How do you block plugs without additional software?

My install gives instructions to add lines to hosts file. Is that the same as blocking plug communication?

 

That part is hard to accomplish, I don't think you can block dll, at least in windows. You block your daw completely or communications...Host file is for blocking some precise adresses, it works yes but up to a certain extent, it's not enought for safety.

 

Well, afaik there was never a legal action against a warez user! please correct (&proof) me if I'm wrong.

 

I totally don't agree on the resources thing. Even 15 years ago it didn't make any difference. You just were not able to load another trueverb for unplugging your network. Today i'd say it is not even measurable. It certainly is a good idea having your workhorse not connected, but not for saving cpu. That's a myth.

 

Disagree completely..
I dont have the most powerfull pc in the world by any measure,
And if i run my pc while im online im not saying its a hugely significant saving at all.."but its measurable my end only incrementally but its there and usage is visible to myself and others via tsk manager cpu resources..
You cant have explorer runnin in the background,be online,and not expect a decrease in performance however slight it may be..
A drop in power is a drop in power no matter how small or weather i notice or not
"i agree its properly miniscule but thats besides the point for me"


Anything n everything not to do with writing/programming is firmly disabled or off
If im programming i dont want anything going on in the backgroud whatsoever even if i were on a flagship pc.

Also i religously diable my wifi,shut down anti virus,disable a multitude of proccesses in task mngr before i run my daws....
With all those off the difference is significant certainly on my setup..
I even shut off the acpi control method battery and intel managment engine interface.
"Which i did to kinda resolve some serious cpu spikes i just coudnt source"
A trick which worked a treat btw..
And my desktop is absolutley bare..

 

Last edited: Dec 16, 2016

I always thought you could do it in the windows firewall..
Ive never actually manually done it tho so cant help soz!

 

I didn't say there had been. I just said the potential existed. ;)

Hmm. Some configs and hardware mean net connections can seriously screw with audio. IF there are issues with audio then networking is the first thing to switch off.

 

I ones many years ago used a cracked version of Peavey Revalver i got a mess that my IP was stored and that i use pirat version bla bla..

I also ones used a plugin that called home a Tone2 synth and really it make my computer behave very strange almost as if it being infected with a virus
But i avoid that company
Air wrote a list of strange things that that plug did to your computer..

Anyway is because of people like you that developer think more about protection scheme then think of getting the plugins to sound great..

I never ever go online when i use my daw or plugins hell i dont even have the internet cable pluged in..

I only plug it in if there is something i really must do online like register a plugin or update my OS..

If you cant afford two computers atleast make a partition and install win/osx on that partition and boot up to use that as internet only and then use the other for daw with cracked plugins.

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2016

there certainly are things i don't get why a program like Logic would want to connect to a site like images.newschoolers.com ??!

a skiing online community? its weird to say the least.
but, it wanted to connect and send data there.

if it isn't wares groups adding "extra" functions..


anyways, and it would have done that, if i hadn't had little snitch installed.

 

Have no problem with off internet. Once I on and and a lot of plugins dropped activation, etc. So no more internet. Use Internet on non studio pc and laptops, download and keep software installer stuff on USB cards, external HDDs,install from them on studio pc. Simpler and safety.

 

My production PC never hits the internet. The last time it was on the internet was the day Windows was installed, activated, and all updates up to that date installed. Since then, any new software is installed via sneaker-net. I would do it this way even if everything I used was legit.

I think this would be the best method in the event that I couldn't afford/did not want a second PC in addition to my production PC. I would disable/uninstall all network interfaces on the production partition as well.

Where did you find these settings? I experience this at times and would like to test this.

 

Sorry if my responce was tardy at all i aplogise but had some problems sorry....
Well all these settings are under contolpanel\system n security\device manager
I suffered from dhcp spikes ever since i installed fl studio 2 years ago but i struggled thru em all..
finally i got fed up of runnin outta cpu every 10 mins coz the cpu gauge would spike up to a billion percent know what i mean??
Did probably a month easy of research on the web and the only way that didnt invole a shit load of stuff being done that i just couldnt afford was to turn off the items i mentioned..
For me it solved it by id say round 75% and could run multiple instances of high cpusage plugs without issue and i still do....
Although im using ableton now "it will still happen but nowhere near the frequency of before " like i couldnt even run cerain plugs because of it and after wards "v,walla" i know i spelt thgat wrong he he feel free to pm me as theres many options to solve this but do remember im on win 7 but sure i can help....

 

No worries, I can only hit the internet Mon-Fri usually as I live beyond the reaches of the web.
I'm on Win 7 as well. I'll see this happen, a project that was working well several days before, and then try to load it and continually suffer audio dropouts. I wasn't sure by your post if you were disabling the service or the hardware. Thanks for the tip, I'll try it and see if it helps my situation. It seems like a plug trying to "phone home" could certainly be the culprit. I have a small home network, but there's no pipe to the outside world, I'm just sharing/transferring files between devices. It's probably confusing whichever plug is trying to phone home, causing that thread to hang.

 

Not music-related, but I remember Eagle-Cad in the 90's. They developed a special spy-software and put it on the disk together with their demo. If the spy-software detected an illegal version, the user was encouraged to order a free manual by snail mail, which some did. Instead of the manual they then got a nice letter from an attorney. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_(Software)(in German).

Today, I hear from a mayor CAD software company, suing clients who use "special" versions of their products, even if those versions were once licensed and now are used only instead of the paid and licensed new versions, because of compatibility issues with old plugins.
It is rumored that their software can detect such things in the client's network and call home. Furthermore, even small companies have often permanent IP's.
These are b2b cases, of course, and software prices are much higher (above 5k€ per license).

I doubt that anyone goes to jail for copyright infringement only as a user, but a civil lawsuit is also nothing enjoyable.

 

youre not online whist using your daw are you?????
i disable as follows from the device manager>>>> Batteries\microsoftACPI-compliant control method battery..then intel(R) management engine interface. also my web cam and my main disk drive i disable too ,alongside my antivirus fully ...When i did all this the difference in the way my machine handled audio was orders of malgnitude better ,almost like a pc upggrade "im also never online while runnin my daw" but disab for a plethora of reasons im happy to discuss with you another time coz im rather drunk and am brobably gonna pass out in the next 20 mins he he do feel free to pm me but disable your network adapter instead of just disconnectiong"my spellins screwy as ive one eye open tyin to wriote this sorry mate

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2016

I do know a few tricks so just let me sober up "sorry" and i promise u ill help as i know its so so irritating "dhcp audio spikes i mean"

 

There's no Internet where the DAW PC is. It's connected to my home network, but that's only internal network in my house, no outside world.

 

Depends on what the plugin uses. The only thing you do by editing your hosts config file is you redirect URLs to custom IP addresses. Most commonly, you just redirect to your own computer (127.0.0.1) - then, any software in your PC sees that there's no server running (because usually you don't have a web server running on your computer) and just gives up saying the website is dead. So you could add something like "youtube.com 127.0.0.1" and wherever in your system you try to load youtube.com, it will forward that to your computer and fail. However, problems arise when your software connects by using IP address, not the URL name. For that you need either a firewall in your system, or set up your router to do it for you.

 

I think i understand what you mean by your network being home....but even with me all those items i mentioned are switched off"disabled" when programming ,the usb ports not bein used too should be off/diskdrive/webam/theres alot goin on behind the scenes you dont need i stop "not disable" multiple services n processes too, so i can push my pc to peak pefoprmance for audio as i can myself with my limited knowledge and lack of funds he he!
Good thing doing it that way is when you restart you pc if youve stoped programmin n wanna go online is everything you stopped starts up again and you dot get any issues after the restart "i learnt that the hard way"
first disable acpi battery controller and intel management interface "found in devmngr"/disable/webcam/diskdrive/all wifi types wired or digital /antivirus/then your go into your services via admin press control shift esc for a shortcut
"btw of all availiable services ive 40 running outta the lot before i do this " stop/ backroung intelligence/base filtering engine\networkstore interface and all to do with it as it will ask\security centre/windows connect/windows firewall/wlan auto config..."dont worry i know it seems like much but i do it each time im having a proper session ...
When you reeboot if done correctly all will revert to the previous state and youll have no issue "theres alot more i turn off or completely or disable permanently which, ive not even touched on yet and is something you do need to know but dont wanna bore the hell outta you he he.."i also dont know if theres any services etc already turned off/did you unpark all you cpu cores?? its important you do that actually..youl notice a big difference ,i went into my registry and manually edited the value for the cores to be unparked when realised dhcp spikes will defo happen if you dont in my experience......As i say im happy to help but i need to know whatn youve already disabled or stopped on win7...coz if youve not really stopped or disabled anything then no wonder this happens and the difference when alls done will be astounding believe me

Btw it doesnt matter if youve no service where you are..
Your still using unnesecarry resources with all i mentioned being on and not disabled as its still operational in the background my friend and constantly..
let me know lets see if i can get this machine of yours runninn like a lambo
It worked with me and im on an acer aspire 7741g 2.8ghz wth boost to 3ghz ,i5 quad core ,ive no soundcard or anything just a standard lookin laptop "that isnt of course" but after i did all this it was honestly like a massive upgrade really "if done properly only" dont try to clock your cpu tho its a bad idea youll fry your cpu

 

Last edited: Dec 31, 2016

I think after I figure out which services you are stopping, I'll write a script to do this "auto-magically". I'm sure I've not got some standard things running as I have done some tweaking already. Suggested performance settings I seen in a post around here that I did when I upgraded to a SSD. When you say "DHCP spike" can you elaborate what this is? From my understanding, DHCP is Dynamic Host Control Protocol, and it's usage is when a client first joins a network asking for an IP address. The request is normally handled by a server, usually a routing device is in this role.