I was watching the Steven Slate used cars.. ehm.. I mean mix/master bundle ad. And I started to wonder if I perhaps put my money in the wrong basket by investing in UAD plugins. Well, it didn’t take me long to realise that I had not. In fact, when looking at the numbers I have no idea why people think UAD is so expensive.

These are the plugins I have at the moment:

And for all of this I spent a total of $2024. Which is like $50/plugin.
Plus I got more than half a year worth of demo periods when purchasing them. Which means access to the whole UAD catalog in 14 day chunks.
Yes, I needed to buy the plugins at the right time and wait for deals. But that’s how their business model works.

That amount of money would get me almost 7 years of subscription to the Slate Mix/Master bundle. Which includes a much less attractive and less versatile collection of plugins, and when those 7 years are over i have to pay more or lose everything. The UAD plugins will work for me until I don’t have compatible hardware to run it. Which might be 10-15 years from now, or even longer.
Sure, Slate Digital will add plugins to the bundle over time, but something tells me that they will not be able to match my collection in seven years.

Well, this was not really meant to be a UAD vs. Slate thing. It’s just that his marketing made it sound like I was loosing so much money by buying individual plugins and not subscribing to his bundle of love. Turns out i’m not. Plus I keep hearing on this forum how expensive UAD plugins are. Turns out, they don't have to be.

Sure, I needed to invest in UAD hardware. But that has also kept me from needing to upgrade my computers which probably makes things even. And the Apollo adds such an awesome workflow and versatile preamps with Unison plugins. I think that even with the price of the hardware included, it's still a great deal.

I know I'm probably opening a can of worms here but I just couldn't resist.

Well. Your post is all about Slate vs UAD.
Everyone buys what they want to have and thats all that really matters.
I cant believe that Slates marketing is hurting so many people.
With all those plugins you own you shouldn't really bother what everyone else is doing.
Just use them instead of starting can of worm threads like this.
Have a good day

Well, it happened to be Slate because that was the one who sparked my interest to compare the costs since he tries to make a point of how much affordable his subscription service is.
It could just as well have been Plugin Alliance (which has pretty nice bundles) or IK Multimedia for that matter.

Slates marketing doesn't hurt me, in fact it makes me laugh. The guy tries so hard to be Anthony Robbins that it's cute, and the informercial style marketing just puts a used car wax coating on the plugins. I just can't take that company seriously. But that's besides the point.

Just thought that it might be of interest to someone looking to invest in a plugin ecosystem.

I'm also very happy with my UAD plugins and don't have the feeling I payed gigantic amounts of money for the hardware (three used UAD-2 cards) or plugins (sales and coupons). I understand the normal prices make UAD plugins look (very) expensive, but with a discount and a free coupon things can change drammatically. heh

Yeah, slates marketing is cheesy but the plugins are good. The guy's motor is always running and he has good ideas.

I only have UAD, slate and stock logic plugs on my system. I've spent $800 on Slate plugs over the last 5 years. Ive been using UAD since they came out (10-12 years?) I don't know how much I've spent. Feels like 30k. I really like slates bus compressor and console emulation. They have UAD beat on that stuff. I like UAD for everything else.

It doesn't matter how much I've spent on either one because I like them and use them everyday (70 hours a week).

I hate the limited DSP I have with UAD. I have a Quad card....most of my projects are at 96k so I run out pretty quick. I guess I could buy a octo card. It's like working in a fantastic studio that has everything you want to mix with........but you can only use 62.8% of it. So choose wisely.

I could never hear Slate VTM, & thought it was a rip-off, until I got UAD Apollo,now I love it. UAD brought Slate to life in my case.

I have all of the Slate plugins, and a UAD Apollo with a bunch of terrific UAD plugins. I love them all, and they seem to like each other too.

But man.... that DONGLE is quite expensive


This or buy a 5960x... REALLY tufff decision

You are doing it wrong...

uad plugs are good and they always work they are slightly better then they used to be but since klanghelm and sknote puts out so advanced emulations for peanuts the gas even for 60 bucks plugins its less and less simply because they can't compare to this emulations. Its how i feel ..

I get better deals when I buy UAD plugins! I pay under $100 for most of them! They usually give me $50 vouchers then add another $25 voucher while a sale is running.

I end up paying $99-$149 for most UAD plugins!

Not to mention the $600 in free plugins when I picked up my Apollo and traded my old UAD 1 cards in! I get the plugins and cards for next to nothing because I wait until the time is right!

I just mention this in another thread. I thought to myself man for that same $300 that I just been getting Mark 2 1176s, La2a,& pultecs I could have got slate whole collection.


Then I heard the catch... I'd be renting them. Hahahaha

my UA purchase is not a dongle but an Apollo interface and did I mention I receive brand new 14 day access to every UAD plugin every purchase?

Also, for $297 I got 3 new mk2
1176, 3 new mk2 la2a, as well as the various pultec's 2 maybe 3. 297/8= $37.13 per plug.

No I do not want to rent plugins thanks. I would like to own them. I do like slate stuff too I just don't like renting plugins just typing it makes me feel a little confused. Lol

I have no interest in renting...and I really do not believe rental is to the benefit of the customer.

I hear you, I prefer ownership myself and use lots of UAD plugs and Slate offerings, however the chance for a student or someone new to the arena to get access to ALL of the plugs for $25 per month of the length of a course when he/she has no money, is just a great deal.

I take my hat off to Steve Slate for offering that one. Even if I'm not the main target customer.

Having said that, I don't own all of the Slate plugs, and if a project comes up that warrants it, I may well drop $25 to temporarily access the plugs I don't have as an extension to a demo period. If UAD did the same thing, I'm sure they'd get the occasional $25 dollars as an alternative means to extend the 14 day demo period by a month, when one doesn't have the money, or inclination, to jump on a $349 plug-in (When the sales aren't happening).

Who hasn't been at the end of a UAD demo period wishing for a cheap extension?

Whilst I do find Steve a little 'extra' at times (I actually thought he was joking the first time that I saw one of his videos), I now get it, and enjoy the energy that he brings to the arena, and I don't understand the hate he gets for offering an alternative.

Ok, here we go.

The question becomes, regardless of hyperbole, how are the examples you are providing vs vs vs ?

I've got nothing against or for either, but I want to know....as a consumer, what I'm missing in audio.

I'm a recent UAD purchaser....enjoying it so far, but it performs a role in addition to the Slate plugins (and also my Waves plugins). I've only got a quad, but no way could I run channel processing or tape sims on every channel the way I do with VTM and VMR. I have to limit UAD to sends and special processing.

Yes, I know the channel strips are much less processor hungry. I think I'd need 12 processors or more to come close to replacing slate.

If you print through eg tape sims, that's different but I don't want to be running an Apollo.

If I may ask, what made you choose UAD? Was it certain plug-ins?

Good question. Yes, the desire for certain plugins. The wish to possibly offload a bit of the processing power. I'm trying to move more ITB for mixing - I still track through a large bunch of outboard, but I really want to be able to print stems etc offline - so wanted the massive passive for mixbuss duties etc.

I've just mixed an entire ep ITB, and I'm pretty confident that it holds up to the act's last ep that I mixed hybrid. And it's been a large chunk quicker to do.

I'm just gutted they're not selling the space echo anymore!

Yeah, I can see that.

Some people take allegiance to certain developers (in this case) and slate the competition.

Personally, I don't think UA is expensive, and even if they were I like what they offer so would probably still purchase.

The dongle argument in my opinion is nonsense and falls into the same logic as 'well its all zeros and ones' but each to their own!

FWIW, I think UAD are expensive.
I'm not criticising, it just limits what I'm buying.
I've been on the platform at least five years and most of my purchases have been more than $50, even with discount deals and vouchers. I can't imagine how anyone could own a lot of UAD plug-ins and only have paid $50 each.
I do think there is a reason hardly a month goes by without a UAD discount sale. It's probably when most people will buy their plug-ins.

For me the problem with UAD was processing power. I had an Apollo 16 and a quad satellite. That was not enough power to do what I wanted or should I say record how I was used to recording. I really liked the plug ins but I decided to sell it all and use other plugs and purchased 500 series units....which is much more time consuming but I am really liking the results.

Yes, it was on sale before they announced that...$79.xx is what I could have got it for but didn't react in time.

I'm a recent UAD purchaser as well, just got the quad for certain plugins. The processing does run out extremely fast, but I knew that going in. I mostly use Slate for channel processing and the UAD for reverbs and delays.
Didn't much care for the free plugins (legacy series) that came with it, Slate and IK beat the crap out of it, but their reverbs and delays sound good.

Well, that's what I paid. One of the reasons is that I took advantage of the power user deal they had a few months back so I got $1150 to spend on the summer sale. Plus I've gotten a few free plugins.

Yes, their business model depends on having regular sales. So yes, there's a reason they have those.

I don't think slates compressors sound nearly as good as UAD. UAD is the only one that seems to capture that depth that has always missed from plugs.
That said... I use a lot of slate still. I mix hybrid and still put VCC on every channel. I think the neve EQ emulation sounds more authentic than the UAD. But i like the UAD SSL emulation better. I love LOVE the relab 480 emulation. and yeah all the UAD effects are pretty great.. to be honest I couldn't live without either. Slate and UAD are both must haves if you mix ITB or hybrid.
Ive owned waves since early TDM and i could prolly get by without it.. minus the Ren comp. As far as a dongle.. my satellite is my satellite is my dongle and the Twin is the best on the go sound card I've ever owned.

I'm using UAD, and the plugins are really nice. I have a Slate plugin, the FG-X, and it is amazing as well. I only have 6-cores for UAD, but yeah, the processing runs out real quick. Thing is, I still love my other plugins, such as Waves and Soundtoys, so I don't really feel like I'm at a loss if I run out of power.

I have Apollo Twin and amount of UAD plugins. I have also Slate Digital Trigger, VCC, VTM and VBC. I`ve tried similar emulations from other developers, but I found out that I don`t need them. All I have is more than enough.

You are forgetting that Slate would only cost you 100 bucks a year IF you want to buy one of his plugins, because you get 200 bucks back at the end of the year...just adding that to your math!

I think UAD are expensive also. Exspecialy when you are limited on how many you can use. The best thing about it in my opinion is the unison plugins. Outside of those, I use slate and stock.