Princeton VST Reverb - Those who haven't bought it

[Meffy]

What Theo said. I didn't ever buy from them, but I've heard blasts from quite a few disappointed/shocked customers.

[Frippertronix]

I would be astonished if any company that had licensed a bunch of c/r plugs to people would go out of business without sending emails to all registered users issuing non c/r keys.

Prepare to be astonished. Sad to say it's happened at least once. Bitheadz customers are out of luck these days. I think they went out of business some time last year.

They were the first soft-synth company I ever heard of. Back around 1994 or '95 I considered buying their Retro AS-1 modular soft synth. I'd never seen anything like it before. As it happens, I didn't buy it because I couldn't get the demo to work on my computer. It was probably my own fault, but I'm still glad I didn't get stuck with software I'd not be able to re-authorize any more. True, I'd have had ten years of use, but leaving customers in the lurch as they did just ain't right.

Do you know for sure that they never issued any permanent keys or emailed anyone to warn them?

absolutely. I was stuck with $700 of software I can no longer authorize. One format and it was all over. they just disappeared shortly after taking my money, not one email, nothing. website just went off the air and never came back.

Sounds like something worthy of eBay. That sucks. Have you tried to track them down all? How long ago did they disappear?

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[greendoor]

I expect to see a lot more plugin horror stories. And as for challenge/response - i'm fairly certain you have to connect your music PC to the internet to authenticate. I don't see how you can get around that. Which is why I stick to simple registration code protected software - which is enough of a nuisance, but at least is manageable.

[greendoor]

Actually, I think the vendors who use Pace or challenge/response are the most likely vendors to go out of business (at least on the plugin side of their business). Simply because A/ many potential customers like myself will never buy that shit, and B/ this software is most likely to appear on the warez sites. The "challenge" is really a challenge to crackers, and because the vendors are viewed as trying to screw their customers, they are considered (by some) to deserve this sort of treatment. Because the vendor is obviously more interested in profit than they are in satisfied customers, they are more likely close up shop to minimise losses.

[Frippertronix]

I expect to see a lot more plugin horror stories. And as for challenge/response - i'm fairly certain you have to connect your music PC to the internet to authenticate. I don't see how you can get around that. .

I haven't had a problem avoiding it, but I haven't bought reams of software with c/r. In every case, the registration routine simply told me the challenge code and let me save it to disk, then I brought it to another computer, went online, and they had me input both the initial reg code and the challenge code, and they gave me the response or a keyfile with the response. In all cases, the plug accepted it when I went back to my music PC and input it.

I understand your gripes about this, and it's a pain any way you slice it, but until the world becomes miraculously populated with totally honest people, we have a parade of dongles, challenge codes, and CD's that have to sit in the disk drive extending into the indefinite future.

To limit your choices to only traditional reg code protection is giving you an increasingly narrow list of choices and, for me, the needs justify the risk. Otherwise, I'd get out of digital and stick to hardware.

[Frippertronix]

A year ago, spent plenty of time tracking em down, tried to get credit card payments rversed, believe me, i tried everything. sold it all on ebay for $50.

Ouch. Sorry man. Still, though, it seems like a case like this is more the exception than the rule.

If more stuff like this went down, I'm sure some federal laws would get put in place to protect consumers.

[skrasms]

And as for challenge/response - i'm fairly certain you have to connect your music PC to the internet to authenticate. I don't see how you can get around that.

I authenticated both Max/MSP and the Princeton reverb through challenge/response on my music computer. It's kept as far from the internet as possible, so an internet connection isn't required. As long as you have e-mail access on a computer somewhere you can send a challenge and get a response.

edit - Fripp beat me to it, sorry

[Frippertronix]

And as for challenge/response - i'm fairly certain you have to connect your music PC to the internet to authenticate. I don't see how you can get around that.

I authenticated both Max/MSP and the Princeton reverb through challenge/response on my music computer. It's kept as far from the internet as possible, so an internet connection isn't required. As long as you have e-mail access on a computer somewhere you can send a challenge and get a response.

edit - Fripp beat me to it, sorry

Yea, these companies know that we like to keep our work isolated from the crazy net. A lot of people probably don't think about it, but I wouldn't risk it myself.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Meffy]

Still, though, it seems like a case like this is more the exception than the rule.

I think -- and hope! -- it will be. I've bought some plug-ins with c/r authorization, and wouldn't be happy if their makers went belly up. I don't expect IK, NI, etc. to do so... but I guess nobody expected Bitheadz to suddenly vanish either. *shrug* Ya pays yer dollar and ya takes yer chances.

[nexussynth]

I think is a poor rev,there're better freeware ones.

Yeah, DITTO.

Freeverbtoo and Ambience sound better than this. $200. Are they kidding??

CSR will blow this hyped-verb into another universe.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Funkybot]

I'm noticing a common theme in these reverb threads, where the really bright and somewhat shrill sounding IMO verbs get a lot of praise, and I'm begining to think a lot of it just boils down to what kind of music you're making. I'm mostly doing rock stuff and the Princeton is just the bees knees for anything with natural instruments, whereas I spent a few weeks using Ambience and ended up having to replace it everywhere I used it. I'm thinking though, that if you're doing some kind of electronic music, Ambience might just be a great verb for you, as it's easy to dial in a big bright long verb with no hassle. And even if the tail isn't quite natural, who cares as none of your stock sounds would really be. But if you're convinced Princeton just sucks in general, I challenge you to record an acoustic guitar based singer songwriter and finding a better VST verb for a room sound. Just my thoughts...