I recently got a new MacBook Pro, largely for working on music. This weekend I went through the time-consuming but exciting process of installing all my software on it. I will probably still use my Windows desktop as a VST plugin farm as soon as I figure out how (probably straight up MIDI connection), but most of these licenses allow for 3-4 installations of the products. How nice of them. That’s where the “nice” ends.
So who was the worst? No one company can lay claim to that.
Steinberg (Cubase).
I knew this one would be bad because it uses that most dreaded of copy-protect methods, the dongle. You store your license on an iLok USB dongle and I’m pretty sure in theory it doesn’t matter how many computers you run it on, as long as you have that license. This was a crazy insane process that forced me to reinstall Cubase every 24 hours on my Windows machine for a few days until it was resolved. But on the Mac it was surprisingly smooth. I actually upgraded my version of Cubase and the upgrade license just wiped the old and replaced it. Now I’m good. Overall, the smoothest experience. Too bad it’s a freaking dongle. I hope I never have to open Cubase onstage, because that thing is not leaving my desk ever.
Native Instruments (Reaktor).
I installed Reaktor from a burned DVD I made because I’m not allowed to go back and re-download the installer anymore. Rad. That worked ok, except on startup, the Native Instruments Service Center (which is an Adobe-like thing that handles both updating and licensing) crashed. Enjoy your $100 paperweight DVD (I got a deal: standard pricing is $500). I googled and finally found a link to the Snow Leopard installer for the thing, and got it working. Of course, the first thing Service Center always does is upgrade itself, which is hilarious, then it licenses and upgrades Reaktor. Should be smooth now.
SoniVOX (Soundstage).
Crappy little sample player program that has a few decent sounds and cost me $10 but still manages to install PACE extensions (which require Rosetta!) to live on your computer forever. Nice.
IK Multimedia (SampleTank, Miroslav Philharmonik, AmpliTube).
IK makes some of the cornerstone plugins for my setup, and now they’ve started using a Service Center-like application to manage licenses. After you find the serial number (in the box) and your login for their user area somewhere in your email, you can log in and download all your purchased software and sounds. Well, most of them. I bought a 5-pack of SampleTank sound sets a few months back for about $50 that now require a “re-activation” fee (of $25 for each of the 5) to download again. So… I’m kinda stuck with SampleTank’s default sound set now or I run it off the old computer. I’m not buying something again for more than it cost the first time.
Keep in mind that, with the exception of Reaktor, these are low-cost, prosumer, sub-$100 pieces of software, not the bread and butter $800+ versions that they sell to corporate-owned studios.
Overall? Music software lives in a worse ghetto of 15-year-old attitudes about piracy and pricing than graphic design software, and the people who design these systems don’t even come close to recognizing what effects their crap processes have on the cumulative experience of installing software.
