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[Originally Posted by Admiral]On the whole, I agree with your argument, but I don't like this point. There's no reason why the protection level (or even the pricing) of a plugin should be dependent on that of its host. Many VST plugins cost way more than the most expensive mixing software you could find and I think that's justification for stronger protection. The VST/VSTi business is a huge one these days and, in this reverser's opinion, it has just as much right to protection as any other. |
Hi Admiral...thanks for response. Can't say I disagree totally with your arguement, and I'd like to expound in detail. As it is, I feel I've gotten off the track of the original post, so I'll try to keep to the point. Perhaps the moderators would like to move this to another arena, or just axe it.
The entire process of making music to be played back over a stereophponic system is illusion. The producer's aim is to create illusions of depth, height, ambience, and even to enhance and augment talent. The purists don't even need plugins other than those that come bundled with the software, which is pretty decent stuff these days. And the industrious can find loads of adequate freeware on the net.
Although waves is a real good product, it's a luxury. If you were buying a car, and an 'extra' cost you more than the car itself, what would you think?
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[Originally Posted by Admiral]Perhaps less importantly I'd like to point out that although Sonar may be flaky, some of the other 'industry standard's are far more troublesome. Cubase SX 3 in particular caused much grief for the bigger cracking groups. |
when you say 'flaky', I assume you're referring to my comment about the low-level serial protection on the product. Sonar/Cakewalk has established itself as one of the premier DAW's (digital Audio Workstations) available. It is used by many top flight audio/video producers.
One of the problems I have seen with Cubase/Steinberg is their almost paranoid protection schemes. I remember way back trying one of that genre of European products and I found the logic behind it so remote that I had to give up on it. For me, early Cubase offered the same problems. Between their unusual logic and their protection schemes, I have stayed as far away from those products as possible, for the same reason the writer of Kayaker's article did. When I buy a product, I don't want to be at the mercy of the manaufacturer, waiting for them to fix the situtation at their leisure. Cakewalk, being one of the earliest of such software, have ignored the piracy and plodded on.
One of the top Daw's available today is the Digisound product, but it comes with a proprietary sound card/interface that makes it pricey. I had forgotten till I read Kayaker's article that it also uses the Pace system. I could never understand their requirement of an in-house audio card/interface for their software product till now. It's just another level of protection. I mean, how paranoid can you get, that you'd alienate many buyers with a flaky protection system and the requirements of their own interface card?
Even at that, I had considered buying their system, card and all. I nearly fell over when I learned it would not work on an Asus motherboard. If you don't know, Asus is about the premier motherboard manufacturer out there. Now, wasn't that brilliant? You put out a product with an interface that wont work on one of the top motherboards available, and all because of one voltage on the PCI card.
It just so happens that Steinberg and Digisound are two of the manufacturers whose pricing is beyond the average Joe. These are the people who are charging megabucks for their plugins, and in the case of Digisound, are so paranoid, that they use a proprietary sound card on top of a flaky protection. I'll bet everyone in their offices runs around wearing suspenders and a belt to hold up their pants. My take on it is this: these companies are run by hackers who are so greedy thay can't put out a decent, affordable system.
If you want an example of a decent afforable system, look no farther than the Soundblaster series of Audigy cards. Purists still look down their noses at Soundblaster, largely because of the toy-like quality of their earlier products. That's their loss because the Audigy series has stepped up the quality to a point where professional recordings can be made on them by people who know what they are doing.
WHat most people don't know is that the Audigy IV card drivers can be adapted for use on the earliest Audigy I models, giving the user access to state-of-the-art drivers. And the price has remained pretty even at under US $300 for a professional quality card. Soundblaster has made their money by not being greedy and appealing to the masses. They have know for some time that the Audigy II, III and IV drivers can be easily hacked and applied to earlier models, but have taken no steps to protect their software.
At least two of the major players in the audio business, Cakewalk and Soundblaster, have not fallen prey to greediness. I think the problem with some of the rest is a general paranoia that comes with the desire to make money and the unrealistic fear of losing it to imaginary sources. The laughable part, however, is that no matter how difficult the protectionists have tried to make it, ALL of their products are freely available on the internet in good, working condition. So what was the point?
The thing that has amazed me is that major software companies haven't gotten together with Microsoft and Intel to design a hardware/software approach to protection. Maybe that is in the offing, and Microsoft have already indulged that to an extent. I don't know if that would work, however, since even hardware can be hacked. Just as software code can be hooked, hardware signals can be diverted.