Image Line Acquires UVI

[otristan]

Great to hear that, Scott. Thank you for your detailed post. I love FL Studio and have always been a well-wisher of Image-Line. I trust you and am with you as a proud customer for well over a decade now. The collaboration with UVI came as a surprise, but considering their huge catalog of great products, I am looking forward to what's next when it comes to UVI products (after this ongoing deal) for us Image-Line customers.

By the way, any chances of acquiring FabFilter next?

Try Shade before

[revvy]

Love Shade

[Hevy_IL]

...
Just wanted to put out here how much I (and I'm sure many others) really appreciate you and Olivier coming over to the forum to engage with us. Really means a lot, and speaks volumes (in a good way)...

Unfortunately this holds them back from serving their very own fora. Questions being unanswered there for many a day...

It's actually done in my free time. I'm not paid to be on KVR or somewhere else, my working time is in our forum and to answer questions and help people.
I also have my free time, sorry about that.

[LoveEnigma18]

Great to hear that, Scott. Thank you for your detailed post. I love FL Studio and have always been a well-wisher of Image-Line. I trust you and am with you as a proud customer for well over a decade now. The collaboration with UVI came as a surprise, but considering their huge catalog of great products, I am looking forward to what's next when it comes to UVI products (after this ongoing deal) for us Image-Line customers.

By the way, any chances of acquiring FabFilter next?

Try Shade before

For sure. Deciding between Essentials and Power at the moment, but that's for the noncommon stuff.

Can we expect more such bundle deals in the future or we will see UVI sound libraries added in FL Studio All Plugins Edition (so people could upgrade theirs, for example, myself)? Just in case it can be answered right now.

[Dunbar]

....as long as they don't mess up products and authorization schemes (which isn't going to be the case here)...

They already have.

Image-line adopted a 'challenge response' product activation system last year. The interests of corporate bean counters was placed above user friendly keyfile activation.

I expect the new Image-line acquisition, Meldaproduction, will follow suit shortly...

[Frankie.T]

....as long as they don't mess up products and authorization schemes (which isn't going to be the case here)...

They already have.

Image-line adopted a 'challenge response' product activation system last year. The interests of corporate bean counters was placed above user friendly keyfile activation.

I expect the new Image-line acquisition, Meldaproduction, will follow suit shortly...

I hope they don't change that, i'd also like FL to go back with key file.

This stuff bother only legit users, while if you search you can clarly see iLok, Waves, IL, and everything to be cracked regardles the protection systems.

So in my opinion it's very important to offer the most friendly auth system to customers. And having a reliable offline method that doesn't need in any moment to connect to internet it's the best way. Like it was with FL and as it is with Melda.

So i really hope IL doesn't force other companies they aquired to a different method, and i also hope they will go back on FL too.

[Trancit]

Gol decided once to not go the Midi route (what made sense back in the days as Midi was always a very weak and wonky thingy), so deep in the code of FLS there are many parts not working the way an implementation of something like MPE would require...

And therein lies the reason why FL Studio does not get considered a professional DAW by a lot of people. When it's competition started out as MIDI sequencers, FL and it's users were basically acting like MIDI was a "weak and wonky thingy" while step inputing electronic dance music into a DAW called Fruity Loops. Meanwhile people were writing full orchestral scores in DP, Cubase and Logic.

I never disregarded FL Studio, but it was patently obvious why people would, considering it's beginnings, it's single OS, tracker legacy, and the fact that it's users would do things like discount MIDI because they couldn't figure out how to get a stable MIDI environment going, and their DAW wasn't that good at it in the first place.

A good example to demonstrate how silly many people are...

People were whining 20+ years about their wonky DAW timing and even nowadays Cubase isn´t able to trigger a synth from a Midi VST without timing issues... but that´s professional!

If somebody goes a different way which improves timing by a factor of minimum 100 but it isn´t suitable for some niche applications... that´s a toy!

Find the error!

Btw... I am always again amazed and surprised how many people are writing their orchestral stuff in FLS which I personally consider as masochistic...
Nonetheless it seems to work...so it seems there is no need for Logic, DP and Cubase for such a task...

Second...taken your argument something like Ableton and Bitwig must be considered as well as toys as just a little amount of people are using it for "full orchestral scores"...

Again... find the error!

[Trancit]

I hope they don't change that, i'd also like FL to go back with key file.

This stuff bother only legit users, while if you search you can clarly see iLok, Waves, IL, and everything to be cracked regardles the protection systems.

So in my opinion it's very important to offer the most friendly auth system to customers. And having a reliable offline method that doesn't need in any moment to connect to internet it's the best way. Like it was with FL and as it is with Melda.

So i really hope IL doesn't force other companies they aquired to a different method, and i also hope they will go back on FL too.

I don´t know where the problem is...

I still use FLS with my reg keyfile... it´s just that now there is one additional step... cannot be so hard to manage...

[MrJubbly]

By the way, any chances of acquiring FabFilter next?

If we did that EQ 2 would have nothing to aspire to

Fabfilter has one of the most unobtrusive software protections systems around. I love that about them and other successful companies like u-he, Kilohearts, etc.

I don't even mind Image-Line's new C/R method. Since, it's pretty fast, straightforward and doesn't require users having to install separate, standalone 'authorisation' bloatware. I'm generally okay with anything but the "mandated iLok" beast.

For instance, I don't mind if 'optional' iLok continues to co-exist (for those eccentric masochists who have an odd penchant for it), so long as hassle-free, non-malware alternatives are 'also' offered alongside it.

I hope UVI will consider offering such alternative protection methods in the future. Because, they would for certain, gain many more new customers if they did, myself being one of them.

[jamcat]

iLok just hasn’t even been an issue since machine-based authorizations were introduced.

[Trancit]

...
I also have my free time, sorry about that.

Yes... that´s really a shame...

[Serhii Kot]

By the way, any chances of acquiring FabFilter next?

If we did that EQ 2 would have nothing to aspire to

I hope UVI will consider offering such alternative protection methods in the future. Because, they would for certain, gain many more new customers if they did, myself being one of them.

Same here, I almost bought this bundle, but iLok was the stop factor.
On apple silicone, sometimes, unoptimised background task (I am speaking to you logitech) is draining battery. And I try to avoid this kind of software, that sits in the background all time, even when you do not use it.

[Frankie.T]

I hope they don't change that, i'd also like FL to go back with key file.

This stuff bother only legit users, while if you search you can clarly see iLok, Waves, IL, and everything to be cracked regardles the protection systems.

So in my opinion it's very important to offer the most friendly auth system to customers. And having a reliable offline method that doesn't need in any moment to connect to internet it's the best way. Like it was with FL and as it is with Melda.

So i really hope IL doesn't force other companies they aquired to a different method, and i also hope they will go back on FL too.

I don´t know where the problem is...

I still use FLS with my reg keyfile... it´s just that now there is one additional step... cannot be so hard to manage...

The problem is the need to rely on an internet connection, and a server system that may fail for different reasons, that may even not depend on IL.

I know it's something hard to happen, cause "everythings" run online, but i'm a guy who generally don't like the "internet dependency" expecially because the more services run online, the more interest for hackers, and online activists go there, along government wars.
We already saw severe attacks to the web, that made lots of services down.

I also see no benefits for this approach, because you can still find all the programs to be available on pirates websites, regardles the protection, even more "invasive" and technically harder approaches are broken.
So what's the point? It just add a worse experience and possibility issues to legit users.

[Hevy_IL]

Gol decided once to not go the Midi route (what made sense back in the days as Midi was always a very weak and wonky thingy), so deep in the code of FLS there are many parts not working the way an implementation of something like MPE would require...

And therein lies the reason why FL Studio does not get considered a professional DAW by a lot of people. When it's competition started out as MIDI sequencers, FL and it's users were basically acting like MIDI was a "weak and wonky thingy" while step inputing electronic dance music into a DAW called Fruity Loops. Meanwhile people were writing full orchestral scores in DP, Cubase and Logic.

I never disregarded FL Studio, but it was patently obvious why people would, considering it's beginnings, it's single OS, tracker legacy, and the fact that it's users would do things like discount MIDI because they couldn't figure out how to get a stable MIDI environment going, and their DAW wasn't that good at it in the first place.

A good example to demonstrate how silly many people are...

People were whining 20+ years about their wonky DAW timing and even nowadays Cubase isn´t able to trigger a synth from a Midi VST without timing issues... but that´s professional!

If somebody goes a different way which improves timing by a factor of minimum 100 but it isn´t suitable for some niche applications... that´s a toy!

Find the error!

Btw... I am always again amazed and surprised how many people are writing their orchestral stuff in FLS which I personally consider as masochistic...
Nonetheless it seems to work...so it seems there is no need for Logic, DP and Cubase for such a task...

Second...taken your argument something like Ableton and Bitwig must be considered as well as toys as just a little amount of people are using it for "full orchestral scores"...

Again... find the error!

I was shocked to see how the timing issues of Cubase looks like.
FL Studio looks quite similar at the moment.

I'm really stocked to see the new improvements hopefully making it into production. If there are no major roadblocks.

And I also see a lot of people complaining about MIDI in Ableton and other DAWs.
But no doubt that we need to work on that.

[sjm]

So i really hope IL doesn't force other companies they aquired to a different method, and i also hope they will go back on FL too.

I don´t know where the problem is...

I still use FLS with my reg keyfile... it´s just that now there is one additional step... cannot be so hard to manage...

It's machine locked. Your use of FL going forwards is tied to the servers staying up. With the old regkey (up to 20.8.4) you could simply back up the regkey and you were ready to go on any new PC. You were in full control of your ability to install FL Studio on new machines as long as you kept your regkey backed up. Now there's no point in backing up your regkey.

In other words, you've handed over the keys to your DAW to Image-Line, and if the servers go poof (IL gets bought out and the product gets discontinued, they go bust etc.) you won't be able to unlock FL at all any more on new machines.

That's the difference between C/R and a regkey serial file. One gives the user full control and the software can be used indefinitely (as long as you keep backups), and one means the lifetime of the software is linked to the lifetime of the company (at most).