KVR Audio

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:29 pm

jancivil wrote:
generaldiomedes wrote:
Dewdman42 wrote:I feel for ya. I was on the same fence for a long time. I wonder if vsl realizes how many sales they are losing.

On a plus side, vsl stuff is often available on the used market for a discount so if you decide eventually you can live with the license risk you might find a deal on vicontrol or kvr classifieds.
Which used market would that be? I have never seen a VSL library for sale here and I check that thing regularly
I have, a couple of times recently. There is a charge for the license transfer.

when you buy used make sure the seller is paying for that. I did.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:33 pm

Actually - let me reiterate: the first broken one was simply broken. It was way, way past 2 years warranty (6 or 7 yrs old and it broke basically from normal use), which I'd never heard of at the time. The second one was due to my own negligence, although they only 'knew' that because it was in three pieces. You send it to VSL-something in L.A. for their sort of forensic analysis. And I was given a one size fits all activation code while I waited for the verdict, which was no problem, here's your full licenses. No charge.

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:36 pm

but did they charge you eventually some fees for the license after you sent it to them in 3 pieces?

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:44 pm

That one I was more or less SOL. I was not charged 50% of what I paid but 50% of a current discount, essentially. Paul seems to have given me other breaks by consolidating or something tricky. The difference is not nothing, but I got a no-go verdict on the second broken-into-3 one.

Dewdman42 wrote: I don't know what kind of insurance we can get to cover something like this? Have you found a source for that? I know VSL has offered that advice, but aside from declaring the item on my home owners insurance to protect against a fire, I'm not sure at all what kind of insurance we could get, especially to protect against loss or damage that doesn't involve someone breaking into the house or the house catching on fire or flood, etc.

I haven't. There may be something somewhere at VSL Forums, or not.

I had a guitar stolen while I was at CCM (Cinci., OH), from a locker my idiot lockermate failed to close and my mother's homeowner's (Charlotte, NC) covered me. I think insurance is going to differ from one locale to the next, so I can't know.

I'm just very paranoid about my belongings now. I have a great sob story but, 50% is in itself non-negotiable.
It's a very small company and I have a good relationship with the one guy who deals with this. Vs the absolutely faceless and corporate Steinberg. Both of which I'm just stuck with any way you cut it.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:06 pm

@jancivil

You say I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. Given that the only thing that could possibly happen to my iLok and eLicensor is that they physically either break or fail, since I never go out with my PC, maybe you're right IF I make sure my dongle is always under warranty, which for $30 every couple of years is not that big a deal. It's worth it for some peace of mind.

Okay, here is my question though. I currently have 2 dongles on my PC. One is iLok, that I use for all my EWQL stuff and any other software that uses iLok and the other is the elicensor, which looks the same to me, that I use for Cubase and a few things that use eLicensor.

How do I tell which is which? I mean I guess I should probably get replacements for both given that they are now both 5 years old, but I have no idea how to go about replacing them so that I don't lose my licenses. Again, I don't even know which is which. If I go to device manager all it says is my iLok is on port 1 hub 3 and my eLicsensor is in port 2 hub 3. But I have no idea which one is which as far as where they are physically located in the back of my PC because the ports themselves aren't numbered.

So how do I determine which is which? Obviously, if I go out and buy an elicensor and an iLok, I need to be able to tell the difference between them when I buy them. Otherwise, there's a good chance I mix them up when I get them home.

What I'm saying is this. I've never replaced either of these things yet. So how do I go about doing that? If that's all I have to do is replace eLicensor every 2 years to make sure I never have to pay for a new VSL license, I'll do. For $30 it's not a big deal. I just want to make sure I do this right because I'm coming very close to having to replace my hard drive as I'm sure it could go at any minute given that it's 5 years old. That's another headache that I don't even want to think about right now.

Anyway, any assistance you can give me so that I'm not letting this "molehill" get in my way will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:12 pm

unplug one of them and then start the elicensor software, it will only identify the elicensor dongle if its plugged in, it should not even see the ilok one. Then label them using a label maker, or do as I did and get some plastic keychains and attach them to the dongle...

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:21 pm

Dewdman42 wrote:unplug one of them and then start the elicensor software, it will only identify the elicensor dongle if its plugged in, it should not even see the ilok one. Then label them using a label maker, or do as I did and get some plastic keychains and attach them to the dongle...

Know what? I'm an idiot. I just found an extra iLok that I had laying around that I didn't even know I had. I'm pretty sure it's an iLok 2. It actually says iLok at the end of it. Plus, the iLok has a tapered off end where the eLicensor seems to be square and shorter.

So I can tell which is which.

Okay, next question.

I need to go out and buy an extra elicenser. After I get it, how do I actually go about transferring licenses from one to the other? Do I just start up the eLicenser software? I'm assuming there's a function to move things?

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:28 pm

when you plug two elicensor dongles into your computer at the same time, they will both show upon the license manager software and you literally just drag a license from one dongle to the other and then the license is moved.

Also you can name the dongles when you register them at Steinberg (steinberg owns elicensor), and I believe they will show up in the license manager with the names you gave them, but anyway its not that hard to keep track just be looking at which licenses are installed on which.

I had an old Korg elicensor that came with the M1 software years ago and wasn't be used any more. I initially bought VEP and used that dongle for running VEP. Now that I have purchased more VSL stuff and also recently purchased Dorico, so I purchased two new VSL keys for $29 each. The new ones are quite a bit shorter then the old korg one. I installed all my VSL libs onto one of them, along with licenses for Instrument Pro and VEP. On the other one I installed VEP and Dorico. The one with Dorico can be moved between my Mac Pro or MacBook in order to use VEP and/or Dorico there. The VSL one, I do not plan to ever move, its associate with large amount of sample data that I won't even bother to put on my laptop..it will sit on the MacPro and never be moved. That one would also be the more expensive one to replace if lost.

At some point I had all three dongles in the computer to shuffle the licenses around to where I wanted them on each dongle, the korg one now has no license and the two new VSL ones have one set for my main DAW machine and another set that might get moved to my laptop sometimes, mainly dorico and VEP since I have 3 licenses for VEP.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:34 pm

Dewdman42 wrote:when you plug two elicensor dongles into your computer at the same time, they will both show upon the license manager software and you literally just drag a license from one dongle to the other and then the license is moved.

Also you can name the dongles when you register them at Steinberg (steinberg owns elicensor), and I believe they will show up in the license manager with the names you gave them, but anyway its not that hard to keep track just be looking at which licenses are installed on which.

I had an old Korg elicensor that came with the M1 software years ago and wasn't be used any more. I initially bought VEP and used that dongle for running VEP. Now that I have purchased more VSL stuff and also recently purchased Dorico, so I purchased two new VSL keys for $29 each. The new ones are quite a bit shorter then the old korg one. I installed all my VSL libs onto one of them, along with licenses for Instrument Pro and VEP. On the other one I installed VEP and Dorico. The one with Dorico can be moved between my Mac Pro or MacBook in order to use VEP and/or Dorico there. The VSL one, I do not plan to ever move, its associate with large amount of sample data that I won't even bother to put on my laptop..it will sit on the MacPro and never be moved. That one would also be the more expensive one to replace if lost.

At some point I had all three dongles in the computer to shuffle the licenses around to where I wanted them on each dongle, the korg one now has no license and the two new VSL ones have one set for my main DAW machine and another set that might get moved to my laptop sometimes, mainly dorico and VEP since I have 3 licenses for VEP.

Thanks. Last question.

My understanding is that each dongle is under warranty for 2 years. Is that 2 years from date of purchase or 2 years from the date you put your first license on it? I'm asking because if it's from date of purchase, you obviously have to prove how old the dongle is. What if you can't? What if you lost the receipt from when you purchased it? Then what? This one iLok I have I've never used and I have no idea when I got it. So I have no idea if it's 2 years or older.

The good news is, VSL takes elicenser which I only have 1 of and it's definitely way over 2 years. So I am going to have to buy a new one. I assume that after I do I better keep the receipt, correct? Because if it should die and my VSL stuff goes with it, I need to prove to them the dongle was under 2 years old. And of course I'm going to have to make sure I buy a new one every 2 years.

Is that pretty much it?

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:35 pm

better ask VSL that question. I would assume they go by the purchase date. But you never know it might be possible for them to determine when you put your first license on there or something, but I would guess they go by purchase date.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:40 pm

They definitely know what's on your dongle if you have it registered, even registered after the fact of it being broken, the key is just a number. The registration of a library there is S/N and many will register the physical key at the same time. I have one S/N from Gigastudio/EXS days. But, since it's a physical thing under warranty the business end of that is when you bought it; ie., they made me produce a receipt on the broken-into-three dongle and send it along with the thing to L.A. for analysis.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:44 pm

wagtunes wrote: 2 years from the date you put your first license on it? I'm asking because if it's from date of purchase, you obviously have to prove how old the dongle is. What if you can't? What if you lost the receipt from when you purchased it? Then what? This one iLok I have I've never used and I have no idea when I got it. So I have no idea if it's 2 years or older.

Again, the first broken one I presented to them was from 2003, and this was tail end of 2009 or early 2010. No, Nov. 2009. They restored all my licenses according to someone in L.A.'s analysis of the dongle in two pieces. In three pieces, no warranty applied, evidently. Keep the receipt, I did for this one, as I had to schlep out to Guitar Center to get a copy of my (supposed) receipt, since I don't like holding on to little pieces of paper, didn't have it.

So, buy a new dongle - I just bought one, 29 bucks at Sweetwater iirc, free delivery by the postal service in three days (over the weekend in fact), and stick both dongles in, now drag and drop the Cubase license from the old to the new.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Jun 25, 2018 10:37 pm

jancivil wrote:
wagtunes wrote: 2 years from the date you put your first license on it? I'm asking because if it's from date of purchase, you obviously have to prove how old the dongle is. What if you can't? What if you lost the receipt from when you purchased it? Then what? This one iLok I have I've never used and I have no idea when I got it. So I have no idea if it's 2 years or older.
Again, the first broken one I presented to them was from 2003, and this was tail end of 2009 or early 2010. No, Nov. 2009. They restored all my licenses according to someone in L.A.'s analysis of the dongle in two pieces. In three pieces, no warranty applied, evidently. Keep the receipt, I did for this one, as I had to schlep out to Guitar Center to get a copy of my (supposed) receipt, since I don't like holding on to little pieces of paper, didn't have it.

So, buy a new dongle - I just bought one, 29 bucks at Sweetwater iirc, free delivery by the postal service in three days (over the weekend in fact), and stick both dongles in, now drag and drop the Cubase license from the old to the new.

So if I do that (hoping the licenses actually transfer and I don't end up screwing myself, sorry these things scare the crap out of me) and then buy the VSL stuff and put it on the new eLicenser and something happens within the 2 year period (unlikely as it seems these things are pretty sturdy) they'll replace my licenses at no charge. Correct?

If that's the case, all I have to do is replace my dongle every 2 years. Annoying but not the end of the world.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:16 am

Yeah, unless you step on the dongle or something, take it outside and drop it and then go over it with the lawnmower accidentally. I mean that second one, I don't blame them, there's no good excuse for it being in that condition. I'd tried to put it back together, making matters much worse. They are fairly sturdy. #1 had been with me through several moves and computers. It was stupid to have those licenses on that one, I had I think 3 at that time (With Vienna Suite [FX], you get 3 licenses. With VE Pro there are 3, too. With the latter that provides keys for 3 machines in addition to launching it on the master, DAW sequencer machine.).

I've done the license transfer many times. Even if you lose the connection during, you just do 'recover' and should work.

Screen Shot 2018-06-25 at 6.13.36 PM.png

Just drag the license there on the right highlighted in blue to the non-blue highlighted dongle image on the left and let it do its thing.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 3:41 am

As to MIR Pro, you'd want to really do your due diligence here. It is a major resource-hog. I demoed it and demoed it some more, and some more again (when you could, we broke that by doing it repeatedly, then you could go and go and go and never buy it, which doesn't so much work for them) and it's hard for me to imagine full use of it, without having a couple or three licenses for it and a small server farm. And it's NOT like VS or VE Pro where one purchase gets you three licenses, it's the one license per. IE: using it alongside heavy vi use eats CPU like a bear.
YMMV; this was on an 8-core (16 logical cores) machine with 24GB RAM, and I would only get a few instruments in there while working; it's strictly from mixdown and maximum latency. in VE Pro it is possible to use one instance and treat it as aux send, which doesn't seem possible in the DAW plugin instantiation.

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