If you are a UAD plug-ins user it can be a little frustrating when you have to wade through the entire plug-ins list to get to the ones you have a license for. There is now a neat solution to this called Hide & Seek UAD Plugins. This is a free to download software utility that allows you to disable and enable UAD-2 plug-ins on your system to stop them from being included when you launch your DAW. We take a look.
Hide & Seek UAD Plugins
At the time of writing this article, there are over 150 plug-ins in the UAD-2 arsenal and I’m willing to bet not many UAD-2 users own (license) all of them. However, when you install a piece of UAD-2 compatible hardware like a UAD-2 Satellite an Octo PCIe card or one of the Apollo range of interfaces all of those plug-ins are installed in your system and are available to you, either to buy or demo every time you launch your DAW of choice which can put added load on your computers already overworked resources.
Enter Brazilian musician and programmer Daniel Carneiro Castanho who has written a very nice little utility for Mac with a Windows version coming soon called Hide & Seek UAD Plugins.
The software is very simple to download and install. Then all you need to do is create a Save Detailed System Profile from the bottom of the UAD Control Panel and point Hide & Seek UAD Plugins (H&S) at it using the button in the top right of the H&S GUI.
From initial testing, it looks like this application is making light work of the tedious job of moving the UAD-2 plug-ins from the Used to the Un-used folder for AU, VST and AAX plug-ins. It’s very easy to make plug-ins Shown or Hidden in the app while corresponds to Used or Unused in your DAW.
If you want to try Hide & Seek Plugins you can download it from here. The application is free to download but there is a PayPal donation button built into the GUI so if you do use it and like it, please do contribute to the software’s ongoing development.
We are working with Universal Audio to make sure that using the Hide & Seek application is not going to affect or break other aspects of the UAD-2 workflow including their Console application for use with Arrow and the Apollo interfaces. While Universal Audio obviously can not endorse the Hide & Seek UAD application they have told us that using it should have any adverse effects on your system but they do stress that this app has not been and will not be fully tested by UA engineers.
Disclaimer
Please also remember that the Hide & Seek Plugins application and the download link are outside the control of Production Expert, we offer no support, warranty, implied or otherwise.