What do you base this on? Why do you think that 'cutting out piracy' improves sales?

I know that piracy puts products under my nose, whereas I've barely heard of Acustica before these releases and had zero interest and might well have tested them if I hadn't seen your posts and the nightmare protection you use. It reminds me of my experiences with UA.

Also, you made comments about your own path with piracy leading you to where you are now. Is that not also proof that piracy can be a good thing? Or are you basing your assumptions that where you could have afforded to buy products some 17 years ago that you made a conscious choice to pirate it instead of spending money, so therefore everybody else thinks like this?

 

Hi all !

After having tested the AA plug-ins several times, thanks to R2R and thanks to a blind test protocol (hofa blind test), I think I understand Giancarlo's problem.

Your products are neither better nor worse than the competition.
In reality the differences are imperceptible.
For what ?
Quite simply because algorithmic plug-ins have been largely at the hardware level for a few years now.
You are fighting body and soul with a technology that no longer brings anything to the market, except the big flaw of the slowness and size of each plug-in.
You know very well that the only way to sell your plug-ins is to add added value (interface, marketing, etc.) because at the audio level, this no longer adds anything, the game is over.
All you have to do is open the softube model 84 and compare it to the real thing, to understand that we can reproduce each piece of equipment very, very closely!

Become aware of this and stop stealing from people with a technology, which no longer brings absolutely anything and which, what's more, has major flaws.

 

@giancarlo It's kind of strange to talk about piracy here when a partner who represents your company also uses illegal software. r2r has shown the proof. To what extent will Acustica Audio work with partners in the future who use illegal software and represent the company? Will the behavior have consequences?

 

He has no metrics to support this. I can say though, and @giancarlo should be able to prove this WITH metrics. AA sales have gone up since the hyper tech was introduced and quite possibly since R2R introduced them to a different audience. Prior to that, they had the same complaints; high cpu usage, high disk space, slow reaction, bugs. Hell, some older products don't have working trials. They tell you to buy the commercial version and then they'll refund you if it doesn't work within 14 days. Makes you wonder if they have tools to verify things as R2R said.

Rules for thee but not for me.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

He's not gonna comment on that, nor is he going to stop selling his products. Maybe girancarlo thinks his partner is on the path to redemption and will go legit someday just like himself. But you @herznote, no you're just a dirty pirate and should be banned from AA's services. No path of redemption for you!

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

Thanks for the offer, but I don't even want the dirt for free

 

Audio Damage plugins were cracked and released a few tweaks ago by R2R. I think FL Studio would be a better example for this scenario. As we see, major teams including R2R haven't released an FL Studio crack for a long time. Image-Line offers the product cheaply and provides free lifetime updates too. Also, if you are a legit user, you may know that Image-Line treats its customers like a God. They are always there to help and always listen to the existing customers while implementing new features even though that doesn't bring fresh money for them. Also, their protection scheme is pretty basic too. FL Studio is as fast as Reaper when it comes to startup times.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

Its not true, it wasnt cracked, because it has no protection at all. Some retail versions was released by other users but with big lag from official release date

 

I think that the more you communicate the more likely this will happen. I imagine that eventually this bragging about improved sales in spite of sticking up two fingers to your loyal customers will backfire, but maybe I'm wrong.

Reading more of your replies its obvious that piracy helps your sales, as you have confirmed, so you really have no excuse for the ridiculous measures. Make a simple serial protection and treat your customers with some respect before you lose all of them... r2r has said that they didn't bother cracking Mac because its not worth the effort. Its like you're egging them into doing it.

 

If you are making so much money with Mac licenses then you should stop trying to guilt trip crackers and pirates by saying things like

With Mac licenses you have enough resources and money to make your plugins better. what is stopping you?

 

Piracy does not improve sales. Defending against piracy does not improve sales.
Improving the product and making it more desirable to have than the competition improve sales.
(That, or at least managing to create a public perception that that's what you've done. Which just took a major hit.)

 

I wish I could find the post and I'm too lazy to go searching, but I remember him saying that he welcomes being cracked. He just prefers the cracks to be done properly. I think this was after the Nebula 4 release that lead to people's accounts being banned iirc. He even mentioned their system was not complicated and that it could be cracked and welcomed R2R to do it. As long as it was done properly.

Came full circle.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

"full circle" yes, now even a SINGLE leftover/suspicious file detected by Aquarius will BAN YOUR WHOLE ACCOUNT
Soon, legit users with corrupted install will get their account banned too

 

I'm enjoying this fine release

 

I'm sorry but I actually had to create an account on this forum becaue it seems like it's the only place where you don't have the control and can't just ban users if they don't agree with you.
First of all I've spent a lot of money on your plugins and now I'm finding out I'm being affected with your crappy copy protection that unncessary bloats gigabytes of storage on my PC. How did you come up with an idea that your DRM should punish legal users like this?? Copy protection should always be transparent and NEVER affect paying customers. You explanation the space "was never a determining problem" is downright insulting. To make matters worse it even looks like your crappy protection can cause serious security issue when malitious nebula library gets loaded.
I don't support piracy but your arrogant and unprofessional attitude kinda proves R2R point about you.
And please don't respond to me with your wall of text verbal diarrhea and fix your products

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

I didn't read the specific quote but I'd already reached that conclusion from what he has been saying, the undertones. 2018/19 he was expecting it and what I read felt like he was disappointed, and then again in 2021 when again he wasn't 'the chosen one' around the 'seasonal releases' and now it feels like he 'finally got chosen'

 

Not to undermine the rest of your post, but for me this is simply not true.

I've used algorithmic plugins (by the scene considered best of the best) for 20 years now. Since a few months I've added a 1176 Hairball Rev F and Audioscape Opto LA2A and for me there isn't a single plugin that can do what those do.

About 60% of what I do is algo, 20% AA Nebula/Ash/Brighton/Taipei and 20% hardware (stats coming out of my arse yes). But they all have their own unique place in my experience.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

I’m sincere I feel bad for Giancarlo’s position.
I always buy legit licenses since I don’t want that other people works is wasted.
I’m also an entrepreneur and I understand is point of view.
Lately I broke my music pc and I got zero support from a lot of devs while trying to get back some of my licenses, also from the ILOK ones, so for the future I’ll do like this. If I enjoy a software I Buy it but only if it has a cracked version so ai can have a working backup.
Never been interested in AA before as I read that they weren’t optimized so I admit that I’ve tried some R2R releases telling my self I will buy if I enjoy them but in the end I really don’t like the products.
They should really focus on optimizing them imho.
Maybe now the time is ready for a change.

 

May I use "Verbal Diarrhea" as my music project name? it's so inspiring.
Thanks for registering & participate.

 

Bullshit, some things like the first Thunderbolt devices where
but never Only Mac