Universal AudioReviews of uaudio.com

I bought a UAFX Dream 65 pedal at the beginning of July 2023. When it arrived one of the rubber feet on the bottom of the unit kept falling off which I figured was no big deal as I could just put the foot back on. Eventually it was happening so frequently that it fell off somewhere and I couldn’t find the foot anywhere. Figuring that this wouldn’t be a big issue, I contacted Universal Audio on April 5th, 2024 to request a new foot, which I would be happy to pay for as these things must cost pennies - I just wanted the unit to be in the perfect condition it should have been from new. I attempted to get through to an actual human via the chat function on their website, and it took a week for somebody to get back to me (Ron from customer care). Ron was polite but asked me to provide him with all the details that had already filled in via the chat function. Regardless, I provided this information again, and on April 19th, Ron stated that he would get my details sent over to the service department. Ever since then I haven’t heard anything, and this is despite following up with a request for an update on May 7th. Here’s the thing; *I* know and *you* know that a small rubber for on a pedal is not really a big deal at all, despite the fact that in principle, I shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. The fact that this company cannot get such a small issue right says to me that they don’t care about aftersales one iota, and that if you bought one of their other – usually very expensive - pieces of equipment, that you will have your time wasted and you will receive practically zero in the way of customer care if you need it. The kicker here is that I’m a big user of high-quality studio gear and I usually use Fractal for my guitar tones, so I’m not afraid to pay money for high-end or expensive equipment. This is my first ever Universal Audio product which I bought as I enjoy experimenting with new gear, and for the sake of one small rubber foot they have entirely lost my custom (and that of my musician friends – they weren’t impressed either) as a result. Follow-up 11/6/24: I eventually did hear back from customers services and received a new set of feet. It's a shame that it was a lot of work for something so simple though, and I highly doubt I would've received the assistance had I not written a review here, so I'll leave the original review up, give an extra star, and say thanks to UA for the eventual help.

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 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 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.

Where to begin,....... I recently purchased a Universal Audio Apollo x4 QUAD Thunderbolt 3 Audio Interface (Refurbished/New) on Reverb.com directly from Universal Audio. I received the unit a few weeks ago (I am based in Bangkok, Thailand) and I immediately noticed the box and "picture frame" inside the box as well as the box containing the adapter looked very used, pretty beat up is more accurate I would say. And then along the away I also discovered a tiny chip on the jogwheel and some scuffing,on the right side of the unit as well. Then after hooking it up and downloading the software I noticed my unit was paired with an Apollo Twin MK II, according to the hardware configuration in Luna/Console, I can delete the Twin, but it comes back every time I restart the software (I don't own an Apollo Twin). In any case it became pretty clear to me that this was in fact a year old (if not older) 2nd hand unit that was repaired or something then dumped back into its old beat up box and passed of as Refurbished/NEW/B-Stock on the Reverb website. All the images of the item in the listing were stock photos of a new Apollo X4, unit even though Reverb requires sellers to post photos of the actual unit and highlight any damage that the item may have, so that potential buyers are aware of the condition the item is in. I basically paid $ 1,599.00 for a device that could in fact be almost 2 years old, it's just too much money for something that old. So then I complained on Reverb and opened a ticket directly on the UAD website and there was a bit of back and forth for about a week or so and then all communication stopped. UAD had stopped responding, possibly because they didn't like what I had to say. Also Reverb decided they couldn't support my claim either because I had bought the item in the US and then forwarded it to Bangkok, Thailand. I am not sure what else to do here, I am simply asking for a partial refund, which could be money, credit, plugins or whatever because I am not planning to send the device back to California and incur the additional shipping charges (back and forth) and more duties and taxes etc. just to get another 2nd hand unit that may look slightly better. Quite frankly I am wondering why the world's leader in Thunderbolt audio interfaces, analog recording hardware, and UAD audio plug-ins would want or need to sell used old devices for premium prices in such a misleading way on Reverb, it just doesn't suit a company of this stature, I am appalled and disappointed with the way this has been handled by UAD so far and I sincerely hope they will reach out to me a.s.a.p. and make this right.