u/Seafroggys

EDIT: SOLVED: Literally just updated the firewire drivers in Device Manager, instantly made everything work.

Interesting conundrum here. I bought a used Satellite Firewire Quad on reverb. Came with a Firewire PCI breakout box that was authorized by UA. Installed that, got it working. Installed the older UAD drivers per the instructions (11.5.2) for the Firewire unit.

Windows recognizes the unit. It shows up in Device Manager as a UAD-2 DSP unit, but with outdated or no drivers. It blinks the red/green that signals, which means the drivers isn't communicating with the device. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers numerous times, even going back to 11.0.1, to no avail.

It's a fresh computer build using older hardware I had lying around, so brand new Windows 10 install.

Bit of a long post. I am about to recently overhaul my whole interface/PC situation. I am still running a nearly 20 year old PC. Back in 2009, when the UAD-2 was first released, they started selling off their UAD-1 stock for dirt cheap, so I picked up a couple UAD-1 cards to get started on some good quality plugins (since until then I was just using freeware plugins, and for those of you who were around in the late 00's....they were miss way more than hits).

Anyway, I've been kind of passively following what UAD has been doing over the years. At first the UAD-2's were just super buff UAD-1 cards....I can remember even as far back as 2010, people were complaining that PC's were finally strong enough to no longer need DSP cards, and that UAD-2's were nothing more than glorified dongles. And its been over 15 years since then! Anyway, it seems UAD slowly phased out the UAD-2 cards and replaced them with their interfaces like the Apollo. I thought those were cool, but I've never been interested in getting a UAD interface (I'm going RME for my upgrade).

And then a couple of years back they started going native! So I absolutely love the UAD plugins I have.....I have the Pultec, 1176, LA-2A, EMT 140, Helios, Trident, and the DeEsser. I'm not going to bother with the UAD-1 cards, UAD stopped supporting them over a decade ago, so I'm just leaving them in the old PC, so I pretty much "lost" those plugins and will have to essentially replace them.

• It looks like the classic 1176 and LA-2A's are now free, and native, so I can still use those without paying money. I could get the upgraded UAD-2 versions, but the OG plugins served me perfectly well so I'll keep on using those.
• While I will lose out on the Helios and Pultec, those also have Mk. 2 versions, so I feel justified in paying money to get those versions. So boo on spending money but I will be getting a technically better version of those plugs.
• The Trident is perhaps my least used UAD plugin, I used it for a bit but have shifted to a similar 4 channel EQ in the freeware BootEQ in recent years. I probably won't bother replacing this, so no money lost there.
• The DeEsser is nothing special...I got the feeling that the Precision series was just generic digital plugins that weren't modeled on anything in particular. I do DeEss sometimes, but not enough to really warrant me buying this again....I'm sure there's some solid freeware options now.
• The EMT 140 is the real kicker here. Its the only reverb I use, and probably my favorite plugin. Problem....it still has no native support. So while I likely will need to buy this again, I probably won't be able to use it for awhile. And AFAIK its the same classic version, so if/when I do buy this, I will literally be buying the same plugin again, so that sucks.

ANYWAY, with that out of the way....how does native support work? Does it use iLok? This computer will be offline, so I guess the main question is can I even use these native UAD plugs without connecting to the internet?

Also, are UAD-2 cards still a viable option? I do see the original PCIe cards for sale on Reverb and ebay, but they're being charged similar amounts to how much they cost brand new back in the early 2010's....which was a lot of money (I remember Octo cards costing close to $1000 when they came out). Do people still even use these cards, or have people largely abandoned them for the interfaces. And why are people asking for tons of money to sell them used? Surely at this point in time something like an Octo card would be worth no more than $200....

Anyway, just need some clarification on how to go about UAD these days, since I absolutely love their plugs (and may pick up some of the UAD-2 era plugs I missed out on).

Needless to say, I think this is a cool idea. I mean, sure, it does lean on the gimmicky side, but I've been meaning to do a 'tape-style' recording for years, but just never got around to doing it. Something like this can be the kick that I need to do a project like this!

And for $29, that's a steal. I can't buy this yet, as my studio computer is an old Pentium D rig I built in 2007 running Windows XP, running Reaper version 4, UAD-1 cards, and my interface is the old Firestudio 26x26. I am looking into doing a full upgrade to a more modern computer, with an RME Fireface interface, relatively soon, so with that I can run a more modern OS so I can run a DAW like this.

I do have a few questions to ask:

• Is the $29 a perpetual license? Or how many versions does it support? Assuming this is something that has long-term development/support. I know a Reaper license is good for one major upgrade (I bought my license with Reaper 3, and can use 4, for example). How will that work for this?
• The system requirements seem kind of steep. Have you done extensive testing of this on different computers? I have my old gaming PC lying around, which is a 2017-era AMD (pre-Ryzen) that I was planning on using as my 'new' recording PC, considering the price of current PC parts. Audio isn't a super resource intensive endeavor (unlike video editing), and DAW's like Reaper are designed to run on much older/slower computers, so I'm just wondering if Tape 16 has been tested on older computers, or if it's really that much of a resource hog, why is that?
• How does the built-in tape effects compare with other popular tape effect plugins? If it's a really good effect that's comparable to the better plugins out there, that's a selling point enough for me, even with the steeper computer requirements.
• You may have talked about this in one of the videos I watched, but how easy it is to import files recorded in other DAW's into something like this? I'm thinking this because a lot of the recording projects I do involve remote recording, so I can't really help what they use/the tools they use, but would love to integrate it into Tape 16's workflow.
• EDIT: Is the license only for one computer? I have my main recording PC at my music studio, but I also do some smaller recordings on my gaming computer here at my apartment. I have the same Reaper license installed on both of them. I was wondering if it would be possible for me to do this with Tape 16, or would I need two licenses to run it on two computers?

Anyway, subbed to this subreddit, and am now actively following development. Like I said, great idea that I'd love to use when I finally do my upgrade, just need some clarification on different things.