At Craig - wow, I had no idea ! My continued viewings of Spinal Tap will also now be marred :(

At Fooman - with all due respect I believe my metaphor is/was apt.  There is no reason why UAD would update their drivers to disable perfectly working UAD1 other than to force new sales of UAD2.   That's shoddy. UAD1 could have easily have been retained and some users actually provided a workaround to do just that - however the wizards at UA killed that in 6.4.

Customer centric behavior to grow your installed base ?  I think not.

Tchuess, Universal Audio. 

There's a misconception that if you bought an XYZ plug-in for your UAD-1, you have to buy it again if you get a UAD-2. I checked with UA, and was told you can transfer ownership of UAD-1 plug-ins to UAD-2 at no charge. Here's the link describing the free upgrade program. The only plug-in that's not a part of this program is Nigel, as a UAD-2 version was never produced for the unfortunate legal reasons I mentioned previously.

As to new drivers disabling UAD-1, I didn't think to ask about that but I do recall a forum post when I was bemoaning the lack of 64-bit support. Someone who seemed to be knowledgeable but not affiliated with UA said not to hold my breath waiting for 64-bit UAD-1 support, as the hardware is totally different and he didn't think it could ever be made compatible with true 64-bit operation. He thought the best I could hope for was running 32-bit plug-ins using bridge technology.

I don't know if that was technically correct or not, but the UAD-1 was introduced 10 years ago so that means the chip it uses is even older. UA ceased production of the UAD-1 around four years ago yet continued to update and support it until this month, which is pretty good compared to the track record of tech companies in general. For example Apple produced computers with PowerPC chips until mid-2006, but the last OS to support PPC (Leopard) was released in 2007 (!). Snow Leopard, released in 2009, was Intel-only.

So as far as I can tell, the bottom line is that if you have a UAD-1 card, you have two choices: Keep running it as a 32-bit plug-in in a 64-bit system using a bridge, or buy new hardware and transfer your plug-ins over for free. No new UAD-1 plug-ins have been developed in what, two years (?), so it's already a given you won't be able to run plug-ins currently being designed for the UAD-2 on the UAD-1. I just don't see UA devoting resources to developing new plug-ins for a ten-year-old platform they discontinued four years ago.

If you have a mix of UAD-1 and UAD-2 cards, you can either run them under UA's 32-bit software which freezes what they can do (and the plug-ins you can run) to before 6.4 was introduced, or give up on the UAD-1 and go 64-bit with the UAD-2 card.

The issue of whether UA is saying good-bye to supporting the UAD-1 for monetary reasons has two sides. One is that they want you to upgrade to the UAD-2, which of course means more sales (although it could also be because they know what they're planning for a year or two down the line, and it definitely won't accommodate a UAD-1 so they might as well stop now). But another possible reason they might not want to broadcast is that legacy support is a resource sink. They may simply not want to have to deal with people asking support questions on how to use their UAD-1 running Sonar X5 under Windows 9 because that takes time and money away from supporting current products and developing new ones.

Having been in this biz as long as I have, suffice it to say this is a small industry and companies have to figure out how to allocate a pretty limited set of resources, while navigating the changes in consumer electronics (e.g., computers, and Apple/Microsoft operating systems) that often take companies, as well as consumers, by surprise. I can't really fault companies for the decisions they make, they're not made arbitrarily...companies don't want to upset any of their customers, but sometimes reality intrudes. The most important consideration is that a company stay in business, otherwise nobody gets any support. If I had to choose between devoting resources to current UAD-2 owners or owners of UAD-1s and it was one or the other, I assume current UAD-2 owners would get priority.

Of course, this reflects my opinion, not any inside knowledge of what goes on at UA. But, I've seen this scenario play out at so many companies I would be shocked if UA was somehow immune from it.

Oh, and if anyone needs some Mac NuBus cards or Windows ISA cards, let me know...and PM me if you want a screaming hot Apple dual G5 PowerPC tower computer.

+1

+5000

Good post!

Anderton


There's a misconception that if you bought an XYZ plug-in for your UAD-1, you have to buy it again if you get a UAD-2. I checked with UA, and was told you can transfer ownership of UAD-1 plug-ins to UAD-2 at no charge. Here's the link describing the free upgrade program. The only plug-in that's not a part of this program is Nigel, as a UAD-2 version was never produced for the unfortunate legal reasons I mentioned previously.

As to new drivers disabling UAD-1, I didn't think to ask about that but I do recall a forum post when I was bemoaning the lack of 64-bit support. Someone who seemed to be knowledgeable but not affiliated with UA said not to hold my breath waiting for 64-bit UAD-1 support, as the hardware is totally different and he didn't think it could ever be made compatible with true 64-bit operation. He thought the best I could hope for was running 32-bit plug-ins using bridge technology.

I don't know if that was technically correct or not, but the UAD-1 was introduced 10 years ago so that means the chip it uses is even older. UA ceased production of the UAD-1 around four years ago yet continued to update and support it until this month, which is pretty good compared to the track record of tech companies in general. For example Apple produced computers with PowerPC chips until mid-2006, but the last OS to support PPC (Leopard) was released in 2007 (!). Snow Leopard, released in 2009, was Intel-only.

So as far as I can tell, the bottom line is that if you have a UAD-1 card, you have two choices: Keep running it as a 32-bit plug-in in a 64-bit system using a bridge, or buy new hardware and transfer your plug-ins over for free. No new UAD-1 plug-ins have been developed in what, two years (?), so it's already a given you won't be able to run plug-ins currently being designed for the UAD-2 on the UAD-1. I just don't see UA devoting resources to developing new plug-ins for a ten-year-old platform they discontinued four years ago.

If you have a mix of UAD-1 and UAD-2 cards, you can either run them under UA's 32-bit software which freezes what they can do (and the plug-ins you can run) to before 6.4 was introduced, or give up on the UAD-1 and go 64-bit with the UAD-2 card.

The issue of whether UA is saying good-bye to supporting the UAD-1 for monetary reasons has two sides. One is that they want you to upgrade to the UAD-2, which of course means more sales (although it could also be because they know what they're planning for a year or two down the line, and it definitely won't accommodate a UAD-1 so they might as well stop now). But another possible reason they might not want to broadcast is that legacy support is a resource sink. They may simply not want to have to deal with people asking support questions on how to use their UAD-1 running Sonar X5 under Windows 9 because that takes time and money away from supporting current products and developing new ones.

Having been in this biz as long as I have, suffice it to say this is a small industry and companies have to figure out how to allocate a pretty limited set of resources, while navigating the changes in consumer electronics (e.g., computers, and Apple/Microsoft operating systems) that often take companies, as well as consumers, by surprise. I can't really fault companies for the decisions they make, they're not made arbitrarily...companies don't want to upset any of their customers, but sometimes reality intrudes. The most important consideration is that a company stay in business, otherwise nobody gets any support. If I had to choose between devoting resources to current UAD-2 owners or owners of UAD-1s and it was one or the other, I assume current UAD-2 owners would get priority.

Of course, this reflects my opinion, not any inside knowledge of what goes on at UA. But, I've seen this scenario play out at so many companies I would be shocked if UA was somehow immune from it.

Oh, and if anyone needs some Mac NuBus cards or Windows ISA cards, let me know...and PM me if you want a screaming hot Apple dual G5 PowerPC tower computer.

Pfff...who do you think you are with this long post, me? LOL! I think that's the biggest post I've seen you do. Hahahaha! And a great one at that! Awesome post, Craig. Always great to read your stuff. Even better when you go in depth like this. :)

Ha..I think this is the shortest post I have ever seen you do Danny.  You must have been between Skeleton Crew sets.

Great post Craig! Well said and well thought out.

I am glad I took advantage of the offer to trade in my 2 UAD-1's on a UAD-2 Quad last summer.  It performs great and now that they have 64bit versions of the plugins I'm not looking back at all.  I got a lot of use out of the old cards, but I understand why they had to move on and I didn't mind moving on with them. I suppose if Nigel was one of my go-to plugins I'd be upset about it not working on the UAD-2, but I never really used it for anything beyond the occasional experiment.  (I had never heard that story about Christopher Guest regarding Nigel.  That is truly a bummer.  Kind of ruins Spinal Tap for me too.)

Great post Craig, I have a great deal of respect for your opinion. I am still concerned that there are going to be folks that are going to install that driver without any knowledge they are about to lose their investment.
 I have been treated well by UAD myself. My old UAD-1 is safe in an old machine I plan to use for mobile recording. I did the upgrade to UAD-2 last year.
 I still do not see any logic in a killer driver for the UAD-1, I'm sure they could easily have put some kind of detection algorithm in there that simply tells the user "for UAD-2 only" as far as the card being obsolete, I don't believe that for an instant. They are only obsolete because UAD wants them to be. With the power on native CPUs now I'm sure they could tap into native power for whatever they planned on coming out with in the near future.
 Even though powercore has stopped development a few years back, they are still constantly upgrading their driver support and even their old MK1 cards have never run better. I'm glad they didn't spend the time to write a driver that kills their old hardware.
 With native power pretty much making DSP processing irrelevant, the remaining UAD users are there because of the quality of the plugs. There are many options out there now and there are even 3rd party UAD plug-ins that are already going native.
 SPL_Vitalizer
[url=https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/detail/spl_transient_designer.html]SPL_Transient[url]
[url=https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/detail/bx_digital_v2.html]BX_digital v2[url]
What concerns me most as someone who has a small amount invested in UAD is they really don't have a plan to for the long haul. Now that they are the last ones standing, I would think they would want to really take care of their existing customers instead of spending resources to write a killer driver. I can't say that it has stopped me from buying UAD plugs, but I probably would have much more invested in them if I felt they were in it for the long haul and not just out for short term gains. I think there will probably be legal issues when more and more folks kill their old cards and instead of the mass amounts of people seeking to upgrade to UAD-2, they are going to be more likely to find a native option IMO.
 
I would like to see UAD develop newer and better processing that would include vsti synths that are much more resource hungry like EWQL stuff. I have serious doubts they are going to survive if some serious innovation doesn't happen.
 

This is kinda OT, but after reading this thread I begged a friend to let me A/B the UAD 1176 V2 stuff VS his Waves CLA-bundle stuff. He has a respectable setup and lucky enough to have both. He readily admits the CLA stuff goes untouched 99% of the time.

When I put the 1176 AE (which I also own and use on drums religiously), on a snare track.... it sounded night and day better than the Waves stuff. Same with kick, vox, etc etc. I didn't have much time to sit and mess around, so the CLA-2A didn't get A/B'd but I'm sure there's many threads about it on the nets.

As much as I wanted to go "Oh wow, UAD has nothing over this native plugin", it's just not true from what I've heard. Maybe it's just this one plugin I was able to A/B that it wins hands-down (IMO), I would be willing to bet that if you put UAD up against other similar plugins (SSL, SPL, etc), UAD would hold it's own and shine. So, against my will kinda, I'm going to keep going with what works for me :)

Fact is that the UA plugs ARE excellent.

And if I could have upgraded both of my UAD1's then I would have - however I didn't have another slot for it. So now I have a mixed UAD2/UAD1 system.

If UA released a driver that "froze" the UAD1 in place (to be useable again) while at the same time updating the UAD2 then there is a VERY good chance I would have bought more plugs (was looking at the Studer but went with Slates VTM because I cant buy the UA Studer). That's a lost sale of a few hundred dollars - a drop in the bucket to be sure but I'm sure there are a lot out here with the same dilemma.

Nice marketing and sales motion, UA.