IK Multimedia creating unpurchased Custom Shop *.dlls

[Breeze]

If every manufacturer insisted on installing every plugin they make whether you own a license or not, our VST folders and C: drives would soon be filled with stuff we don't want or asked for. It would be quite a mess. In my long list of plugins, IKM is the only one that does it this way.

I don't mind the huge installers but the process of manually taking out the dll's after installation is a backwards and unfriendly. Waves seems to do it right: the selection of what to install is done at the installation. If you use their online installer, it only downloads what you select; they also provide huge installers with everything included for offline installation, but again the choice of what to install is made by the user at installation. In either case, the user has to know what they own; there's no automation of that and I prefer controlling what I'm installing.

I have to admit that the availability of unlicensed assets makes somewhat more sense for AT alone because they're rather small, though they've gotten quite numerous over time. But adding T-Racks to the mix more than doubles the size of the folders to over a gigabyte whether you use them or not. This isn't an SSD friendly trend.

I don't want to bash IKM; they get enough of that around here. But I was going to post about this because I too felt this was motivated by their marketing department who thought this would be a good way for their products to get more visibility. But it seems it's a solution they came up with to unify the Custom Shop concept for both series of plugins, with the unintentional controversial consequences. Either way, I agree that it's not the right way to do it going forward.

[Kontrast13]

The interesting part is that the size is pretty much the same as before, yet you get to access the plugins separately because the dlls (very very small files) link back to split packages rather than the old big compressed component file. It doesn't make the size any different than before... just splits them in the program folder.

*wonders if anyone actually looked at the old install files*

This isn't aimed at you Breeze (or anyone really), it just suddenly occured to me to mention it.

[hibidy]

I'm tired and I have a headache

[Orbit-50]

Waves seems to do it right: the selection of what to install is done at the installation. If you use their online installer, it only downloads what you select; they also provide huge installers with everything included for offline installation, but again the choice of what to install is made by the user at installation. In either case, the user has to know what they own; there's no automation of that and I prefer controlling what I'm installing.

That's what I love about Waves. They don't resort to desperate intrusive sales tactics by shoving all of their product demos and all sorts of other unnecessary bloat up your ass when you install a specific software that you paid for. They have the confidence that you will buy more from them without having to stoop to that level. If I want to demo other products that a company makes, I will research these products and do so in my own time. I don't need a used car salesman or your personalized damn software store installed on my computer.



.-.

[robotmonkey]

Good grief man. Just delete the damn dlls and get over it. What is it, 30 seconds of work? It would probably take you just as long to click which modules you actually own during an install process...

It's problem because I do like to keep my DAW clean and tidy. If I want to demo something I install it on a virtual machine that I can easily wipe afterwards. It's also not SSD friendly as somebody already pointed out. Moreover the less clutter there is the easier it is to orient among your stuff. Less stuff gives you less trouble, makes troubleshooting easier and so on. Deleting stuff afterwards is way more inconvenient than not installing it in a first place.

Also I generally hate software bloat. Seems that the growth of cheap storage space has given developers the idea that they have a license to not optimize their software and that they can pillage all kinds of bloatware into everybody's computers.

I also wanted to bring Waves as an example but there's no need for that now. But just imagine if they would install every plugin in demo mode every time. What a huge mess that would be!

[Kontrast13]

I was just being a bastard since it's such an easy thing to fix. I agree about the SSD situation 100% and I also hate bloat having played pc games my whole life... deleting directx/mplayer/etc for every game does get old. Sorry... I was in one of those "just make some damn music, man" moods

[hibidy]

SSD problem?

[yevster]

Sadly, no amount of counterexamples, from Waves, NI, or countless others seems likely to help, as IK's PMs seem to have their heads irreparably trapped up their respective rectums, with Peter and the like being forced to play messenger. Eventually, they do hear and budge, but not until dozens, if not more, customers are frustrated in the process.

The best bet is just to stay away from them. Slate's Virtual Mix Rack already seems poised to offer better value (not to mention performance) than any bundle of T-racks singles even with a so-called BOGO sale.

[planetearth]

SSD problem?

You can only access the same spot on an SSD drive so many times, so "unnecessary" file management adversely affects the drive...in theory.

In reality, you can write to the same spot on an SSD drive some 100,000 times, so file management isn't really an issue. That said, you don't want to defragment an SSD drive, and it's still not fun to hunt for files you didn't ask to be installed in the first place.

Steve

[jancivil]

Just a couple quick notes - the Custom Shop app does not need to run unless you are demoing a plugin (applies to both T-RackS and AmpliTube). There appears to be some confusion on this point.

Also, I hope anybody here who uses another company's plugins that do exactly the same thing (in fact installing their whole line, not just the units that make up a single suite out of multiple flagship products) has also filed their complaints with them too. We didn't see a lot of complaints about that online, so this seemed like a good solution to multiple issues as noted above.

I'm not confused about that bit. What happened here, does not happen with any vendor other than IKMM in my actual experience. If it did, I would have the same view. If the vendor that did came in constantly telling us our complaint isn't valid, I would have the same view of that as well.

I don't recall doing anything other than installing Custom Shop. I installed Custom Shop because I was trying to use Amplitube 3. I had to recover everything I had bought through Custom Shop. I wish I had known this, I wish I had never wasted all that time with AT3. For me it's a lot of nothing. Remember though, I have every bit of AT2.

So now I have these duplicates of all of the TRackS plugins [edit: that I've bought] and I stupidly or blindly instantiated some in a number of templates. I cannot simply delete them. I have now the option of going through multiple templates in VE Pro to copy settings and reinstantiate the NORMAL versions, or leave many duplicates on my hard drive.

This is stupid. (So I'm part of the stupid, but I don't know why these things are even there. They do not seem to be better versions. I knew there were two versions but maybe one is updated? I think not, having looked at it. They have a way to open Auth Manager directly.)
No argument you can make about the problems it addressed makes it otherwise. I say it is quite a baroque solution to that complaint above. Do you think I buy that this was THE solution?
This particular post is why people tire of your presence here, frankly.

It isn't enough to explain away someone's issue, you have to create a straw man and be bellicose to your customers having that bash at it. The entire experience of these new things has meant little more than time wasted for me. It's too much to worry about, it's a very baroque way. Are you seeing these complaints? At what point does this become 'a lot of' complaints? But no, you've got to be just golden.

[hibidy]

SSD problem?

You can only access the same spot on an SSD drive so many times, so "unnecessary" file management adversely affects the drive...in theory.

In reality, you can write to the same spot on an SSD drive some 100,000 times, so file management isn't really an issue. That said, you don't want to defragment an SSD drive, and it's still not fun to hunt for files you didn't ask to be installed in the first place.

Steve

Hmmmmmmm. Well, I use my C ssd drive for stuff I install and read. I thought that would help.

[J4R1O]

Also, I hope anybody here who uses another company's plugins that do exactly the same thing (in fact installing their whole line, not just the units that make up a single suite out of multiple flagship products) has also filed their complaints with them too.

Softube installation: 500+ MB

"The installer contains all Softube's plug-ins. So even if you just have a license for one or a few products, choose your platform and plug-in format above, and download the entire package." http://www.softube.com/download.php

[rasmusklump]

Also, I hope anybody here who uses another company's plugins that do exactly the same thing (in fact installing their whole line, not just the units that make up a single suite out of multiple flagship products) has also filed their complaints with them too.

Softube installation: 500+ MB

"The installer contains all Softube's plug-ins. So even if you just have a license for one or a few products, choose your platform and plug-in format above, and download the entire package." http://www.softube.com/download.php

I think you forgot to add that the user can choose during install what he wants to install.
Stay with the truth...

[J4R1O]

I think you forgot to add that the user can choose during install what he wants to install.
Stay with the truth...

If so, my bad.

I remember I was pretty frakin' pissed off to notice that installer had dumped the entire plug-in package on my hard drive. Maybe I did something wrong during the installation.

Doesn't bother me now since I've demoed them and they're top plug-ins.

[UltraJv]

And another thing - forks - too many damn prongs. Who the hell needs 4 prongs? Theres gonna be a world shortage of Steel if we don't act on this ......