I have one UA plugin. An LA2A plugin. It’s great. I’ve used it on a bunch of channels on an album project in Ableton. My Internet provider just took a nosedive. Suddenly, all my distractions were gone. Time to do some shit. Oh wait, my project won’t load. Panic. Sweats. Is all of this work destroyed? Trying to load backups. Still nothing.
Then it pops in my head. This Universal Audio thing is basically always requesting access to do updates. Haven’t thought too much about it. But could it be, that me not being connected to the internet, is preventing this entire project from loading? Of course it is, connect with my mobile, first thing that happens is that UA requests admin access to do some stufferidoo. then the project loads fine. Jei.
TLDR: To the ducks with every plugin that requires an internet connection
this is why I avoid plugins with central installers and background daemons, I get why subscription software needs it but not something I pay full price for as a single purchase.
I also fear this might happen in hardware world too.
Thanks for the support guys I got really frustrated here, like old school 1996 compaq computer annoyed My conclusion is that I have to live with this for this project. But after I’m done with this, I’m uninstalling the plugin and the UA application. This is exactly the reason I stopped using Waves plugins. Wasn’t aware that the DRM was this aggressive for UA until now
I do however rejoice in telling you, I’m currently working on my dogshit project and kind of smiling while doing so
I deal with this a lot at work - the Waves plugins always seem to want to phone home after a couple of weeks and instead hang Pro Tools on launch until they’re made happy. It’s annoying AF because the folks that run the sessions are only in to do specific things which are usually done with very expensive talent we bring in house (voiceovers and such). It could work fine the day before, but guaranteed when you need it to run smoothly the waves shell will hang the app on load. Every single time lol
This is one of the reasons why I did a “software downsizing” when I got my new computer. Only installed a few plugins that I really think I should be using. And only installed a few synths. I am more productive now with great focus on my real gear on my desk as well as with limited number of plugins.
waves were the first…many followed.
i run only two third party plugins that need to connect first to be used…this damn cradle god particle thing, which demands it from time to time, due to copyright protection…
if it can’t connect for a period of time, it just shuts up into silence…nothing comes through anymore…
and xln’s life, due to permanent cloud uploading needs for analysing audio content to slice…
hmmmmmm…i met them on superbooth, told them how xo changed my life and how great life is, but if there’s any chance to change this plugin behaviour…for now, they say, it’s still a necessitiy, but they consider changes to free their letest plugin invention from this…
let’s see…but basically, any such plugins that force u to be connected with the net to do what they do are no good investments…and we all should really tell them to stop…
anyone, who believes the internet is always there for u and working without it just can’t happen, is a fool…
my best work always happened far away from any online hot spots…
i can live without the god particle…and whatever i create with life gets bounced right away…
and those two are defenitly the first and last purchases that won’t let me work offline…
offline is also freedom of choice…let’s keep that in mind…no matter how fancy and convinient the information age wants to come across…
and all rent to own models are nothing but a scam…
Check out the Tokyo Dawn Molotok its great its not an LA2A but does the job most of the time for me. The other compressors are nice too, I have lots more but never use them.
That sucks, what a letdown. On a dissimilar but related note I get so much spam from UA it’s criminal. If it weren’t for my audio interface, I’d probably ditch the little remaining software of theirs that I have on my computer. Anyway, interested to hear what you’re working on when you’re ready to share!
I avoided ilok and dongle stuff for so long but I got some UAD native stuff and some Eventide stuff that i needed for specific projects and it’s sooo annoying
It’s wild how deeply anti-consumer a lot of the copy protection and online activation mechanisms are in music tech.
A lot of manufacturers seem so scared of piracy that they think it’s totally fine to basically install malware on the user’s computer in order to make sure that their license is genuine. At the end of the day the only one who loses here is the customer. Is this really worth it?
I have some iLok-protected plugins that I really enjoy using but the fact that there is a daemon running in the background at all times on my computer really isn’t a good feeling. Why do I have to subject my system to this kind of intrusive DRM just in order to use things that I have paid for? On top of that iLok also monitors a ton of stuff under the hood on more or less every process in the DAW – it’s basically spying on me.
On top of that, things like these where you can’t use software because you’re offline – how brittle is that? IMO this is just poor engineering facilitated by an irrational fear of piracy. These aren’t real solutions to the problem.
Anyway, all I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to be this way and all the vendors that do these things should be ashamed. Rant over
Freakshow Industries have the right idea imo, their plugins are weird and unique, and I happily supported them mostly due to their anti-drm stance.
You may have noticed that you can steal our software directly from this website. We believe there are legitimate reasons that people steal software. Rather than turn our customers into victims by fighting an endless and futile battle against music software piracy, we’ve decided to be real and talk about it openly.
We believe that people who would buy software will buy software and we would rather give you our effects directly and unencumbered by archaic DRM. At the same time we don’t want to force those who won’t buy our software into the dark corners of the internet to grab questionable or altered versions of our work. We hope that we impress you enough to buy a t-shirt or make a donation or come back for a purchase later. We believe that trust, generosity and goodwill are principles worth taking a chance on and so we put our continued existence into your hands.
Can FabFilter plug-ins be authorized to an iLok?
No, our plug-ins don’t need an iLok. Instead, we use a fairly simple license key system. Just copy/paste the license key from your account or purchase e-mail into the license dialog and you’re done.
When working in different studios from time to time, you can simply authorize the plug-ins using your license key, and deauthorize them again when you’re done, via the Help → Deauthorize option in the plug-in interface.
and honestly, does anyone know a company that went under because of piracy? I mean prices are fairly acceptable for most things, even Cubase ditched the dongle, why bother with these unnecessary complications?
if only they committed to optimizing performance as much as they spend on developing these ludicrous authorization methods
ironically there are cracked versions of software that end up working better because of the omittion of copy protection
in some rare cases some of the people cracking the software end up fixing some bugs in the process. (I wish I had these sorts of reverse engineering skills because I find that stuff fascinating)
(I don’t advocate running cracks. I do advocate supporting independent developers that have realistic ideas around this stuff and don’t penalize the users with this crap)
Another thing thats a bit irksome are the companines that make a program just to get individual plugins instead of just making plugins with their own installers (or you know giving us the DLLs) but that’s a double-edged sword because I do imagine for updates that can be very convenient for deployment
I’ve been complaining about this with UAD. I seriously think they are selling their plugins so cheap is because they get our data in return from their intrusive app. But as shared by a user here, you can rename the app and it won’t auto load . So that’s the workaround I use for now since I use a few of their plugins on my projects.
Not worth going dawless to me and saying all software sucks though. I love recording into my DAW and editing/processing and mixing there. I’d be broke as hell trying to get all the fx I use in hardware form.
I mean I could FOSS it but would still not “own” it in the sense of property. Maybe I would frame that interest for myself more around freedom to use and modify.
I got really frustrated here, like old school 1996 compaq computer annoyed 
My conclusion is that I have to live with this for this project. But after I’m done with this, I’m uninstalling the plugin and the UA application. This is exactly the reason I stopped using Waves plugins. Wasn’t aware that the DRM was this aggressive for UA until now 