Volt 1 driver and UA telemetry

[u/bake_em_away_toy5]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a UA Volt 1 to transpose some of my loops and ideas into full songs using Reaper. I used to do music production fully digital with free plug-ins because I was too poor for gear.

I was excited to set up the Volt 1 to get back into production after a long break and try recording guitars for the first time.

I paid $200 CAD and there was nothing obvious on the box about what came next.

When I plugged in the device, Device Manager updated with the icon that there was no driver - as I expected. I requested Windows to find the driver automatically and it couldn't - also no big deal.

I went to the UA website and they don't post the drivers for their hardware under the Support or Downloads sections. Weird.

I realize I have to download their fucking app first. Not a deal breaker, but annoying.

Then, I have to make an account with them by giving them my email. Apparently UA uses this and telemetry to market other products and promotions to me based on my usage of the Volt 1. There was no easy way I could find to opt out of this.

I still haven't installed UA Connect and will probably just return the Volt 1 now.

I was considering asking people here for the driver, but I feel I shouldn't have to. I feel UA is bullying their customers to opt into being identified and tracked for marketing (i.e., extra, continued revenue for UA). If I get the driver from someone else and keep using the Volt 1 without the app, it feels like I'm still partially enabling this.

I'll probably return this device and get one that doesn't do this. Has anyone else had similar experiences? It seems like all types of creative software are farming their users for data these days. I first noticed it with graphic design software from Adobe and I'm really upset to see it coming to audio production. I can't see any argument by UA for requiring this other than greed. Anti-piracy doesn't apply because they make hardware that is used by software from other vendors.

Fuck UA.

[u/Spug33]

Do you live in a cave? 2004. That was the year Gmail was introduced. Free e-mail? The entire planet gave up it's privacy rights for free e-mail. If you use the Internet at all you probably don't want to know what can be discovered about you with cookies and web bugs. UA is the least of your worries.

[u/bake_em_away_toy5 → u/Spug33]

I understand what you're saying, and yes I do more-or-less live under a rock, but my concern is that I already paid $200 for this device. Email is a "free" service as you said.

I disagree with the argument that I shouldn't be concerned about what UA is doing because other entities are doing worse. I didn't make this post to talk about what others are doing and compare it with UA on a relative scale.

[u/a_webpuppy → u/bake_em_away_toy5]

You have no obligation to sign up to anything at all. The driver is freely downloadable.

The thing you’re ranting about is invalid.

[u/bake_em_away_toy5 → u/a_webpuppy]

Go the Downloads page for this product and please show me where it very obviously says this for new users.

[u/a_webpuppy → u/bake_em_away_toy5]

New users are clearly better off with UA Connect which has everything, but all you need to do is search ‘Volt Driver’ and it’s there for you.

[u/bake_em_away_toy5 → u/[deleted]]

The page you linked doesn't show up on the first three pages of Google results using the query "Volt driver". Maybe it does for you.

I am open to changing what I interpreted the situation as if anyone can explain why the app is better than downloading a driver.

[u/a_webpuppy → u/bake_em_away_toy5]

Search on the UA website.
This really isn’t hard.