Oddness with Plugin Boutique account (serial numbers)

[Starship Krupa]

This is one of those "am I dreaming or something?" Things.

I just flipped through all 22 pages of my Plugin Boutique orders/S/N's and noticed something odd: I am about 95% sure there are serial numbers in there for products that I didn't purchase  from Plugin Boutique.

These are only from one company, MeldaProduction. In both cases, I am pretty sure that I bought my licenses directly from the company.

Maybe I have my own personal Mandela Effect going on? Of course when the Mandela Effect is just one person, it's just plain "misremembering," although this has that same Twilight Zone-y feel to it I associate with the Mandela Effect: a reliable, authoritative source is showing me evidence that something was another way from what I remember.

The very first plug-in I bought from MeldaProduction, using the 10 euro newsletter bonus (and after buying a second-hand license for the FreeFX upgrade on KVR) was MModernCompressor. I remember this VERY well because I remember being so impressed by MCompressor and the other FreeFX plug-ins in their "pro" featured versions. The design philosophy, the business practices, etc. I wanted to spend that 10 euro credit on something I would use all the time, and a compressor seemed like a good thing. Turns out that MModernCompressor is kind of the Edsel of their product line, a collection of ideas that seemed good at the time that never quite made it as a product.

So. Why is my friggin' serial number for MModernCompressor listed in my account at PB? PB were MeldaProduction dealers at that time (I think), but I remember using my 10 euro newsletter credit to buy it, and I couldn't have done that via PB. There are licenses for other Melda products in there that I did get from them either as free-with-purchase deals or deep discounts, but there's another one that sticks out as having been purchased directly, as I've always preferred to do with Melda. The next license I got for one of their plug-ins was MAutoAlign, and not only does memory tell me I got it directly from Melda, logic also suggests that MAutoAlign is a specialized (and best-selling) utility that would be odd for them to issue as a freebie or the level of deep discount that would get me to buy it from them. MAutoAlign is only useful to people who record audio with multiple mics, it has little to offer PB's producer/beatmaker main demographic. Given my having become a big fan of MeldaProduction's products, wouldn't I remember the first one I ever bought from them? Have that many of my marbles rolled under the fridge? WTF?

The only explanation I can think of is that at some point there was a data mishap involving MeldaProduction licenses at PB, and they had to recreate it from Melda's records, and erred on the side of caution. It's not as if showing serials that weren't purchased at PB would hurt anything. MeldaProduction keeps track of them.

[ralfrobert]

You can check if you have any receipts in your inbox or the account. They also exist for free products. 

[mibby]

Maybe it was a giveaway one month and you forgot about it?

[Fleer]

You can check out every time you want …

[Grem]

4 hours ago, Fleer said:

You can check out every time you want …

But you can never leave....

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, mibby said:

Maybe it was a giveaway one month and you forgot about it?

Anything's possible with my increasingly defective memory, but like I said, MModernCompressor was the plug-in I used my newsletter credit to buy. Not likely to be a freebie, considering that it's kind of an oddball in the MeldaProduction line. I even remember waiting for it to come around in the Eternal Madness rotation, which allowed me to get it for about $15.

MAutoAlign is a specialized utility, so also not likely to be a freebie or deep discount.

There were some MeldaProduction plug-ins that were either freebies or very deeply discounted that I bought from PB, like MReverbMB, MTurboComple, and MAutoDynamicEQ. Those all show up at PB, but that's expected. It's just those two that seem weird.

It was long enough ago that looking for receipts would take deep digging, and really, it's of zero consequence. Those licenses have been superseded by my MComplete license. I only posted about it because it was a curiosity.

[marcL]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

MAutoAlign is a specialized utility, so also not likely to be a freebie or deep discount.

In July 2021 MAutoAlign was £17.49 in Plugin Boutique. That was a great deal IMHO (that's why I snapped it)!

[Brian Walton]

My theory was going to be you bought an extra copy by accident when they put it on super sale.  However the $9 was an audio deluxe exclusive not PB.

I had purchased it about a month prior at a higher price.

[antler]

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It was long enough ago that looking for receipts would take deep digging, and really, it's of zero consequence. Those licenses have been superseded by my MComplete license. I only posted about it because it was a curiosity.

If you're certain you didn't buy from them, you could always email them about it. On the off chance that it's a system glitch, I'm sure they'll be happy it's reported.

[Starship Krupa]

39 minutes ago, antler said:

If you're certain you didn't buy from them, you could always email them about it. On the off chance that it's a system glitch, I'm sure they'll be happy it's reported.

Well, I am not 100% certain. As I get older, my certainty about what I remember becomes less certain. 😃

I remember having the newsletter credit, and I remember wanting to get a really top quality compressor, and remember waiting for MModern to come around on the eternal madness sale, and I remember posting on their forum that I couldn't get one of the features to work correctly.

[User 905133]

Thanks to your posts on this subject and the interest they seem to have created, I looked at the contents of the various tabs--not just My Products, but Orders, Updates, and Free.  It brought back some memories--like my first purchase at Plugin Boutique the VIP 3.1 Complete Bundle which I found after all the comments about AIR Music Technology's products, especially Xpand!2. 

Unlike your problem, I only had a few serial numbers for some of the products allegedly in the bundle.  Although I was bordering on thinking this was a case of Bait-and-switch, it did get resolved after a number of exchanges with customer support, but not before I made a separate purchase for Xpand!2 which I just "had to have" because of all the wonderful things I had seen about it.

I also saw that I have a whole bunch of freebies (some downloaded as freebies, some acquired as monthly perks).  Also, I had forgotten that I used to purchase Melda plugins there.  I also saw I had updates including update notices for Melda plugins I got through Plugin Boutique. 

I find it very odd that I now have order numbers from today for 6 free items from over the years.

Oh, wait. 

Those were generated from clicking "Download" today via the My Updates tab and includes one for MSoundFactoryLE.  I will try clicking another update for one of the others I originally got from Plugin Boutique. YUP!!!!!!  Of course, for Melda, the button just goes to the usual Melda Productions Downloads/Installer web page.

Is there any chance you clicked on the Download buttons in Plug-in Boutique using the My Updates mechanism?

 

[chris.r]

In any case, if you keep your past emails, you can always check for a proof of purchase then you can see when it happened and perhaps it will remind you more of how it happened.

Also there's nothing wrong with publicly admitting that you've discovered that you've bought something twice. I already joined this 'premium' club at least once, when happily downloading a freshly redeemed ilok license for softube phaser I noticed a second one sitting there already! 😜

[User 905133]

8 hours ago, User 905133 said:

Although I was bordering on thinking this was a case of Bait-and-switch, it did get resolved after a number of exchanges with customer support, but not before I made a separate purchase for Xpand!2 which I just "had to have" because of all the wonderful things I had seen about it.

1 hour ago, chris.r said:

Also there's nothing wrong with publicly admitting that you've discovered that you've bought something twice. 

Not sure if this stems from my comment (see above). In any case, let me clarify.  My purchase of Xpand!2 as a single was not a case of accidentally buying something I already had. The VIP 3.1 Complete Bundle included it and I knew that. But Plugin Boutique only gave me 1/2 to 1/3 of the serial numbers that they should have.  In case the bundle turned out to be a mistake and they were not going to honor my purchase, I intentionally purchased Xpand!2 as a single (I think it was $10), so at least I would have that in case they backed out of the sale. The bundle was my first purchase from PB and I had no idea if they would get me all the SNs I was supposed to get.

Apologies if the context wasn't clear from the abbreviated version of the episode I posted. 

BTW, the bottom line is that they got me all the serial numbers/downloads/codes for all of the products listed in the bundle.  IIRC it took close to a week to get it sorted out, but I didn't hold that against them because them came through for me.  

[chris.r]

41 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

Not sure if this stems from my comment...

No, it was for the original poster of thread. Sorry for confusion!

[User 905133]

all is good!  🙂 

[Yan Filiatrault]

On 8/26/2023 at 9:49 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Well, I am not 100% certain. As I get older, my certainty about what I remember becomes less certain. 😃

I remember having the newsletter credit, and I remember wanting to get a really top quality compressor, and remember waiting for MModern to come around on the eternal madness sale, and I remember posting on their forum that I couldn't get one of the features to work correctly.

You can always write to PB to complain and have the product removed from your account, unless you also forget to write to them

[User 905133]

You could ask for money back for the duplicate.  Maybe they will give it to you.  Maybe they won't, but it's a starting point to get the conversation going. Since you are such a good customer, it might be worth their while to just pay you for the second copy and retain you as a satisfied customer. You never know until you try.

[Starship Krupa]

On 8/26/2023 at 7:38 AM, User 905133 said:

Is there any chance you clicked on the Download buttons in Plug-in Boutique using the My Updates mechanism?

I know I have done so. I go through my PB account every once in a while to see if there are any updates posted, and since MeldaProduction updates their stuff so often, of course the MeldaProduction stuff said that an update was available, and that alert won\t go away until you click on the link.

That's another reason the entry for MModernCompressor is strange: I check every couple of months, and only just noticed it now.

On 8/26/2023 at 2:38 PM, chris.r said:

there's nothing wrong with publicly admitting that you've discovered that you've bought something twice

Of course. I'm sure that many of us bargain hunters have done so. I have two licenses for Boz' Little Clipper because it went on sale for $5 after I bought the first one and then forgot about it. Especially vexing to know that I now had 2 licenses for a plug-in I couldn't find much use for, to the point of even forgetting that I had it. I didn't even notice until I went to Boz' website to download it, checked my products page and found 2 licenses.

In the case of MeldaProduction, though, it's not possible to buy the same product twice unless you also start another account with them. What you get from a dealer is just a number, which they convert to a MeldaProduction license on their website. In typical MeldaProduction fashion, the way they handle licensing is a little different. You don't ever get a "license number" that you type into a little box on the plug-in to register it or whatever. Instead, each license is tied to your MeldaProduction account, and to activate it, you enter your account information (name and email address). They of course also have a way to do it where the system doesn't have to connect to the Internet, you download a license file which will authenticate all of your plug-ins.

MModernCompressor is the plug-in I own least likely to get a double purchase for the same reason I was stumped by this situation: it was the first of their plug-ins I bought after getting the FreeFX upgrade, and one of the first 3rd-party plug-ins I bought that I considered to be "professional," rather than a loss-leader freebie or bargain basement purchase. It was the start of my increasing my plug-in budget and seeking out ones I considered to be the no compromise best in their class rather than settling for using only things I could get for under $10. Also, it's always been something of a problem child in my lineup due to having that odd dynamics distribution display taking up so much real estate. It's the feature that's supposed to set it apart from other compressors and I don't think anybody but a couple of people on their forum even use it. Watch Chandler's video where he rounds up all of the MeldaProduction compressors and demonstrates them and tells what situations he would use each for. When he gets to MModernCompressor, he kind of pauses and admits to never using it and says it might be good for spoken word. Even their paid brand advocate can't get excited about the thing.

It's got an "Island of Misfit Toys" charm about it, complete with an undiscovered talent, which is front page access to the different detector models, (including "psychoacoustic"). The only other MeldaProduction processor that has that detector mode is MDynamics, where you have to dig 2 or 3 panels deep to get at it, and it still doesn't have all of the ones that MModern does. Making good use of something that I don't think other people know about is fun. 😄 In that same video, Chandler digs into MDynamics deeply enough to see the psychoacoustic selection for the detector, and multiple commenters said they never knew it was there and were excited to try it. I've been using it for years, neener neener.

11 hours ago, User 905133 said:

You could ask for money back for the duplicate.

It's not a duplicate. Even if it were, I wouldn't care. A LOT of my MComplete license was paid for with referral credits. Once I had the FreeFX bundle and MEssentialsFX bundle, there weren't really any MeldaProduction products that caught my fancy unless they were put on deep discount, like MTurboAmp and MSoundFactoryLE. If someone asked me which of their plug-ins to buy, I'd say upgrade the FreeFX bundle and get MEssentialsFX and that would do it. The rest of the line is high quality but none of them are must-haves, IMO. MPowerSynth is underrated as far as sound, but when it comes to programming it, it's as impenetrable as one would expect from MeldaProduction. But the credits kept rolling in (posted my code on VI Control where the deep-pocketed play and tried to provide useful information along with it) so I kept getting more licenses.

12 hours ago, Yan Filiatrault said:

You can always write to PB to complain and have the product removed from your account

It is of no actual consequence and will stay as a curiosity and a reminder to sometimes check whether everything is as I remember it. Rashomon is one of my favorite movies for a reason. Watch it and you'll never again trust your memory or anyone elses!

[Starship Krupa]

On 8/26/2023 at 7:38 AM, User 905133 said:

I looked at the contents of the various tabs--not just My Products, but Orders, Updates, and Free.

Thanks for turning me on to something that should have been obvious to me: I just checked Orders to see if MModernCompressor and MAutoAlign were in there, and noticed that there is a gap between November 2022 and April 14, 2023 (which I think is around when I bought Chromaphone), after which it lists 26 orders on April 14-15, all for plug-ins that I bought years ago, like the Orchestral Companions, some later ones like Freakshow Industries' lineup, and a big pile of freebies of the month.

Unless memory really fails, I did NOT buy 26 plug-ins over 2 days around US tax day. Especially not ones that I'd already been using for years before April 2023. And I don't think I went 6 months without buying anything from PB, although that is possible. I did declare a moratorium on new mixing plug-ins around late 2022, so maybe I stuck to it better than I thought.

This suggests that they did some database work around that time that could have included contacting plug-in manufacturers and getting lists of licenses registered by me regardless of whether I purchased them from PB or directly from the manufacturer.

There are also other purchases in there for plug-ins that have incorrect dates. W.A. Production and iZotope are also well-represented in the "wrong date" zone.

I guess that for a huge database that contains purchases from millions of people (I assume) going back for such a long time, corruption becomes increasingly possible. Complicate this with freebies, store bundles, and it seems pretty daunting.

Good reminder not to rely on PB to keep my license info safe forever. Put those serials in a spreadsheet. I don't always remember to do this, but I have a Google Sheet with many serials in it.