Hadn't opened Microtonic for about a month, R2R's V3.3.4 had been working perfectly. Opened it yesterday to continue work on a project and after about ten minutes got a pop-up asking me to register. A minute or two later the voice telling you to register and/or buy it. Filled in the registration with R2R's text info from the release, and it said 'thank you for registering'. Two minutes later, the pop-up again asking you to register and the weird sounding voice. Can't get rid of it now. Anyone else?

The machine I was using is always off-line, so definitely a time bomb. I was so sure R2R had it beat this time. This developer is just too good with hidden tricks.

 

Are you sure the PC was always offline?
Could someone else have connected it to internet?

Maybe the "trick" is a hidden 2 or more registration steps.
For example:
First part: You run the plugin, it connects to internet, you buy the license.
Second Part: You proceed to insert the license and then the developer server "inserts" hidden data/file into the plugin to fully unlock it. This missing "data or file" may be the thing causing the bomb even if the computer is offline. Inserting a serial number or serial file is not enough.

Crackers could fix this buiding a emulator??? Idk...
Just saying... I don't know really...
Anyway, companies are very tricky nowadays. That's true.

Also, always make sure of reading the .nfo file using notepad.

 

Last edited: Apr 6, 2024

Yup, the machine I had it on was always offline, no one else touches it. The registration worked fine for a few months. It's just once something was set off to ask for it again that it wouldn't take it anymore, even though at first it says you're registered. I spent some time last night cleaning it all out. Some time over the next week I'll try re-installing and see how it goes, though I did see a comment by one guy one another site saying he had something similar and once he tried to re-install it just kept rejecting it, like I experienced. This developer must have like 20 different time bombs planted in this thing. Interested in seeing if anyone else experienced this, though on the thread on sister site I do see 2 people very recently saying they got what I got. Let's face it though, so many groups have tried to get this one but it always seems to fail.

 

Microtonic has historically been a tough one no?

I have one from HEXWARS that has held through the test of time over 8 years or so, but it's on a different machine etc...

So every time back then I would do something with it, I would drop it as audio asap... Ended up buying it with their little drum machine thingy a long time ago, but I gifted that, and I believe the license (?) not sure, it's been awhile....

they do have fairly robust and stubborn CR though for sure!

 

Nooooo. Not my microtonicceriino

Dunno why but i like that thing

 

One and only plugin I ever paid for, it was always timebombed since the first [dada] release on macOS.
Love this little war machine <3

 

yes. it's all Sonic Charge plugins. Synplant 2 was giving them a hard time also, with the various time bombs.

v3.1.1 from pitchshifter still works with no problem. well, for me anyway.

 

Yeah, I had the V1 of Synplant, but never the v2 etc.... (for MacOS)...

I used it once or twice, one of those things that I actually liked the idea and philosophy of, but not enough to lay down the money for...

but I hear the newer versions are quite a decent product...

 

the dev & products are nice

 

Exploded here too. Exactly as you said, I tried to re-register, it accepted for a minute, but reverted to "your trial period expired bla bla bla". No harm done as I never used it anyway (just played with it for a couple of times and moved on. Had totally forgotten I had it installed until this post lol).

 

Same here, tho the FX plugins are working just fine.

 

Never tried the FX plugs from Sonic Charge, but based on the long-term general experience with this developer it would not surprise me if the TB's are coming sooner or later. It kind of amazes me that apparently he had some written into the program that wouldn't go off for a period of months. It's kind of wild and about as anal-retentive as it gets for a developer. He should probably give up putting out new versions of old apps and just go to work for other developers writing time bombs for their software. He'd probably make a lot more money.

When R2R released this, I got the feeling from their nfo that they tested it for around a month or so to see if they caught everything. I guess they weren't really expecting that there could be more TB's set up for month's later. Despite that, nice work by an amazing team in getting further than most with it -- who knows, maybe they'll take another look at it.

jennyblack -- I did a real thorough clean up on my system to remove everything related to Sonic Charge. I haven't had the chance yet to try a re-install yet (taxes due in a week, motherf'n taxes!!!!), but when I get around to it I'll let you know if a clean up allowed for a reinstall that would give you some more months to play with this if you decide you want to try it some more.

 

same here lol ... I just opened it to play and BOOM "You Should Consider Register Your Copy of Microtoniq" ...and its repeating like its angry every time

 

interesting reading for all ;)

Spoiler: here

Code:

 Sonic Charge Protection                                                      
 -----------------------                                                      
                                                                               
 There are 3 types of the protection inside.                                  
                                                                               
 * Trial expiration check                                                      
                                                                               
   Trial is available for 3 weeks. It doesn't just mean you can't run the      
   plugin after 3 weeks. You cannot load patch made over 3 weeks ago. Lazy    
   trial reset does not solve 3-weeks-preset problem.                          
                                                                               
 * Registration check                                                          
                                                                               
   It verifies license using MD5 Hash. Bitspeek, Echobode, Permut8, Synplant  
   have only core license check. Microtonic3 has extra registration checks in  
   many places. Some functions have double checks (2nd check will be triggered
   after 3 weeks). We can say Microtonic3 is way more protected than others.  
                                                                               
   Some checks in Microtonic3 are not simple true/false check. It should be    
   difficult for the crackers who cannot make valid license.                  
                                                                               
 * Integrity check                                                            
                                                                               
   There are some self-integrity-checks to detect file modification. There are
   lots of checks in many places.                                              
                                                                               
                                                                               
 Shorter than you expected? Because it's easy to say "checks in many places".  
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
 So, are these working this time?                                              
 --------------------------------                                              
                                                                               
 No one (except the developer) can guarantee the perfection for those [Tricky]
 protection. Anyway, we reversed how the registration and integrity check work,
 and we carefully chose the way to registrate the license. No bypassing in our
 work. Program code flow is working as it is. DLL file is untouched (bye bye  
 integrity check!). Hope our magic works :)    

 

Hi Robie, I think if you use it very often, it's time to buy it.

 

That's actually a great idea. If it could be combined with midi's of all the loops it would be a terrific way of solving this one.

I cared about the time bombs, but its more on the level of game-playing with this developer. I really wanted to see a team finally beat him, with so many teams having tried it going back years. Fact is though, even if R2R were to fix this latest time bomb issue, given this developer's track record there would probably be ten more TB's planted that would pop up after another fix. This is a very 'determined' developer.

 

I hadn't used it yet but I'm older enough to have some ethic, so, if I would have made music with it (or considered it a worthy tool) I would have undoubtedly bought it.
Sadly I won't... because I don't want software FULL of traps, bombs, etc.
I'm sorry for the developer but he has lost another customer (probably he doesn't care the least)