SOUND ON SOUND

[Mixedup]

Here's the good news

[Luke W]

"It’s too early to announce details on the schedule or the new environment, but one thing is for sure: the future will be dongle-free."

It's going to be a subscription based licence isn't it... :lol:

[The Korff]

Not according to their statement from January:

[Kwackman]

Probably makes sense as they've had two bad episodes with their dongles recently.

[Luke W]

Not according to their statement from January:

That's reassuring, it seems that fewer and fewer companies are staying away from it these days. Not a Steinberg user currently but I'm interested to see what they go for.

[Eddy Deegan]

I would probably have bought Cubase a year or so ago but after seeing the problems other people were having with the dongles and the fact you couldn't even evaluate it without one, not to mention that I hate dongles anyway, I steered well clear.

I'm now happily using Studio One and have invested enough time, money and energy into it that I'm sticking with it (unless that ends up going to a subscription model only!) but it's good to see Steinberg dumping the dongle.

It makes you wonder just how much hassle it's caused their support in recent years. I read a couple of horror stories about license server outages causing all sorts of mayhem as well.

[The Elf]

I've had no major problems with Steinberg's dongles, though it's long been necessary to let the dongle software do a 'Maintenance' sweep on it following each major software update to avoid an error message on first start up. That catches many people out every time.

On the release of C11 it took ages for the licenser software to apply the update. I was fairly lucky and managed to sort it out in a few hours (and could keep running while I waited) - some people were stuck for a long time without access to their software. It got quite heated, so it's not surprising they'd be looking to an alternative future.

I gain a USB port - hoorah! :clap:

It's a pity iLok isn't the one about to disappear - that's the one for which I always have to grit my teeth. It's a pain every single time it's involved and installations never go smoothly. That's a grave I will throw a party on.

Hmmm... so I wonder what Steinberg's new solution will make of me having two dongles? 50% discount?... ;) :D

[Luke W]

It's a pity iLok isn't the one about to disappear - that's the one where for which I always have to grit my teeth. It's a pain every single time it's involved and installations never go smoothly. That's a grave I will throw a party on.

I think I must be about the only person left on the planet who hasn't been messed around by iLok at some stage, I've always expected it and been ready to start moaning and it seems to go smoothly every time.

You know what's going to happen now I've said that...

[The Elf]

You know what's going to happen now I've said that...

[blinddrew]

I was going to agree with you until I saw the Elf's post...

But I've always existed in the dongle-free realm of ilok.

[Eddy Deegan]

I was going to agree with you until I saw the Elf's post...

But I've always existed in the dongle-free realm of ilok.

Yeah, I have the dongle free version of iLok as the protection for my Eastwest Symphonic Choirs. Never had any issues at all with it, it just works.

I'm not a massive fan of iLok based on some very annoying earlier experiences with the dongle format, and I bought the plugin 13 years ago before I knew better, when it had a hardware dongle requirement.

That said, since rediscovering and reinstalling it a year or so ago and converting to the electronic version of iLok I've not even known that iLok is there which is a good thing.

[Agharta]

I have found the ilok cloud to be reliable.
If you swap out your CPU, do deactivate all your licences before you do so because your machine will be given a new system ID afterwards.
So those activations won’t be accessible any more and you can’t deactivate them yourself unless you reinstall the old CPU which gives you access to the old system ID.
Otherwise you will have to contact each vendor individually to ask if they will delete those activations as ilok can’t help you.

[The Elf]

Err... yeah. Simple innit?! :headbang: :lol:

[blinddrew]

Actually it is, as long as you do it in the right order. It's only complicated if you don't follow the instructions...

[The Elf]

How about: "Unplug dongle from old computer. Plug dongle into new computer".

Now those are simple instructions! :lol: