Soundtoys Summer Sale

Discuss VST stuff here!
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dandandaaan
Posts: 62
Joined: 01 Mar 2016
Location: London, UK
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10 Jul 2018

Some pretty decent deals here. Any recommendations? I'm pretty tempted to pull the trigger on Decapitator, which I've had my eye on for a while.

https://www.soundtoys.com/product/
singer/songwriter with electronic tendencies

http://pointsmusic.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/points_music

Logic / Ableton Live / Reason Rack / Nord Stage 2 / Moog Grandmother / Eurorack / Guitars, drums, toys


strangers
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Location: NJ

10 Jul 2018

PhutureD wrote:
10 Jul 2018
All very tempting but uses that ilok crap.
How bad or annoying is ilok? I was close to buying Softube Tape until I caught all of the complaints about ilok. Never used it myself to know the struggle.

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

10 Jul 2018

Many iLok plugins can be authorized on the computer instead of having a physical iLok.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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manisnotabird
Posts: 475
Joined: 20 Feb 2015
Location: Austin, TX

10 Jul 2018

strangers wrote:
10 Jul 2018
PhutureD wrote:
10 Jul 2018
All very tempting but uses that ilok crap.
How bad or annoying is ilok? I was close to buying Softube Tape until I caught all of the complaints about ilok. Never used it myself to know the struggle.
I have some Soundtoy plugin's and didn't find the iLok stuff that annoying. Probably took me an extra 10 minutes to set up. No hardware necessary.

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hurricane
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10 Jul 2018

strangers wrote:
10 Jul 2018
PhutureD wrote:
10 Jul 2018
All very tempting but uses that ilok crap.
How bad or annoying is ilok? I was close to buying Softube Tape until I caught all of the complaints about ilok. Never used it myself to know the struggle.
Zero annoyance and I've had mine for 5 years. I don't even know it's there. But if you don't ever want to use those beautiful sounding plugins from Eventide, Softube, Soundtoys, Slate, UVI, Kush Audio, then good for you, stay away from the "ilok crap" cuz you need to be a GENIUS to figure it out. :roll:

*loads Soundtoys rack*
srackreason.jpg
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Soundcloud | Youtube
Logic Pro | Bitwig

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QVprod
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10 Jul 2018

PhutureD wrote:
10 Jul 2018
All very tempting but uses that ilok crap.
strangers wrote:
10 Jul 2018
How bad or annoying is ilok? I was close to buying Softube Tape until I caught all of the complaints about ilok. Never used it myself to know the struggle.
Most products allow computer authorization. You don't need a physical key. Feels no different than Reason's authorization. Do it once and you forget it's there.

strangers
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Posts: 793
Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: NJ

10 Jul 2018

Nearly regretted asking a first-timer question for a minute there. Thanks to the ones cutting some slack. The last time I ever came across anything iLok related was when it was primarily dongle based. Didn't know they've grown beyond that to being as simple as a one-click auth. You guys saved me from completely missing out on some great plugins.

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hurricane
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Joined: 14 Oct 2017

10 Jul 2018

I just don't think anyone should avoid using plugins requiring an iLok, or Elicenser, or any sort of plugin download hub, if it's mainly because you're afraid it's going to be too difficult to use or understand, or that it will cause some insane system performance instability, or whatever negative thing you think is going to happen. Same goes with those people still weary of jumping on the Waves bandwagon because of the mysterious and shady and MISUNDERSTOOD Waves update plan. And then there's those of you still afraid to use VST plugins because you think it will somehow cause "headaches". These issues were more prevalent 10 years ago! Yeah, shit happens sometimes, but as long as you put the teeniest amount of effort into understanding the basics, then you're going to be fine. And you'll have access to some great sounding plugins!
Soundcloud | Youtube
Logic Pro | Bitwig

botnotbot
Posts: 290
Joined: 26 Oct 2017

11 Jul 2018

I lost out on a number of free plugins from Soundtoys and UVI (free for a moment, pretty expensive after) by being against "iLok crap".

At one point I just said screw it, and I'm very glad I did. Some of my favorite plugins are behind iLok. Just like Reason's protection, it actually makes getting your plugin library onto a new computer easier, not harder.

Note, though, that I never used iLok when it was hardware only. I don't doubt that there was a point when iLok's bad reputation was deserving, but in my experience it is not the case any more.

Soundtoys is awesome. They do loyalty pricing, so the more you own the cheaper the rest gets. Everyone in the box will benefit from having Decapitator in their arsenal, great for warming up any channel.

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PhutureD
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Location: Cape Town
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11 Jul 2018

strangers wrote:
10 Jul 2018
PhutureD wrote:
10 Jul 2018
All very tempting but uses that ilok crap.
How bad or annoying is ilok? I was close to buying Softube Tape until I caught all of the complaints about ilok. Never used it myself to know the struggle.
When it works. it works. At the moment I have more than 20 vst instruments which I purchased , none of which I am able to use because of the ilok licensing issue. The licenses are tied to my old machine which crashed and cannot be retrieved. I contacted support , which only allows resetting of licenses once per year. I reinstalled everything on windows 10. As you may know, there are many problems in win 10 concerning audio. I then transferred all of my licenses ( or thought so ). Reinstalled all products on the same win 10 machine but on windows 7. The licenses are now tied to the windows 10 and there is no way of retrieving them again. Even after contacting support. ilok support cant help because permission needs to be granted by each vendor separately, which they have already given me, and are now ignoring my emails. Vendors are: Sonnivox, izotope, soundtoys, Airmusic. See post on kvr . there are many instances of what I am referring to. This is just one of the hundreds , if not thousands of examples. https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewto ... 0&start=45

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dandandaaan
Posts: 62
Joined: 01 Mar 2016
Location: London, UK
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11 Jul 2018

strangers wrote:
10 Jul 2018
PhutureD wrote:
10 Jul 2018
All very tempting but uses that ilok crap.
How bad or annoying is ilok? I was close to buying Softube Tape until I caught all of the complaints about ilok. Never used it myself to know the struggle.
My personal experience with iLok has always been fine. Sorry to hear about yours, PhutureD.

If anyone wants the lowdown: I don't know if it works exactly the same for every vendor, but for Soundtoys every plugin purchase gives you 2 licenses tied to your iLok account that you can freely "activate" on USB iLoks and/or individual computers. So you don't need a dongle, but I think the intended usage is to activate it once on your machine and once on a dongle so you have a backup - but you can freely deactivate and reactivate on individual machines as many times as you want. Changing computers/OS updates (?) I think can cause problems if you don't remember to deactivate the licenses first, but I've just changed machines and personally never had any trouble with it.
singer/songwriter with electronic tendencies

http://pointsmusic.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/points_music

Logic / Ableton Live / Reason Rack / Nord Stage 2 / Moog Grandmother / Eurorack / Guitars, drums, toys

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manuel radioact77
Posts: 38
Joined: 09 Jun 2017

12 Jul 2018

I never had a problem with the ilok thing.

I just started buying Soundtoys plugins during their sales. After you buy just one or two of their plugins, the price of admission for the full Soundtoys 5 bundle decreases dramatically.

They are a very friendly company and offer (for free. ie: forever, as it should. Without any payed 'update' schemes) a lot of stuff to their clients such as new plugin, new versions of the bundles, etc. I strongly recommend it.

groggy1
Posts: 466
Joined: 10 Jun 2015

12 Jul 2018

manuel radioact77 wrote:
12 Jul 2018
I never had a problem with the ilok thing.

I just started buying Soundtoys plugins during their sales. After you buy just one or two of their plugins, the price of admission for the full Soundtoys 5 bundle decreases dramatically.

They are a very friendly company and offer (for free. ie: forever, as it should. Without any payed 'update' schemes) a lot of stuff to their clients such as new plugin, new versions of the bundles, etc. I strongly recommend it.

I've never had a single iLok problem (and I think I've had iLok for 15 years or so). I actually prefer iLok since it makes rebuilding a new PC easy (just move the dongle).

I can totally understand why people don't like making the leap of installing a dongle though: When I first got iLok, I was very worried about having another driver installed on my machine - one that I never asked for. Yeah, it theoretically takes up some CPU, can cause a system crash if it's written poorly, and maybe even reduce my PCs power by a hair. But in-practice, I just installed it and it worked. And it never seemed to get in the way of any audio work.

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Loque
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Posts: 11173
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

16 Jul 2019

Currently you can get the echo devices quite cheap for around 99 bucks for Echoboy, PrimalTap and Crystalizer:
https://www.soundtoys.com/product/echo-pack/
https://www.jrrshop.com/soundtoys-echo-pack

It also buys you into the full bundle if you are interested.
Reason12, Win10

Soeno
Posts: 254
Joined: 09 Dec 2017

16 Jul 2019

Loque wrote:
16 Jul 2019
It also buys you into the full bundle if you are interested.
same price for the complete bundle
https://www.soundtoys.com/product/soundtoys-5/

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Loque
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Joined: 28 Dec 2015

16 Jul 2019

Soeno wrote:
16 Jul 2019
Loque wrote:
16 Jul 2019
It also buys you into the full bundle if you are interested.
same price for the complete bundle
https://www.soundtoys.com/product/soundtoys-5/
If you own this pack? Normally it gets cheaper..
Reason12, Win10

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Libraquaricorn
Posts: 345
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

17 Jul 2019

I find the software iLok thing to be of little or no hassle. It reminds me of the Propellerheads one, but I have had more issues with that than with iLok. I have the Soundtoys bundle, and I love it. I snatched Little Plate for free at first and found myself eligeble for a super nice discount on the whole collection.

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zoidkirb
Posts: 752
Joined: 18 Nov 2018
Location: Brisbane Australia
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17 Jul 2019

dandandaaan wrote:
10 Jul 2018
Some pretty decent deals here. Any recommendations? I'm pretty tempted to pull the trigger on Decapitator, which I've had my eye on for a while.

https://www.soundtoys.com/product/
Decapitator is very nice, I picked it up ages ago on I think a steeper sale. It's the sort of thing it's tempting to chuck on every channel to some extent. I would say with a bit more effort, you can get close enough results with Pulverizer.

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joeyluck
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Posts: 11029
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

17 Jul 2019

I've never had any issues with iLok authorization itself—always works. And you can authorize your computer with Soundtoys plugins.

Some like Slate I believe still don't allow computer authorization. McDSP still doesn't allow computer authorization, but just recently started allowing iLok Cloud authorization, maybe Slate did too?

Customers who have used iLok for years have less to complain about because chances are they had to buy a dongle back when the dongle was the only option. Being a Reason-only user like myself, who is late to the VST game, all of the plugins I have bought recently that require iLok allow computer authorization, which I prefer.

But then when I come across a plugin that requires the dongle, that's when it gets annoying because then you are figuring if the cost of a single plugin plus a $40 dongle on top of it is worth it for that one plugin...and then dealing with a dongle just for one or a few plugins. Of course, the dongle has its benefits when working across systems...

reggie1979
Posts: 1181
Joined: 11 Apr 2019

17 Jul 2019

Ilok is evil and steals your soul.

Just kidding, I have to add that because someone would take that seriously :lol:

No problems here other than stuff getting authorized on the cloud which I want them on the dongle and they are a PITA to move. But zero problems with the plugs.

reggie1979
Posts: 1181
Joined: 11 Apr 2019

17 Jul 2019

Oh yeah, Soundtoys. NOTHING is Echoboy, not even close, zero comparison. It's like RenBass, it's completely unique.

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dvdrtldg
Posts: 2386
Joined: 17 Jan 2015

18 Jul 2019

Two things to keep in mind:

1. You want them all, not just one or two of them

2. This is a good sale, but if you're not in a hurry, you might want to hold off for a better one

I got Panman for free a while back - some special offer, can't remember now - then I bought SieQ for next to nothing in another sale. Shortly afterwards, there was a Black Friday deal offering "complete your bundle" for $175

So basically I got the entire Soundtoys 5 suite for under 200 bucks (including Little Plate for free when it appeared). I reckon Black Friday will be cheaper than the current sale, if you can hang on

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Loque
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Posts: 11173
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

18 Jul 2019

Currently its on sale in different shops. Its always worth to compare, like:
https://plugindiscounts.com/product-cat ... mmer-sale/
Reason12, Win10

lrey
Posts: 43
Joined: 31 May 2018

19 Jul 2019

Pulled the trigger on the Echo Pack. Really wish that I didn't. If you want to upgrade to the Soundtoys 5 bundle, you only get $55 credit towards that. You don't get credit for each plugin individually. Kinda weak if you want to eventually upgrade. Good deal if not upgrading to the everything bundle and just keeping the Echo Pack.

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