People selling cracked plugins (WOW)

[GeertSamuel]

When I just started with this whole recording thing. I had a cracked version of Cubase & Waves. Every 2 weeks I had to reset my iLok. I wasn't doing this on any professional base. Then about 2 years later on, I had my first small project coming up. I bought Cubase and bought Drumagog. I didn't (and still don't) have money to buy Waves plugins. Cause they're way to expensive for me. So I bought Metric Halo Channelstrip. I jut want a 100% legal setup.

Cracked software is nice for learning, but as soon as you think or hope to make some money with it, buy the damn software. If only 10 or 20% of the people who download and use software would buy the software prices would probally also be lowered by 20%!

 

[Kazrog]

A lot of you guys would spend $975 on a killer amp setup or a nice guitar, right? Waves Gold is $975 and comes with just about everything you'd need:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GoldNat/

I'm not a Waves owner myself, but I've had a lot of experience with their stuff in pro studios. The Gold bundle seems like the best deal from them to me. I already have mastering plugins I prefer to Waves for mastering (UAD-1 Precision Limiter/EQ/Maximizer), but there's some other great stuff in Waves Gold that nobody else touches, like MaxxBass for getting low end punch, L1 (which I like better for overheads than for mastering) etc. I may get this bundle at some point, and it's what I'd recommend to anyone on a budget who "needs" the Waves sound.

Also - Waves has academic discounts. Seems like they've gotten a lot more reasonable with prices as of late.

 

[Machinated]

been away all weekend so haven't had a chance to read all of this....

if you can't afford expensive plugins then you shouldn't use them and you won't even be in a position to need them anyway. its crazy when you see people with every waves, sonnox, sonalksis, whatever plugin with nuendo 3 and they are just using it for private use.

the way I see it, if its private use the free and really cheap software would be ample. many people get on absolutely fine without waves diamond etc

 

[Skinny Viking]

Wow... im still shocked... I mean why the fuck would you even say that? I mean... Are you fucking kidding me? That shit is WAY OUT IN LEFT FIELD. Matter of fact... fuck you

Dude

Fucking BRAVO

 

[Skinny Viking]

and the fact you own a computer and indulge in any level whatsoever of audio production pretty much indicates that you aren't starving or doing without shelter. get a new argument.

and another BRAVO!!!

 

[Jaymz]

 

[Ermz]

To play devil's advocate here, let's take into account starting engineers. I'm sure most of us know that this is an extraordinarily hard industry to 'get into' and make a decent living out of. That's only compounded by how insanely competitive it is in the entry-level sector where everyone is fighting for bands to kick start their careers.

Say you are laden with an abundance of good morals and go the all-freeware route until you can make enough cash to sustain some pro plug-ins. All your competition are using a plethora of various cracked plug-in packs. Their tools allow them to tweak up better sounds and to boot, do it quicker than you. The question becomes one of sticking by your guns and slogging it out using half-arsed freeware tools, or succumbing to the competition and getting cracked plug-ins until you can financially sustain purchasing them.

I think a lot of the older guys lose touch with how hard it is to start out these days when everyone and their dog is a bedroom producer and a good majority have the Waves Mercury, Sonalksis, SSL, URS bundles etc. Does it sound like a good career choice to start on one leg down in an industry that's so amazingly hard to chip at? Like many people here, I went to an educational facility where cracked plug-ins were traded freely, without remorse. Hell, even the lecturers got in on the action and shared with the students. There's no sense of remorse amongst many people. If it can be had for free, then so be it, and since the consequences are almost non-existent there is only the aforementioned sense of guilt to push someone into buying them.

Let me say here that I don't condone piracy: Developers should be rewarded for their work. Though at the same time I can see why cracked plug-ins can feel like a necessity to those starting out and hoping to get ahead. In order to do so you have to create the most even or advantageous battleground. Where the morals take the person beyond the point where they can financially sustain those purchases is their business, but my hope is that they do the right thing and support the developers who are supporting them.

I constantly have bands hassling me to give them plug-ins, as if I'm some sort of piracy dispenser. They somehow associate engineers with free professional software hand outs, no matter how ill-equipped they are to actually use those tools to their full purpose. It's a disappointing situation when demoing bands have free reign of bundles such as Waves Mercury, completely taken for granted, with absolutely no knowledge or education on how to use them adequately.

 

[Mulder]

Ok, here's my 2 plugz:

My bank is going crazy cos their $100 bills can easily be scanned and reprinted and are accepted in every store.

Now who's to blame. The bank? No. The people who copy the notes? Yes.

Let's all say 'shame on you', wave fingers and look self-righteous and guess what? Nobody will copy $100 bills anymore.

Get real people. If it can be copied and no person in the flesh before you will get harmed, piracy will happen, human nature. Banknotes are very well protected against reproduction. Steinberg bought Synchrosoft. PT doesn't run without dedicated HW. That's how you do it.

Oh, btw, who of you refuses to watch a downloaded movie?

 

[James Murphy]

All your competition are using a plethora of various cracked plug-in packs. Their tools allow them to tweak up better sounds and to boot, do it quicker than you.

do they really? i don't buy that one. we all know perfectly well that it's not the tool, it's the user, that gets results.... so i don't think you are inferring anything to the contrary... at least i hope you're not.

let's assume you're not.... and the playing field is level otherwise... the guy with a thousand cracked plugs is not as likely to have learned any of them very well. those with a few known, trusted tools, and for which they a have clear and easy upgrade and support path, are going to be far more likely to know those tools well and get the most out of them.

if you came to my mix room and pulled up the plug-in list in Pro Tools you would likely be shocked at how very few i have.... i know them all well though, and i get incredible mileage out of them. i CAN afford more, but i could certainly manage the same if i could not.

 

[Skinny Viking]

Oh, btw, who of you refuses to watch a downloaded movie?

you lost me there ... who downloaded the movie?

thats kinda like saying if you were in a band and hired an engineer to mix your cd, he/she doesd a great job and it sounds amazing but then they tell you a lot of what they did involved using cracked/pirated plugs or DAW or whatever.

Is the question now if the band should say "no thank you" and refuse their awesome sounding mixed cd?

 

[James Murphy]

no carlos, that's really faulty logic there dude... that's like saying Farberware is responsible if i stab you in the face with one of their kitchen knives.



and i might,

 

[greyskull]

do they really? i don't buy that one. we all know perfectly well that it's not the tool, it's the user, that gets results.... so i don't think you are inferring anything to the contrary... at least i hope you're not.

let's assume you're not.... and the playing field is level otherwise... the guy with a thousand cracked plugs is not as likely to have learned any of them very well. those with a few known, trusted tools, and for which they a have clear and easy upgrade and support path, are going to be far more likely to know those tools well and get the most out of them.

if you came to my mix room and pulled up the plug-in list in Pro Tools you would likely be shocked at how very few i have.... i know them all well though, and i get incredible mileage out of them. i CAN afford more, but i could certainly manage the same if i could not.

im the same as you jimmy.

Less plugins that i know inside out, much better/faster way of working

 

[Ermz]

let's assume you're not.... and the playing field is level otherwise... the guy with a thousand cracked plugs is not as likely to have learned any of them very well. those with a few known, trusted tools, and for which they a clear and easy upgrade path, are going to be far more likely to know those tools well and get the most out of them.

Going with the hypothetical in the 2nd paragraph above, let's instead say that the cracked plug-ins guy has focused solely on Waves plug-ins, which constitute the majority of his use, and he also knows them quite well to boot. If the freeware guy with a roughly equal familiarity with his own freeware tools were to go up against the cracked guy, would the cracked plug-in guy not have the leg up in this scenario?

I've seen you arguing a few times that professionals tend to use professional tools, and what that tends to encompass is paying for high-grade product. We have to concede at some stage that the expensive plug-in bundles are more likely to give one better results, quicker, compared to stuff one might scrounge up on KVR. Of course not in every single case, but is it not fair to say it would be in most?

What I'm trying to suggest is that people starting out want the best leg up they can possibly get. When those around them (say in most audio schools) freely exchange top-tier, professional product, why would they themselves opt to work with freeware 'amateur grade' product? Just trying to shine some light on the perspective and a situation I, along with some others I know battled with quite a bit.

Only 4 years down the track have I been able to get to a point where I can actually sustain some sort of living purely with audio, and most of my income is STILL going towards paying off the gear I had to invest in to even get this whole shebang started!

 

[Skinny Viking]

no carlos, that's really faulty logic there dude... that's like saying Farberware is responsible if i stab you in the face with one of their kitchen knives.



and i might,

my logic or Mulder's logic? I wasn't saying its what I thought, agreed or disagreed with ... was saying that his last statement left me a little confused to the point he was trying to make and it sounded a lot like saying something similar to the scenario I synthesized

I stab back at thee with alliteration

 

[LydonB]

It's a disappointing situation when demoing bands have free reign of bundles such as Waves Mercury, completely taken for granted, with absolutely no knowledge or education on how to use them adequately.

I agree with some of the points that you made. This statement to me makes the piracy stuff seem all the dumber. Why get something you have no idea how to work or even understand at all? Learning to use and understand something by trial and error I guess. But so many companies offer demos and freeware. If a person can learn the basic principles of something, like compression for example, the learned principles should in theory transfer to any compression plugin. So that really makes me wonder why people need top of the line stuff to learn on and cannot settle for a Freeware compressor to learn the basics. Maybe they feel it will make them better quicker if they have top of the line stuff? I know a lot of kids at school who trade plugins and full programs like it is nothing. What is even worse is that a lot of them take out loans for gear and they buy all this stuff and they don't buy plugins because "we can get them for free, so why buy them?" Really stupid mentality but whatever.

As far as I am concerned, there are two fundamental things that make a good engineer what they are. Knowing how to use their ears and knowing where to place microphones.

 

[James Murphy]

Only 4 years down the track have I been able to get to a point where I can actually sustain some sort of living purely with audio, and most of my income is STILL going towards paying off the gear I had to invest in to even get this whole shebang started!

congratulations... takes most longer than that.


look, you can tweak the scenario a million ways from Sunday.. doesn't change the basic tenants of what i've said. Hey, what if i want a leg up in the banking industry... shall i steal a bank? (a savvy enough individual can do so, online, using a fake site designed to appear as the legit site of an existing bank). Surely the extreme competitiveness and difficulty in breaking into that field shall justify my action, and hey... as long as i conduct business properly otherwise and don't steal from the customers it should be cool, yeah?

i understand you are playing Devil's Advocate with your post, and i'm responding... no need to point out what you stated at the top of your post... i get it... and i'm "playing" back...

but i mean, at what point do we start asking, "well what if the guy with Waves cracks is wearing blue underpants and the guy using freeware likes kitties?" it's all just as irrelevant as that with regard to the basic principles of the situation... and we HAVE to distill it to those, otherwise this line of discussion could just go on forever.

 

[Skinny Viking]

my logic or Mulder's logic? I wasn't saying its what I thought, agreed or disagreed with ... was saying that his last statement left me a little confused to the point he was trying to make and it sounded a lot like saying something similar to the scenario I synthesized

I stab back at thee with alliteration

James?

 

[James Murphy]

yeah yeah Carlos.. you weren't clear enough. i get what you intended now...

still thinking about stabbin' you in the face though.:Smug:

 

[Skinny Viking]

yeah yeah Carlos.. you weren't clear enough. i get what you intended now...

still thinking about stabbin' you in the face though.:Smug:

are you still mad I came in you? I said "don't move" like 3 times

**DISCLAIMER**

any and all comments between James and I are purely for entertainment purposes. Anything meant in true hate & anger would be done through private mail but there is no actual animosity between us

sing "You're My Best Friend" from Queen while viewing the image below

 

[James Murphy]

it's amazing how quickly casual, good-spirited banter turns to disturbingly inappropriate familiarity with you Carlos. let's not derail this thread with your active fantasy life please.