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FREE - McDSP EC-300 Echo Collection Plugin instead of $79 for a limited time :)


MusicMan

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3 hours ago, marled said:

I hate VST3 more and more!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke#Backlash

It wouldn't be as bad if it only lived up to its advertised promises. The thing is, those features such as the ability to hibernate when no signal is present, depend on developers actually using them. So far the only developers I know of who put plug-ins to sleep when there's no audio at their inputs is Meldaproduction, and their VST2's also have that feature.

VST needs things like protection against taking down the whole DAW when there's a crash in a plug-in and maybe the ability for different instances of the same plug-in to share core code. Would it be more efficient to to this rather than have the multiple instances all independent? I don't know, but it's the sort of thing that I think should be accounted for in the spec.

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7 hours ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

No internet, no plugin. :(

This plugin freezes if you have some internet problems. O.o

That is due to the cloud authorization I complained about.  If you have a physical ilok you can bypass the internet problem.   Annoying either way.

Edited by Brian Walton
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25 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

That is due to the cloud authorization I complained about.  If you have a physical ilok you can bypass the internet problem.   Annoying either way.

Easily solvable by iLok... If they cared about customers.. but they're all about selling dongles instead of making cloud auth user friendly ?

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10 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

Easily solvable by iLok... If they cared about customers.. but they're all about selling dongles instead of making cloud auth user friendly ?

Or in this case McDSP could allow ilok computer authorization as well.  

Not only that, could allow more than one instance.

While I'm not an ilok fan, companies that depend on it for "protection" have options within the ilok platform.  McDSP chose to instead limit in multiple places.

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2 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Or in this case McDSP could allow ilok computer authorization as well.  

Not only that, could allow more than one instance.

While I'm not an ilok fan, companies that depend on it for "protection" have options within the ilok platform.  McDSP chose to instead limit in multiple places.

Agreed. It's weird how they all have a variety of options of what they do and don't allow. If they just made it all 3 (machine/cloud/dongle) then it allows people to pick and choose. I wonder if the coding is the same, or more involved.

I tend to boycott any Dev that only offers one seat these days.. but for free I'm a little more flexible ?

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2 hours ago, MusicMan said:

Agreed. It's weird how they all have a variety of options of what they do and don't allow. If they just made it all 3 (machine/cloud/dongle) then it allows people to pick and choose. I wonder if the coding is the same, or more involved.

I tend to boycott any Dev that only offers one seat these days.. but for free I'm a little more flexible ?

I never bother to install them.  I really don't need another.

I think these iLok freebies are more to promote iLok,

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  • 7 months later...

NOTE:   I have successfully problem-solved the issues described in this post.  Since the post stemmed from issues raised by others, it seems relevant to leave it as here in case others have similar issues.

WOW.  I finally decided to install this after seeing it in my iLok account.  I had previously set up a McDSP account and in the process activated it per the instructions.  So all I needed to do was install it (or so I thought).  Found the installer setup on line which was huge because it had installers for all their plug-ins (7 GB I think for the zip file and the unzipped file, too; took over 5 minutes to download).

After unzipping them all, I managed to find the EC300 individual installer in the folder.  Since then, it has been a vicious cycle trying to get it to work in Cakewalk and another host.   EC300.vst3 is definitely where it should be. Cakewalk scans it.

However, it cannot be used unless I activate it. That cannot be done.

If it worked like other iLoked activations, I could just deactivate it so it showed 0 of 1 activations and then reactivate it. But evidently that's not how activations work. 

[ancient image removed to reclaim space]

Even though the product is active, hasn't expired, and has no "Activate By Date" restriction, it cannot be activated because it was once activated one time!!!

[ancient image removed to reclaim space

I wonder: (1) Can I transfer it? (2) If so, can I transfer it to myself? (3) If so, would transferring reset the one activation so I can activate it? (4) If not, (4a) can I transfer it to someone else and (4b) would they be able to activate it?

Maybe when they said, "Limited time offer" they meant it was secretly a trial license that expired without having an expiration date?

WOW!!

UPDATE:  I had been trying the vst3 version unsuccessfully in both Cakewalk and Voltage Modular. So I switched gears and tried the dll version in Voltage Modular. McDSP let me activate that.  Will try try Cakewalk. 

               If interested in the activation / installation issues mentioned, please see the follow-up post from approx. 5 hours later.

 

 

 

Edited by User 905133
to add an update; fixed typo
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Never used or activated the product until now but I can activate and deactivate it. Tried to do it several times with no problem. I suggest you get in contact with ilok support. Most probably you already have the license activated in another computer or you changed hardware and ilok considers your computer to be a different one (happened to me once after cloning my harddrive to a new ssd one). ilok support had to reset the computer in their servers for the plugins giving problems be able to be used again.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, forgot it activates on the cloud, not a computer. Have you internet connection when trying to activate it or a firewall preventing ilok from do it ? Anyway, the activation works well for that license, so it's an issue with ilok that you need to solve through their support.

Edited by Jeslan
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On 3/1/2022 at 10:53 AM, cclarry said:

This is my first McDSP Plugin...so it will be worth evaluating I suppose

Doubt it.

(The following vitriolic opinion is mine, YMMV)
McDSP is a MAC shop that only started supporting Windows for the money and then reluctantly.
Every upgrade is a charge, for example ec300 v6 to v7 which (from what I recall) mainly if not only added v3 support - yours for only $29
I stopped using their plugins and haven't missed them.

 

Edited by TheSteven
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Thanks for the comments! I figured out what happened. The problem started with an accidental user error on my part. That led to a condition that was not readily apparent. 

This morning I downloaded the current McDSP Windows Native installer and ran that.  When that didn't work (wrong version error warning), I checked and saw that the promo was for v6. So I Revo Uninstalled v7 including looking for left overs via the Advanced search method and then installed v6. (Revo Uninstaller runs the program's uninstaller first and then has 3 levels of searching for left overs. )

It looked like everything with the EC300 v6 installation was successful.  Unfortunately I kept getting the activation code request which resulted in green checks in iLok followed by an iLok pop-up that said I had exceeded code redemption limit. It really should have been a wrong version error pop-up!! 

Finally, I was able to activate the EC300.dll in Voltage Modular using VM's Plug-In Host Module. But, when I again tried the vst3 version, I still got the request for the activation code.  After some detective work, I decided that the v7 vst3 was still on my PC

I suspect the v7 version of EC300.vst3 in my VST3 folder (1) may not have been  uninstalled and (2) was not replaced by the v6 installation with the older EC300.vst3

It seems that by renaming EC300.vst3 to EC300.BUvst3, I forced the v6 installer to add the older one [v6] to my VST3 folder. Both the dll and vst3 now work in VM with approx. 56 exposed parameters, including UI Scale!  ? 

BTW, I am using iLok Manager, so for me the EC300 is in the cloud and I have concluded that iLok correctly deactivated and then reactivated the plug-in. So I am going with mainly user error on my part because (1) I unknowingly installed the current setup installer and (2) I trusted the v7 uninstallation process as well as the v6 installation process. 

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2 hours ago, TheSteven said:
On 3/1/2022 at 1:53 PM, cclarry said:

This is my first McDSP Plugin...so it will be worth evaluating I suppose

Doubt it.     (The following vitriolic opinion is mine, YMMV) . . .

I agree that YMMV.  If I weren't a big fan if delays/tape echoes, I would have blown it off and not spent the time trying to make it work.  But I have a passion for delays/echoes. Others might have a passion for different pieces of gear.  So it depends. 

I just scratched the surface of the EC300 today and I am glad I stuck with it.  For me it has some useful features that I will likely make use of at times as needed.   

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Okay,  I only looked at this thread to see my past post requesting a "McDSP with cheese." 

As I was struggling to sort out the issue, I mentally invoked some choice words involving the McD/MacD association, so I appreciate the "McDSP with cheese" comment. 

Edited by User 905133
to add links to informational resources
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