I feel scammed

[daniel99]

Just paid $500 for the UAD Signature bundle last month; after 2 weeks, it went down to $300.
Today I noticed UAD released Signature Edition 2, which includes more plugins like the SSL, and I have to pay $200 to have access to these new plugins.
Isn't it a scam?! It seems like an attempt to squeeze as much money as possible because there is no choice.
It should be automatically delivered to everyone who paid. I paid $500 last month; why would I need to pay extra for something that costs now the same price.

Not talking about the poor activation system that always takes my motivation, I have to restart my mac/daw very often to have them working.
This is a disgrace. What a shame.

 

[Axel_L]

I do understand where you’re coming from. You are disappointed, because there was an unexpected change. But you’re wrong. Products/bundles evolve, prices change. You would not complain if you had bought the Signature bundle one year ago, wouldn’t you?

 

[daniel99]

I do understand where you’re coming from. You are disappointed, because there was an unexpected change. But you’re wrong. Products/bundles evolve, prices change. You would not complain if you had bought the Signature bundle one year ago, wouldn’t you?

I don't complain about the price dropped down to $300, just mentioned.
My complain is about giving extra money for the same product, Spark is being updated why the Signature bundle requires extra money?
I already paid those $500 for the bundle, the Edition 2 costs the same price not $700.

I also added that I face a lot of issues with the activation, which adds to the disappointment. I asked for a refund and they won't even reply.

 

[Axel_L]

Support aims for 48-72 hr response times, and they do not work weekends.

Sorry that you have issues with the software. Never had any problems like this, so I don’t know what you might be doing wrong.

 

[daniel99]

Support aims for 48-72 hr response times, and they do not work weekends.

Sorry that you have issues with the software. Never had any problems like this, so I don’t know what you might be doing wrong.

I did nothing wrong, the UA Connect is installed and connected to my account, I can see the plugins list. the iLok is also installed and the Cloud License is activated.
I simply work and suddenly the plugins lose their activation, such as "RESTART DAW" or "DEMO" / "BUY NOW". It makes my mix different and I start touching things until I open any UAD plugin and see that error and understand I messed up the mix because of a few plugins that stopped working.
Sometimes even restarting the DAW won't help I have to restart my mac couple of times, it's frustrating so why do I need to pay $200 for that? I totally feel it's a scam, that I'm a sucker who paid $500 for something that gives me anger and frustration and now UAD is asking for more money trying to squeeze us.
So the minimum I expect from such a big company is to update these bundles like the Spark.

Luckily I didn't buy Apollo but RME!

 

[CarstenS]

Luna is the best sounding daw i ever used. Using daws for 40 years. the rest is only money.

 

[d0gmA]

Get a physical ilok and then it’s trouble free

 

[daniel99]

Get a physical look and then it’s trouble free

What do you mean?

 

[d0gmA]

Purchase a physical ilok and quit using ilok cloud and all of those ilok frustrations will go away. No more will you need internet to be able to work.

 

[exoslime]

physical look

physical lion

autocorrection is not @d0gmA friend today

he means a physical USB I-Lok key, either USB-A or USB-C

and i second that.. dont use ilok cloud, get a physical ilok and issues will go away

 

[daniel99]

autocorrection is not @d0gmA friend today

he means a physical USB I-Lok key, either USB-A or USB-C

and i second that.. dont use ilok cloud, get a physical ilok and issues will go away

I'll consider that option, thanks for letting me know.

 

[d0gmA]

Autocorrect sucks glad you were able to catch that I should have reread my post this morning

 

[d0gmA]

They added $1500 with of plugs to the bundle and offered previous owners 199 to upgrade to it. In the past it would have been a $500 upgrade price so while it was soon for you to be getting an upgrade opportunity it was a great deal that should in no way be considered a scam or deceitful

 

[daniel99]

They added $1500 with of plugs to the bundle and offered previous owners 199 to upgrade to it. In the past it would have been a $500 upgrade price so while it was soon for you to be getting an upgrade opportunity it was a great deal that should in no way be considered a scam or deceitful

The thing is that I paid $500 for Edition 1, and Edition 2 costs the same price.
Why someone who has Edition 1 has to pay $700 and someone who just wants to buy it $500? It should be the opposite, encouraging people to buy stuff rather than feeling like I'm stuck with this bundle. Maybe some people have extra money, but I don't.. and I was waiting for the SSL 4000 so much.
If the Edition 2 was $700 I would understand but now I feel I'm being squeezed, it's obvious that I will not buy Edition 2 now after a month so they use it to get more money from people who are in the middle.
For more reasonable plans I'd get more plugins, but it feels like there is no end!

 

[exoslime]

most of us has been to the same point as you, so i perfectly understand your frustration and i feel sorry that you feel this way, because i felt the same and its not a good feeling. In the past we even did purchase single plugins for something like 349€, hard to imagine right now but thats where some of us come from, and now you get the same plugins for 29€ or other get like 25+ new plugins for 199€ because of the current ultimate 13 sale and you wont because you already got those and payed more than that, i tried to have no hard feelings on that anymore (but that was also a learning curve, lol)

over the time, we learned that UA doesnt update bundles, instead they release new bundles, so you always get what you are paying at the moment at the time of the purchase, and nothing will be added at a later point, the only exception is the SPARK subscription service, however, some folks with the subscribtion also shared their frustration that UA is not adding enough new plugins over the time here on the forum.

nowadays there are lots of sales and its hard to get the best sale, sometimes you are lucky and make a bargain, and sometimes you bite yourself in the ass that your did purchase too early and a couple of days/weeks/months later you would have paid significantly less. i know that sucks, i have been through this a couple of times as well. but there is one thing for sure: the plugin/bundle you want to purchase, will be on Sale at some point!

so every time you want to purchase something, you should ask yourself:
1) do i really need it / want it, does it benefit the music i´m working on, plugins are tools and not collectible items.
2) is it worth the price i will pay for it now. no matter what happens after that. or can i also wait for the next sale and try to get it cheaper?

i know, GAS is somethings hard on us and blurs our mind to make wise decisions

Bu once you made your piece of mind with that decision i guess such things that happend to you right now, wont affect your feelings that hard anymore.

Also UA does not talk about future development and ports, which does not help our sitaution, so the current plugin releaes and new bundles even came for us experienced users by quite some surprise.

 

[Joe Porto]

Just paid $500 for the UAD Signature bundle last month; after 2 weeks, it went down to $300.
Today I noticed UAD released Signature Edition 2, which includes more plugins like the SSL, and I have to pay $200 to have access to these new plugins.

UA does have a free upgrade from U12 to U13 for those purchased within a month. Not sure about Native bundles.

Check your “my offers” page in account section of UA website. Also, try putting it in your cart and see if you get a better price.

Other than that, check with Support. They may be able to help you out if you purchased Signature less than a month ago.

 

[UniversalAudio]

Just paid $500 for the UAD Signature bundle last month; after 2 weeks, it went down to $300.
Today I noticed UAD released Signature Edition 2, which includes more plugins like the SSL, and I have to pay $200 to have access to these new plugins.
Isn't it a scam?! It seems like an attempt to squeeze as much money as possible because there is no choice.
It should be automatically delivered to everyone who paid. I paid $500 last month; why would I need to pay extra for something that costs now the same price.

Not talking about the poor activation system that always takes my motivation, I have to restart my mac/daw very often to have them working.
This is a disgrace. What a shame.

Hi daniel99,
When one product is updated there will always be these sort of crossover timings like this.

Yours was the perfect storm. You bought just before the price drop. (unfortunately there will always be these users no matter when you do the cutoff)

It can't hurt to get a ticket open with Support, they'll may be able to offer something. Go to help.uaudio.com, click on the Support bot icon in the lower right corner and type “create ticket”.

I'm sorry you feel scammed, that is of course not the intent.

 

[Serenity]

I get what you are saying. It would have been more reasonable if the new signature bundle was a completely different bundle or if the price increased with the amount of plugins. I agree with that. I wouldn't say that it's a scam. But I understand your feelings about it.
On the other hand, the comparison with spark doesn't make sense. It's the same thing there, the early adopters paid the same amount for less plugins as those who join now.

Also, if I was to buy all the plugins I've bought over the years now, I would just pay a fraction of the price that I've paid for them. But I have to keep in mind that I thought it was worth the money I paid when I bought them.

 

[machinated]

the intent is for UA to sell you the same plugins time and time again by selling multiple bundles and upgrades. The first purchase will always be the best value, and new customers will always get a better deal than what you paid.

UA could offer fairer upgrades based on what you own but they’d rather squeeze another $200 out of you.

My advice is if you aren’t desperate to upgrade now, just wait until the bundle upgrade offers better value. There’ll be more plugins in the future and if you’re getting 8-10 plugins it might be slightly better value for you.

 

[BlueJay]

Hi daniel99,
When one product is updated there will always be these sort of crossover timings like this.

Yours was the perfect storm. You bought just before the price drop. (unfortunately there will always be these users no matter when you do the cutoff)

It can't hurt to get a ticket open with Support, they'll may be able to offer something. Go to help.uaudio.com, click on the Support bot icon in the lower right corner and type “create ticket”.

I'm sorry you feel scammed, that is of course not the intent.

This would be my exact advice. Contact support and ask if they can give you a decent coupon discount on top. Then perhaps wait for Black Friday. If I'd shelled out £500 very recently and then saw the new edition available, I'd hope for perhaps paying max a $100 upgrade. Like yourself, I do production for other musicians but still have to limit budget spending.

Ideally as some other companies do this should be a free upgrade if bought in the last 3 months or so. UA implementing this as a policy would go a long way to preventing this kind of frustration.

The upshot is that UA are a for profit making company, whilst I don't always agree with their marketing or potty changeable pricing strategies they are the ones who decide. I only drop money when things are heavily discounted or I can afford it. I try hard not to be pulled in to buying the latest stuff but wait for the right opportunity.

I own probably 25 perpetual plugins but still have Spark at $9.99 per month (kind discount.. If you don't ask you don't get) which gives me everything on top. I hope to buy Lion, the Neve 1073 and the SSL channel strip as they all sound stellar and then be done. Though it never sees to work out that way

As an aside Softube and Relab make great stuff and often have sale these days. Relab do a reverb that has a LX224 like algorithm in and it's so beautiful. It's called Sonsig. I have the UA LX224 as well which is great but more specific sound wise than the relab unit. I also have perpetual licences for 4 Synths from the Roland Cloud Legendary series which they gave me free for have had a subscription with them. What I would dig is if UA did something similar with Spark and rewarded their customers with a perpetual licence of their choice after a period of say 6 months. Again I don't see that happening.

All of the above aside, the quality of UA's plugins is top notch and I wouldn't be without them.

Hopefully @UniversalAudio have some great sales planned for Black Friday. If the Signature Bundle 2 is heavily discounted, I may just pick it up and pause Spark