So, I'm using stuff from sister site and elsewhere going back a long, long time. I've never, NOT ONCE, used ilok, wanted no part of it.

Saw the Black Friday sale on VSX and decided to go for it, have heard very good things about it for awhile now. When I saw on their site you could use "machine ID" my lack of ilok experience led me to think that meant ilok wasn't necessary. My BAD! Didn't realize you needed ilok to run Slate VSX.

Did a search here to see if using ilok will affect your pirated VST's. Found some threads that say it will not screw them up, but the threads I located are quite old, like a comment by "Pirate" from 2019. So, if someone can clue me on the current status of this question I would appreciate it. Will this one ilok install screw up any warez stuff you've had experience with? Any advice on how to set it up to help avoid potential problems/conflicts???

Also, if you have an opinion, please weigh in on whether or not bending a personal longstanding "no ilok" policy is worth it for this VSX system. I'm really torn now over it and haven't even opened the VSX box I received yet!!

Thanks, and very happy holidays to all of you!

 

Download the latest version of iLok here: www.ilok.com/#!home

You'll need a UserID (your email address) and password. Write these down somewhere safe and secure.

Then install iLok, register, and enter the product's serial number.

That's it!

iLok doesn't negatively affect other cracked software.

 

I use VSX and I consider it the best purchase in my 25 years of studio career. I also use a few cracked plugins that I didn't buy yet. Some even along with the legal ones, ilok protected, from the same companies. No issues ever. Both on Mac and PC.

iLok is actually amazing, for using legal plugins. You only activate them once in your life and that's it. Reinstalling your system will be very easy, just don't forget to deactivate them from the machine, before you reinstall the OS. You can also use more than one ilok accounts running at the same time, especially if you split licenses with friends. I have 4 ilok accounts running at this very moment. iLok has a bad reputation, because it made the software more difficult to crack, and its bad reputation comes usually from people who want everything for free or from the people who don't want internet on their computers (which is understandable) and in that case you would need a physical USB iLok, which, especially on Mac, is a pita, due to lack of enough USB ports.

 

Hey PulseWave and MarkSlater!!

Thanks for getting back on this, I really do appreciate it.

Interesting to read your positive takes on ilok, particularly since I've always been so down on it

What really gets me over it on this Slate VSX product is how unnecessary it is and how it places an unneeded burden on the customer. I mean, if you're hanging out around here you know a lot of the ilok stuff has been defeated. And with VSX, apparently there's not much point to the software unless you've purchased the headphones. Therefore, the copy protection for VSX really boils down to the fact that no one can digitize and crack the necessary hardware headphones, which then acts as all the protection that's really needed by Slate. Even if this software got cracked (and likely no group will bother since you need the headphones to make it work anyway) and you didn't have to deal with ilok, you'd still have to buy the headphones to make it work. Putting a paying customer thru the ilok experience is therefore without any real purpose given the nature of this product.

Anyway, Slate gives 40 days for a return and still haven't decided what I'll do. I did really want this VSX though. lol, I'll toss and turn some more trying to figure it out.

 

I use iLok, but bigger picture, developers pay enough for licensing which results with pricier plugins, takes up more system resources and it's pretty much crapping out first and support is coming the last on new OSX/macOS version, doubt Windows updates didn't break it more then few times too. Happened before that servers were down and people were unable to use the plugins, there's 25 clams transfer fee if you want to sell the license to someone, so it's not just pirates, plenty of people from KVR hate it too. Only positive thing about is easy activation/reactivation, really only.

About VSX thing, not an user, but use Realphones and besides Bitwig that's the only essential thing in my whole setup, could live without everything else, so yeah, maybe just give VSX a try at this point, having so much reference sources in one package is amazing, even if it's nothing like a real deal, if you spend enough time getting to know them, it's still something you can trust and have with you everywhere. People reference music on so many devices, which are far from perfect too, but still familiarity with something makes it reliable/usable.

 

VSX owner here. While the included headphone are "calibrated" to provide the "intended accuracy" of the room simulations, I have been testing it with other headphones. I'd argue that one could "calibrate their ears" to translate with non-VSX headphones. To that point, if there was a scene release of VSX software, it can still be effective with certain headphones.

I'm not a fan of ilok, but I can appreciate their current implementation of machine licenses and cloud sessions. VSX gives you 3 licenses with purchase. So generally I don't use the physical key anymore since Altiverb 8 allowed machine license. I wish more developers would support cloud license so I don't have to remember to deactivate between clean OS installs. That happened to me once, and I had to request reinstatement of VSX license. That took about 48hours

 

If this was true, my desktop wouldn't even boot. You are good to go.

Two tips:
1) Don't install iLok yourself. Slate VSX installation does it for you and sets you up with an iLok account using the email that you supply.
2) Close your DAW and disable your firewall when you are installing VSX because it needs to connect to all sorts of crap that you probably have blocked. Installation will fail if it can't connect to what it needs to. When installation is complete, enable that firewall back. You will need to make exclusions for PACE but if you have Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control or something similar, it should prompt you to allow it.

 

Same with both providers - If you follow both providers' instructions, neither interferes with the other. I am a VSX owner with the latest update so I can speak from experience. If either tells you at any point, uninstall previous version and install new version, do it.