Universal Audio Reviews 121

Universal Audio is a pro's choice, their plugins are seriously cool. The Spark subscription is just awesome – I've got an Apollo sound card from them with a bunch of plugins that came with the purchase. I've mixed a lot of songs on this cool gear and the plugins really made our tracks sound amazing.

I also want to give a shoutout and respect for their DAW Luna. I've been using Logic Pro for 10 years, and after seeing it in action, I decided to mix and record a track in Luna. I was worried it wouldn't click with me, but I really wanted to test the legendary Ampex ATR-102 tape emulator and Luna's other features. To my surprise, I really liked your DAW. The Ampex and summing consoles from API & Neve are pure joy, and they even gave me a free 30-day demo. The legendary mastering consoles from Ampex & Neve gave me the sound I needed – warm vintage vibes. The track turned out awesome, and your Luna 🌙 gave me the feeling of working with an analog mixing console. Thanks, guys, keep improving your DAW and delighting us with your plugins.

Your Ampex ATR102 plugin integrated into Luna is just luxurious. Can't wait for a discount to grab it with both hands and feet.

Absolutely horrific customer support. I spent $200 on plugins during their cyber sale and they didn't show up in my library. Can't get a human on the phone and just got a response from the ticket I opened on 12/4 saying they can't service the ticket.

The WORST customer service as there is NONE!!! I am out 49$ because they cannot put my plug in purchases in my iLok account.

I finally decided to buy a UA native plugin, and so wish I hadn't. In order to even install the plugin you have to use UA Connect, which doesn't work. I've raised a support ticket but had no response other than the automated "we've received your support request".
I'll be demanding a full refund and will never touch UA with a barge pole ever again. Hopeless.

I have submitted 2 support tickets and I only got 1 stupid robot answer with links to articles totally unrelated to the problem which I clearly spelled out in my tickets. The only number you can call hangs up on you after telling you to submit a ticket. This is supposed to be professional equipment. It should have professional support. But it doesn't. I'm fed up!

No customer service. Dont know why to bother to put a number on your page if its nobody to respond. Im having an issue i cant sort without customer service.

See title. I really hope that companies with this obvious money-grabbing attitude (like UAD) will soon realise they'd be better of just focussing on product quality and good customer support. I sold my UAD hardware and I'm better of with hardware by another brand. Regarding software they're quite good, so hopefully UAD will focus on developing and maintaining this and offering it in a more fair (stable), less fun-fair alike system/webshop.

I bought the Lexicon reverb plugin. I cannot use it, but the installation stepped through the licensing through the iLock cloud, instead of normal, without forewarning (otherwise I would not have bought it), but i don't have nor want a dongle; the company will not cancel the license and issue a refund. This is outright theft, in my opinion, very shabby customer relations in cahoots with Plugin Boutique. So I have a supposedly activated license but the VST will not properly load into Ableton Live, and I can't expunge it from my iLock either. Very, very poor.

I decided not to give 1 star because I remember a time when the CS was excellent, and the plugs could not be beaten.

However, there are many other companies putting out top notch plugs that completely hold their own, UA need to acknowledge this unfortunate fact and bring their products in line with that reality. They are simply way overpriced for the market they exist in today.

Beyond that, they could and should have made sure their 'legacy' products (like the 800 firewire Satellites) continue to work for modern OSX (you can't use it beyond Catalina). At the moment I have £2,000 worth of hardware investment and many thousands of pounds worth of plugs that I can only use on setup, essentially 'baked-in' to a UA corner.

When you ask customers to believe in your products, and ask them to pay that kind of money, you should do whatever possible to keep them working as technology moves on.

Recently they've gone native, but it's not like you can just port over your session and have them work natively. For no apparent reason there are only a few select plugs available natively, and if you use a legacy plug you need to 'upgrade' to have it work.

Customer service is much slower these days.

I had high expectations when I bought my Apollo Solo from Universal Audio (UA). The brand had a reputation for quality, and for a while, my device worked perfectly. But as all electronics inevitably do, it encountered an issue and stopped powering up.

Being the diligent and patient consumer, I reached out to UA's customer support. I provided them with all the necessary details, from the fault to my personal details for shipping, expecting a quick resolution.

Aiden from Customer Support acknowledged my complaint and promised that their services team would assess the situation. I believed I was on the right track to having my Apollo Solo repaired or replaced.

But it was all downhill from there.

Days turned into weeks, and my repeated attempts to get a status update were met with silence. My trust in the brand was eroding as each day passed. Their customer support’s lack of communication and apparent disregard for a customer facing a warranty issue is disheartening, to say the least.

It's not just about the device failing to work; electronics can have issues. It's about how a company chooses to stand behind its products and value its customers. And on this front, Universal Audio has deeply disappointed me.

For anyone considering investing in UA's products, my experience serves as a cautionary tale. Their products might be great (as long as they work), but if you face any issues, brace yourself for a support nightmare and getting upright ignored.

If you purchase a plugin make sure your email address is the one that is registered to your iLOK manager otherwise your product will be stuck in the Guest Cloud which is very annoying.

There is no way to merge this account to the one with my iLok email address.

I will update review to a full five star if this matter is resolved within 31 days which is pretty fare.

(update)

They sorted it out promptly i'm over the moon. Apollo Twin Soundcard is on my priorities list. Thanks UA

Spark plugins are really good! I’ve become dependent on them to make my music sound how I want it to.

The Spark subscription is a little more expensive than ones from other brands, but the quality is a lot better to my ears, and everything just works!

I don't want to leave this review, have had the apollo for years and have purchased more plugins than I like to admit. Recently signed up for their UA Connect Service & literally nothing has worked for over a month, plugins no longer even show up in my DAW, the UA Connect app never connects and their support takes WEEKS to respond. Unbelievable, it's not like they're a cheap company, how is your support SO AWFUL? Happy to revise my review If You Get Your Sh*! Together!

Definitely selling my apollo twin for something else due to the nonexistent customer service. These are some of the most expensive interfaces and plugins on the planet but there's no customer service. I payed for the spark subscription but the ua.connect.app won't open. The only part about this entire situation that went smoothly is when they charged my debit card. It was immediate and no problems whatsoever when taking my money. I can't wait until I get rid of this thing. Don't believe the Apollo hype. Purchase you something more reliable.

Here is my story about UA. It is an expensive pedal and I bought it because of the sound. It is amazing! However, here is why I gave it a bad rating on quality:
1. My first unit came in with a broken switch. It was obviously not from transport, but from QC at the factory
2; Now I have a working one, but... the bluetooth connection is not working. The connection is not stable. I contacted UA support. They gave me indication , which resulted in losing my presets and not being able to connect to the pedal.
I am very disappointed about UA, and if I ever thought this again, I would have bought a Strymon. Sorry UA.

Made a bit of a mistake with support. with the license on my site. gave one star. but this ended with me getting my stolen sound card back. Thanks for the suppor

I own two of Universal Audio's Apollo x8 interfaces (around $3k each) and several of their UAD plugins that were purchased in-addition (which only work with UA’s proprietary hardware). I really enjoyed the initial Universal Audio ecosystem experience and decided to buy a second device (to cascade devices) as a better option to add more channels—compared to dealing with ADAT options.

When I purchased my second Apollo x8, I received some extra UAD plugins (around 8), which really made me feel confident about my purchase and choice to further invest into Universal Audio. Two weeks later, UA sent me a short email stating that I received free plug-ins in error and that they would be removing them. Two days later they removed activation for 8 plugins from my account & computer without any record of what was actually added or removed. A few days after that, I reluctantly purchased six more UADs via a third-party so that I could gain some more options.

What I realize in hindsight, is that with all of the UADs I have purchased there is no static, detailed log of what I actually own. All I can see is what UA says I own under the "My Plug-in Library" in my online account and in my UA Control panel on my computer, which both sync together like other plugin and app management portals—and this dynamically changes as they give and take.

So please be aware that when you commit to UA's ecosystem, they have free rein over the "My Plug-in Library" section of your account (which from what I can see is the only documentation of what you own). The invoices logged to your online account also lack details (e.g. some transactions say bundle, but no details of the specific UADs you picked). An example of why this matters—I believe that one of the UADs they took back was in error, but I have no way to prove it because of how this system updates.

UA makes licensing errors & has a take-away policy that you can’t dispute, because you don’t have a static log of transactions. Please keep this in mind before you set forth on a very expensive journey with Universal Audio’s product line. A product is only as good as the team responding to issues.

Support is not ok. Ask 3 things you get 1 answered at best. They avoid anything you aks or want to be made clear. I really am disappointed about UAD support.
You get kind but useless response reply takes a whole day so if you ask 5 thing you are busy for a week to get things clear. Getting wrong answer is pretty common as well (the head of support manager Dan is a bully and prefers to hide and tell you to shut up or they will block support) Having 10.000 euro invested doesn't make a difference to be kind or understanding. I hate being owner of good plugins which are not updated and asking questions leads to trouble and conflict. I hate it.

if that's what they do is what they call Support, then good luck!

Garbage customer service and garbage plugins