I Downloaded This Amazing Free Plug-in, And You Won't Believe What Happens Next...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
I’m experimenting with clickbait-style post titles. Other audio blogs appear to be testing the waters with this information abortion, so I figure “hey, why not join the crowd?” How am I doing?
Anyhow, this is just a general info-dump of goings-on in my little corner of the world.
1. Unless you live under a rock, you know about the Eventide freebie, UltraChannel. I actually wouldn’t normally bring it up here at all, as even though the Eventide guys are BFFs of ours and make stupifyingly good plug-ins (and even better hardware), their plugs are iLok only. However, as a result of a UI contract I’m currently doing, I had to install and tame an iLok. (And, god forbid, PT11.) Since I have one now, I was all “fuck it” and furthermore “whatevs.” And got myself an UltraChannel. (And all the other Eventide native plugs while I was at it.) I’ll say this much: UltraChannel is almost worth sucking it up for iLok. A fantastic, creative channel plug that is light on the CPU, yet extremely capable. If you have an iLok, or are thinking about buying one of those little buttplugs, here’s where you get the Ultrachannel; use coupon code 0F736710. It’ll be like $249 or something in a month or two, so if you’re gonna do it, do it now.
2. Just in case you think I might have changed my mind or am in any way endorsing it, fuck PACE and fuck iLok.
3. I’m pleased to report that my schedule, which was a bit hairy there for a while, is returning, slowly and surely, to its normal lazy, meandering ways, which means I’ll be able to finish off the Audio Damage DRM Removal Event, and also bring the next Audio Damage plug-in to the finish line while Adam flails about in his Code Hole whipping Sequencer 1 in to shape. It was a little ridiculous there for a while, but I’ve cleared a majority of the nonsense now, and am back to being my usual self.
4. And finally, a question: what constitutes an “album” these days? Throughout my (first) career, I was all 10 SONGS OR BUST but the idea of a complete record seems to be slipping through the cracks in favor of a burst mode kind of release system. I tried this out a couple years ago, by pooping out 4 of what our oldsters call “EPs” in a row, and it was somehow… uh… unsatisfying? Even without physical media, there’s just something about a cohesive chunk of music that is more visceral, at least to the maker. So my general takeaway: it is far easier to come up with 5 cohesive songs than 10, and the consumer seems to be indifferent. My forthcoming release that I’m just finishing up now is 10 tracks, but I’m left with the lingering impression that I should strip it to a pair of 5-track releases. Thoughts?
23 comments
0. 6 Plug-ins That Will Make You Want to Buy an ILok
1. Alas, no amount of Eventide could make me install anything Pace ever again. Given that Pace drivers once wiped out a complete Windows install on me, fool me once...
2. Aye, fuck Pace and iLok
3. Yay!
4. I'm a fan of approaching it as a work rather than album, as big/small as needed to feel completed. If it feels better as 10 tracks, that's what it should be, consumer indifference be damned.
You do not need an iLok dongle for UltraChannel, just a free iLok account and the iLok software.
From the link above: "UltraChannel does not require you to own or use an iLok dongle, but the iLok License Manager and an ilok.com account are required to use the plugin."
Releasing less songs more often certainly serves to keep the consumer more interested.
Looking back at 6.6 and 6.5, I think of them as albums just as much as 6.0 is, regardless of the number of tracks present. In each case there was a common theme or sound throughout the release that signified it as a work. Length didn't matter. Release what you think is a good set of tracks.
I'm not sure the consumer is indifferent, even though that seems to have become general wisdom. 6 or 8 years ago some friends had this same thought with a project we were doing and decided to just release singles and EP's. Turned out the public cared even less than usual, and they went back to albums. Maybe it's changed since then.
It may be a weird time, when people don't necessarily want to listen to whole albums, say they don't want whole albums, but don't take anything less seriously. But I'm not really sure it's changed as much as people think. When I was a kid we didn't listen to whole albums all the time either (despite kids today insisting that we did), we just had to buy them that way. If we could have bought every song as individual singles we would have bought a lot more singles.
i don't know if less songs more often does anything to keep anyone more interested. it can have the opposite affect. "oh, that guy is releasing something again? he just put out a thing and i've barely had time to get into it"
but i guess it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other.. or however that saying goes.
the problem i get into is when i want to release an album and i'm working on tracks and they come slowly.. and over the course of the process all the tracks don't sound right in context because i've taken 2 forevers to get them done that the sound/fingerprint etc seems varied.. enough to the point of them not sounding like an album when they're all together.. and instead sounding more like a collection of tracks.
so, if i can't get the album together quickly enough i either release an EP or just wait until i write more songs then pick the ones that fit together and the ones that are left over become an EP that gets released a month or two after the album.. or something..
fuck iloks.. and pace.. and their stupid software which is just a horrible interface.. that being said.. i still have an ilok account leftover from the ilok plugs i no longer own so it seemed stupid not to download the super duper ultra channel blah blah.. i have it installed and auth'd but haven't checked it out yet. it seems to have a lot going on.. i'm sure it's great..
i'd have bought all the eventide plugs if they were not ilok/pace-ified. i've pretty much found more than enough amazing shit that is of a more sane and friendly copy protection scheme..so.. who the fuck needs that shit.. i'm living just fine even w/o soundtoys plugs which imo are fanfuckingtastic.
so, i agree.. "those guys are awesome! but.. fuck those guys"
as for EP vs Album. you can always release 2 eps a week apart and marry them together w/some kind of artwork or title
As far as EP or Album goes, I have a strong tendency to prefer albums. I don't know why, but all my favorite releases are albums. Note, this may make me an old fart, which would be fine.
ILok.com is broken. So no Eventide plugin for me.
Those Micronaut EP's are the fukn shiz...
I was pondering the EP vs. album thing a while back myself. As far as I can tell, historically the terms EP and LP were mainly marketing terms used to describe the approximate length of a release based on the kind of media it was released on. I guess those terms just stuck, and they still carry the same general meaning. But with digital media we're not really bound by a finite amount of timecode to squeeze our tracks into like folks were with vinyl. So why bother calling it one or the other? My take is the same as a few of the others: release as many or as few tracks as are needed for the work to feel "complete" as a package.
That said, the frugal consumer in me always prefers getting more for less. I'm more likely to purchase an "album" than an "EP". There are a few artists out there I'm aware of that currently only release new material as singles on iTunes, and it actually irritates me to think that in order to collect their new works I have to find and purchase every single track one-by-one on itunes.
I'd really like to use Eventides native plugins. Blackhole was a freebie with my Space pedal.
But I'm not installing iLok. Even their license manager! SoundToys Echoboy couldn't even pull me into that hell hole.
Used to prefer albums, but now a days most of the artist I enjoy, produce a steady stream of EP's.
I know from my own writing process, that I tend to make songs in groups of 4-8. These songs fit together... and then I'm off on another idea.
I'd rather have 2 EP's that work as separate entities, than one disjointed album.
Album plZ.
I, rather embarrassingly, only listen to music in the car, on my daily hour long commute. An album is perfect for this, an ep leaves me fumbling with Spotify on the motorway
:#
Come to think of it. When someone with the amount of albums that Crandall has under his belt, asks for input on how to release an album.
That is comment/click bait!
There's been a couple, "nothing will ever convince me to use PACE" comments.
As someone with the power to influence things at Eventide, I'm genuinely curious if these comments are based on actual previous negative experiences, or if it's more about perception and trying to avoid future pain?
From my perspective, I've dealt with them from the vendor side for about 10 years, and while they've royally screwed the pooch a couple times during that tenure, they worked hard and fast to fix it, and I can't promise we'd have done better if we'd handled this ourselves. We've also never had a customer that I've known about who's had to re-install there operating system or anything, and I'd probably know.
I guess I'm curious if there's part of the story, from a users perspective, that I'm missing.
As an aside, this is Chris' house, and we don't have to have this conversation here. So feel free to shut it down Chris. Y'all can also email me at my moniker at eventide.com and talk about it offline if you want. I'm genuinely curious.
Dan
For me, it's definitely past negative experience. I installed the Soundtoys demo, 3 days later a perfectly fine working system, with nothing else installed in the interim, completely corrupted on boot. Technically I can't prove it was the Pace drivers, but it was the only thing out of the ordinary, and the only time that has ever happened to me. I prefer to err on the conservative side on this one, wasn't an enjoyable experience.
I remember having a _severe_ problem with PACE (not iLok but rather the older PACE stuff that Max/MSP used to use), one that required reformatting, but I can't for the life of me remember the circumstances that led to the problem.
As for my recent experiences, it should be noted that I'm fairly savvy with this sort of thing, and the iLok system has puzzled me intensely, and caused me not a few hours of lost time (and this is lost contract time at $XXX/hr of real live money, not lost "me" time) trying to sort it out. I needed to use PT for part of this contract, as the product I was doing a design for was an AudioSuite plug-in; I initially installed the 30 day demo of PT, then the company gave me a PT11 license. There was a conflict between the temporary key provided by Avid and the one provided by the company that resulted in phone calls, for the love of Christ. Now, I can't remove the demo key at all, but the NFR key works, so whatevs.
Then, I had repeated problems where OS X couldn't see the physical iLok. Trial and error eventually showed that it works on the left-side USB port, but not the right-side one. *shrug*
For what it's worth, the process on my PC has been entirely transparent, and it works like a charm. On that platform, it is one of the more transparent copy protection methods I've dealt with.
I know Adam has a _very_ bad experience; perhaps he'll relate it here. I could obviously rattle off dozens of anecdotes I've heard, but they'll all be second hand. I mean, we've had problems where customers' computers simply wouldn't authorize our plugs, no matter what I tried, so I suppose any copy protection is susceptible to the same sorts of problems. To the best of my knowledge, none of them has ever required reformatting your system drive, though. That would be easier these days, but in the early '00s, that would have been a bonecrushing blow.
-CR
iLok, NI, and Artuira - I've had varying issues/headaches/fuckups with all three software licensing manager programs. Granted, I do music as a semi-serious hobby, so the impact and my opinion should be taken at that. In the spirit of attempting to have fun while doing music, I avoid stuff that is from or deals with those particular vendors*.
In fact, the only licensing managing software I've ever used that's been completely hassle free, for what feels like forever now, is Expert Sleepers. It always, always works.
*I am dipping my toe back in with Maschine. The bourbon in the kitchen is only a short walk from the home office/music making space.
Yeah, I've had bad experiences with PACE. I posted a lengthy rant on my blog some years ago. The short summary is that I'd had bad experiences in the past, including it rendering my HD unusable for the product I was at that time being paid to develop (namely Max/MSP) until I reformatted it. Then one day, on a totally different machine with a totally different OS, it screwed up again, preventing the installation of a package of plug-ins I'd purchased. The vendor of said plug-ins couldn't help me and asked if reformatting my drive was an option. While technically this was an option, it was a ludicrous one. So instead I stopped using that vendor's plug-ins and went about finding non-PACE-laden substitutes. (At the time I couldn't find a good multi-tap delay; thus Audio Damage's Ricochet was born.) I suggested in that post that end-users should seriously consider how much leverage they felt comfortable leaving in PACE's hands, considering that it meant that the vendors of the PACE-protected products can't necessarily help the customer if they encounter problems. Given the total meltdown of the PACE system which happened a year or so ago, I think my point was made.
Eventually I succumbed to temptation and started using PACE-protected software again. (For the record, it was SoundToys which pushed me over the edge, although I think maybe I'd already been using some cleanly disguised PACE-equipped software before that.) I started on a new system, so there wasn't much to lose if PACE screwed my pooch. I can honestly say that I've had next to no trouble with it so far. Hence I pulled that blog post because leaving it in place seemed somewhat hypocritical. If you'd like to read a sensationalized account of that post, including quotes pulled from its context to suit the reporter's desire to place hype ahead of accurate representation, you can find them on another music blog which I stopped reading upon the publication of that "article".
I have long been, and shall remain, a total Eventide fanboy, and have every intention of taking advantage of their generous recent gift of the channel strip, once I find some spare time.
--Adam
Forgot to mention: like CR, my positive experiences with PACE are restricted to use under Windows. I have nothing to say about it, good or bad, with respect to OS X.
--Adam
"...which I stopped reading upon the publication of that article."
Don't worry, you haven't missed much in the ~7 years since.
iLok ZDT is a joke. period. redundant period.
dongles are as annoying as it gets. broken, lost, stolen etc. remember.. ZDT is a joke.
i should be able to install a plug in on more than one computer.. laptop/desktop. it shouldn't take 2 forevers for a plug in to load in a host because it is shaking hands w/some pace ilok bullshit. the pace user license auth software is even worse than their older version that was online only. it's a horrible interface that is unclear as to plug in status.
license transfer fees are ridiculous w/pace. it's basically an incentive not to sell a license. cash to pace, cash to the dev.. i pretty much gave away some plug ins when i sold my ilok plugs a couple years ago.
some of these things have improved.. some devs allow 2 installs and dongle free authorization. great.
but why on earth would i wade into that mess again? there's no reason for me. as said.. i can live w/o the ilok stuff just fine. i'd love the H3000 plug in.. i'd love to buy the sound toys bundle again but no thanks. not gonna go down that road again. especially w/how fickle pace is. who knows what stupid policy they'll come up with 6 months from now.
@boobs: "maybe we'll get lucky and gibson will buy Pace/ilok for no reason other than to put it on the shelf next to studio vision (rip)."....
+10000 good sir. STILL pissed about that. What a great solution. I am totally with boobs on this one.
Well, this is still live, so my $.02.
PACE once, probably about 5 or 6 years ago, completely wrecked my dedicated, non-internet connected music PC. (when one could still justify, rationalize a computer with a pile of software that wasn't connected to the 'net.) Up until that point I had studiously avoided any dongle, iLok software; it was one of the factors in choosing Sonar as my host. Back then it was mostly informed by KvR horror stories and BoingBoing-esque software-is-freedom idealism. But even as I moved on from both KvR and BB, the horror stories kept coming, and I liked supporting independent developers; all my favorite software was reasonably priced with copy-protection I could morally live with (as CR says, it's partially the trust thing).
But then I bought a clearance item softsynth at Mega-Lo Guitar Mart for like 20 bucks, and it informed me that it was going to install the software-keyed PACE driver and did I want to continue? In for a penny... On the very next reboot, all my other drivers were wiped. Any USB MIDI drivers, and more importantly my Lynx soundcard. Just hosed. Took me hours to untangle.
So, yeah, I would totally have checked out that Eventide plug. But, as others have said, there are enough developers that have copy-protection I can live with that I don't really feel the loss. It's kind of a bummer every once in a while, and there's definitely some software I haven't bought because of iLok/PACE. But it's probably also saved me money in the end, so there's that.
As for album vs ep vs single. As I, too, came of musical age in the 70s, 80s I still think of music releasing in terms of albums.
No one here seems to be advocating it, but the "just release singles no one buys albums" strategy that social media "gurus" are always suggesting -- "stay engaged with your listeners, more content!" -- is an absurd way to buy music by bands you like. I don't mind downloading an occasional single, but it's unlikely I'm going to hunt down scattered releases if you can't be bothered to collected them all. When a performer gets on stage, they play a set: a bunch of songs sequenced in a way to engage a crowd. Though it's different on several fronts, the same principle is at play with music releases.
Also, yeah, the bloat that happened when album-era artists moved to digital was mostly unfortunate. Suddenly, every half-baked studio noodling session was a bonus cut or shoved between 2 better songs, as if to fill every bit (pun!) of digital space. If nothing else, the vinyl revival has roped albums back down to a lean, mean generally solid 9-10 songs. And let's face it, most double albums could be cut down to 1 platter and a bonus ep.
For digital release, I actually like the ep a lot. It's a great way to check out a new act. For bands I already like, the economy of 5-6 tightly focused songs feels like a good way to engage with a release from start to finish, without having to bail when one or another thing distracts you.
From a production standpoint, my one "official" release was an ep, as will my second most likely. But this is more a function of economy than anything. Since I have to pay to have it mastered (and it was soooo worth the cost), it's much easier to pay for 5-6 songs than 9-10. Last January I took advantage of Mike Hillier's pay-what-you-can mixing or mastering deal to have some tracks mixed. Now I want to be able to pay someone to mix every release I do; the improvement is remarkable. So, as long I'm financing my own releases, an ep is much more manageable. (I probably won't be able to spring for the mixing, but get a professional to master seems like a good investment.)
Creatively, most people don't have a good novel in them every few years, but they can write several works of short fiction that can be arranged into an satisfying collection.
Comments are closed on this post.