Helios Preamp EQ, Brigade Chorus, or Studio D chorus. For my use, I think the Helios Pre\EQ would make more sense, though the Brigade demo sounds pretty slick. One thing I noticed is that the free Plate Reverb came with 3 activations, while the others came with 2.

Anyway, thought I would share as the holiday deals end on the 31st.

Cheers and Merry Happy!
 
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#13
tothemax said:
Was looking at the UA Sound City plugin... looks pretty cool... anyone tried it?

​
Click to expand...

I've used it briefly but haven't dug into it really. Some people really like it, especially for re-amping guitars from what I've read.

It does use a lot of processing power though, so you may only be able to get awhile with using a few instances of it depending on your computer.
 
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#14
I was thinking mostly for mastering, but looking at the YouTube it appears that they are using on individual tracks. A while back I picked up the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin for headphone monitoring of mixes (I was concerned about getting good mixes with headphones). I was thinking this might be a cool addition to the toolkit. I appreciate your input on the overhead... The link below is an overview of the Studio 3 software, just in case someone is interested. I set up a web cam in the studio and it is pretty cool how the sound moves with your head. It's also on sale for $50.

Cheers

​
 
#15
Downloaded the Sound City trial demo from UA, absolutely love it... It's full featured. Played with a couple of fresh tracks I made yesterday, added the plugin with defaults and it sounds like an album (within reason anyway). Didn't have to do anything else, just a clean track and the plugin... I'm pretty sure that it's a keeper, going to play with it a bit more today.

Cheers,

BTW: The UA sale ends on the 31st
 

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