SX dongle woes

[braj]

heh

well i still haven't lost mine

even druggies (usually) manage to hang onto, like, their house keys, you know? it's not hard to keep an eye on the few really important things, high or not. of course if you wanted to party hard and just get stupid blasted, well wtf did you bring your cubase dongle along for? put it somewhere safe first, hardly rocket science

I have frinds that have spaced cars, let alone keys

Anyway, the dongle could be in a bag and lost on a train etc even if you aren't high. Shit happens. It's just a pain in the ass is all. And with house/car keys, you can have a bunch of spares laying saround that you can use if you lose a set. Not so with a dongle (it would be nice though if they could sell you a spare BEFORE you space it somewhere).

[james0tucson]

If you use Cubase, you accept the risk of being locked out of your own work. The "house keys" and "car keys" arguments don't share a fundamental idea with this; they aren't directly related to control of your creative work.

This is the reason I won't use an SCMS-encumbered recorder, and the reason I won't use audio software that has certain kinds of copy protection.

If this seems like an unreasonable position to take, it's nothing more than putting the shoe on the other foot.

Why do you want to do business with someone who starts the relationship by insulting you? Why do you want to use a tool to produce your art, which stands between you and control of your art? I just can't bring myself to consider doing either one. I'm really glad they aren't the only game in town, because if they were, I'd probably still be using a 4-track.

[Muff Wiggler]

i guess it is because i just plain don't see it the way you do, at all

[Mr. Slater's Parrot]

personally, i don't worry about losing the dongle. it's pretty important, and i've found in my life that it is pretty easy to keep from losing something that you really don't want to lose, if you are very careful with it.

Yes, I'm sure that most folks would work very hard to make sure that they didn't lose the dongle -- and be successful. OTOH, I seem to recall someone a while back posting on kvr that the family cat took a swipe at a dongle and knocked it somewhere -- and it was seriously gone! Ouch. Of course, no one wants to drop a diamond ring down the sink either. But then, we do have traps in the drain pipes to handle *that* potential fiasco!

[Uncle E]

A student of mine recently broke his dongle, he had it plugged into the computer while moving it around & bent the insert enough to break several of the connections. I opened it up & simply soldered an insert off of an unused memory stick, et voila, the dongle works perfectly now.

[efluon]

.. I'd probably still be using a 4-track.

nice

do not lose the tapes contaeining your creative work! i mean what a concept! having to put all of your creativity onto a fragile plastic tape. i think it is really unethical to ask of us to bend our creative energy and morale to fit into the tascam-POV.

just kidding. there really is not much point in this discussion. you do not like it -> you do not buy it. that's the free market. no one wants you to buy any protected software. it is just generally not appreciated to steal software or 4-tracks or cars. so just do not steal it buy what you want, but please do not feel politically repressed. (the reason for you not protesting against your government is NOT the repression you might expect else. it is the benefits you DO get.)

[op519]

Two weeks + without the use of his sequencer. How is this acceptable to anyone?

Imagine if you will, you are under a deadline to get a project completed and it is all within (insert the name of any dongled application here). You can't finish because you have to wait for a dongle to arrive? Something is just wrong with that. You paid your money for your choice of application and because of their not so sturdy dongle (there have been many reports in various places about the Steinberg/Syncrosoft key breaking) you are not able to use it. Pretty fukt up if ya ask me - but of course nobody did

Just helps me realize even more that this key isn't for me to be using when there are reasonable alternatives. Sadly, SX is a great application but the key doesn't fit my wreckless working methods.

BTW thanks for the new sig Muff Wiggler

[Muff Wiggler]

ahh a thief in more ways then one, innit

[op519]

nah just 1 way. but considering that you probably nicked it from elsewhere, i don't feel so bad

[Muff Wiggler]

no i own the rights to the use of that image, it took me 2 bloody hours to download the license for that picture into my dongle, and as long as the dongle stays in the USB port, the image will display in my sig

you on the other hand seem to support the cracked-dongle-sig, hmm....

[james0tucson]

.. I'd probably still be using a 4-track.

nice

do not lose the tapes contaeining your creative work!

You're totally missing the point.

Ampex and BASF haven't asserted control over the medium.
Steinberg *has* done this. There's a world of difference.

I am able to assume responsibility. I am not able to delegate control.

I don't see what's hard to understand about that.

I won't do business with a vendor that (a) considers me a thief going into the relationship, or (b) asserts ownership control over the medium I use to express my art.

[op519]

no i own the rights to the use of that image, it took me 2 bloody hours to download the license for that picture into my dongle, and as long as the dongle stays in the USB port, the image will display in my sig

And I thought the using the dongle was painless. 2 hours. pffft

Wheras, my choice of sequencer now took a whole 5 minutes to download the program, get the .key file from the dev and run the first time. Niiiice on this sequencer there are actually bug fixes and updates which don't cost me once a year. Anyway, that is another story. All this said, I still have nothing against that sequencer, it is indeed top notch. Just not for me.

Just to add, if I ever lose my key, I can just email the developer and I am sure I would get a new one probably within a few hours. NOT 2 weeks

you on the other hand seem to support the cracked-dongle-sig, hmm....

ummm ya whatever

[Scotrick]

I don't mind the dongle, but only because I've been lucky enough to not break or lose it, I'm sure if I did either of those things, I'd be pretty grumpy about the dongle myself...

I tell myself I love Cubase, but really, it's the one I learned to use, and I can't seem to get myself to try and learn another major sequencing platform...

I've got nothing against the dongle, but I do think for the kind of money we spend on Cubase, anywhere from 400 for the educational price to 800 for the full price, I think Steinberg could at least keep a decent database of the registered users, and if a dongle breaks they should be able to overnight a new one to the user... and in the meantime send a code that will keep the sequencer working for 48 hours... I know, I'm crazy on several levels... heck I wish I lived in a perfect world...

[flugel45]

... I think Steinberg could at least keep a decent database of the registered users, and if a dongle breaks they should be able to overnight a new one to the user... and in the meantime send a code that will keep the sequencer working for 48 hours... I know, I'm crazy on several levels... heck I wish I lived in a perfect world...

I'm with you on this idea. Don't want to start the whole dongle debate again - cuz it ain't the dongles I hate, it's the down-time that's imposed on the unfortunate person with the problem. If these companies could somehow provide an interim solution (like you suggest), I'd have no problem with buying their software.

On a side note, hello from a fellow southerner (raised in Albany, GA). My best friend went to U of A in Tuscaloosa, and I visited him there a couple times - nice town.

I've been living in Southern Cal for 20 years now, and though I do love it here, I'm strongly considering moving back to Georgia (the Atlanta area) if only so I can get into a decent-sized house! (In the inflated real-estate market here, tiny one-bedroom condos are going for half a million, while my buddy in Marietta, GA just built his 5000 sq ft. dream house on 4.5 acres for $300,000).

JD

[aldred]

Can I chip in as a potential Cubase user who's been trying to decide 'Cubase or Sonar?' for a month now?

I have no problems with the technical aspects of dongles. I'm not worried about something going wrong and having to spend a week getting things up and running again either (although I would be if I was doing it professionally). And I'm not concerned about losing it - because I'd be careful - or being tret like a thief - because it's just another form of protection.

What is bothering me is this .... I do graphics as a job and I have about 15 pieces of software in this computer that I use almost every day. I have another 15 to 20 that I use on and off. So, if I had a dongle for each piece of software, that would be a 30-dongle porcupine somewhere in my workspace, which is unacceptable. And what if I regularly used twice that number of applications? In fact, the 30 I mentioned are just the main ones. I use others on occasion too. I keep an application install log, and I'm up to number 61. 61 dongles? There's no way I'd want all of the licenses together on one or two dongles either. The dongle goes and I'm really in trouble.

So the way I'm *starting* to look at it is .... the makers of software who use dongle protection are being pretty selfish and irresponsible. They're negating the advantages of using software (up and running any time on any machine), and burdening legitimate users with unecessary hardware. Just as we'd be in trouble if everybody used pirated software, we'd be in trouble if all software came with a dongle. And imagine if we didn't have USB and were stuck with the old-style printer port dongles. Jesus, I'd need to move my computer out into a corridor.

So, I'm still undecided, but leaning towards Sonar entirely because of the dongle. Cubase may lose a customer.

mark