Crow Hill Your Black Friday Gift Is Here!

[cclarry]

Use this code for $15 off

BANKOFCROW-BF15

https://thecrowhillcompany.com/shop/

[cclarry]

I can't add anything to my cart...weird

EDIT:  I had to be logged in...

Edited Friday at 01:50 PM by cclarry

[cclarry]

Pocket Strings for FREE!

[BTP]

Their website is very slow at the moment.

You can't use this on the old freebies, which aren't free anymore.

[MusicMan]

Small String Gestures is really quite nice for the price.

[Starship Krupa]

Very nice products, and it's hard to beat the price, but why oh why do we have to install yet another service just to install the product(s)?

I got the free Antelope EQ and it installed a service. I think Softube installs one too. None of these is necessary in order to use the plug-ins, they're only required during the install process.

<rant>

These are plug-ins. All an installer needs to do is download the VST3 package and copy it to the VST3 directory. If your installer needs to install its own service just to perform a download and file copy, something is WRONG with your installer. And they never install with manual startup, always automatic, so they're always sitting there waiting for another installation.

I don't mind a well-designed omnibus installer shell, in the case of companies whose plug-ins a have many of I even like the ones that work well. But I draw the line at installer services. In practice, it just means that I have to go in and set the startup to manual, or in the case of really aggressive ones where instantiating the plug-in(s) triggers a start, disabled. Then the installer pitches a fuss next time I try to install one of their products. None of this rigmarole is endearing, really the opposite.

My computer is probably capable of running these stupid things without my noticing any performance hit, but as with any running program, it's just another thing to go wrong, another bit of complexity that nudges the system closer to error. No matter how benign they think these things are, if there's a mistake in the code they could have memory leaks or any number of other issues. Or someone else's program could have a conflict.

I used to work in the commercial software biz, I get that the corporate ego says that one's own product is the most important program on a user's computer, and that the user should welcome multiple entries in the Start menu, etc., but if you really must flex, just dump an unasked for shortcut on my desktop like everyone else.

</rant>

[pseudopop]

14 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Very nice products, and it's hard to beat the price, but why oh why do we have to install yet another service just to install the product(s)?

It's just another form of DRM, one that inconveniences honest users and is never even seen by those who sail the high seas.

[Starship Krupa]

45 minutes ago, pseudopop said:

It's just another form of DRM, one that inconveniences honest users and is never even seen by those who sail the high seas.

These services that are only used during installation are part of an authentication mechanism then.

So many companies manage to do it without installing a friggin' service. A|A|S, MeldaProduction, Plugin Alliance, IK Multimedia....

[pseudopop]

21 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

These services that are only used during installation are part of an authentication mechanism then.

So many companies manage to do it without installing a friggin' service. A|A|S, MeldaProduction, Plugin Alliance, IK Multimedia....

But how else would they track your plugin usage and gather information about your system, or phone home every now and then to make sure you have nothing unlicensed installed, or show you advertisements about their latest plugins? Think of the poor companies!

[Starship Krupa]

10 hours ago, pseudopop said:

But how else would they track your plugin usage and gather information about your system, or phone home every now and then to make sure you have nothing unlicensed installed, or show you advertisements about their latest plugins? Think of the poor companies!

They must be disappointed in me, because as soon as the install is done I disable the service. Then I try instantiating them in Sonar. So far I haven't had any complain, but if I did, I'd just uninstall the plug-in.

It only happens with freebies because the companies where I actually spend money on plug-ins don't use install helper services. No coincidence, that.

The only running service I tolerate for plug-ins is Waves, and even their stuff works fine without it. It seems to only be used for their kluged-on preset browser.

[Colin Nicholls]

On 11/28/2025 at 11:58 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Very nice products, and it's hard to beat the price, but why oh why do we have to install yet another service just to install the product(s)?

 

Bum. I had no idea. I love Crow Hill both as a company (respect for Mr Henson and what he does) but I had no idea the app needed the service, although I had my suspicions that "something was up" because every time I come out of Standby/Sleep on my DAW, that fricken' Crow Hill App is running and I KNOW I closed it.

I'm going to try disabling the service and see if that app starts itself up again by itself.     DISAPPOINTED! </hercules>

[MusicMan]

14 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

 

Bum. I had no idea. I love Crow Hill both as a company (respect for Mr Henson and what he does) but I had no idea the app needed the service, although I had my suspicions that "something was up" because every time I come out of Standby/Sleep on my DAW, that fricken' Crow Hill App is running and I KNOW I closed it.

I'm going to try disabling the service and see if that app starts itself up again by itself.     DISAPPOINTED! </hercules>

There were a lot of similarities between the Crow Hill app and the Ujam one and I've seen the exact same thing you mentioned about it being open after the computer has been sleeping.

[Carl Ewing]

On 11/29/2025 at 2:58 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Very nice products, and it's hard to beat the price, but why oh why do we have to install yet another service just to install the product(s)?

I got the free Antelope EQ and it installed a service. I think Softube installs one too. None of these is necessary in order to use the plug-ins, they're only required during the install process.

<rant>

These are plug-ins. All an installer needs to do is download the VST3 package and copy it to the VST3 directory. If your installer needs to install its own service just to perform a download and file copy, something is WRONG with your installer. And they never install with manual startup, always automatic, so they're always sitting there waiting for another installation.

I don't mind a well-designed omnibus installer shell, in the case of companies whose plug-ins a have many of I even like the ones that work well. But I draw the line at installer services. In practice, it just means that I have to go in and set the startup to manual, or in the case of really aggressive ones where instantiating the plug-in(s) triggers a start, disabled. Then the installer pitches a fuss next time I try to install one of their products. None of this rigmarole is endearing, really the opposite.

My computer is probably capable of running these stupid things without my noticing any performance hit, but as with any running program, it's just another thing to go wrong, another bit of complexity that nudges the system closer to error. No matter how benign they think these things are, if there's a mistake in the code they could have memory leaks or any number of other issues. Or someone else's program could have a conflict.

I used to work in the commercial software biz, I get that the corporate ego says that one's own product is the most important program on a user's computer, and that the user should welcome multiple entries in the Start menu, etc., but if you really must flex, just dump an unasked for shortcut on my desktop like everyone else.

</rant>

I used to 100% agree with you. However, I do appreciate these installers more lately, since I have a large collections from many of these companies (Arturia, NI, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Waves, IK, Spitfire, uJam, East West, Orchestral Tools, etc.) and it massively helps simplify installation, updates, removals, inventory, etc.

I actually do not miss the days of downloading a gazillion .exe files, having to manually set installation paths (plugin & data) for 100s of programs, manually keep track of updates, having to go a website to check on what I do / don't own, etc., and having to manually authorize everything.

I recently did an OS reinstall on one system - it is sooooo much easier than it used to be. Other than a few outlier companies (eg. Fab Filter), I just install a company's app, set up install preferences, and let it install everything while I move on the next install.

For many of them it also automatically syncs external drive data across a dozen + products within a couple clicks, allows me to only install VST3 (or whatever format I need), and once everything is installed I will only need to open the app again to check on updates, or install a new product.

I'm actually now annoyed with companies that want me to download a new file for every plugin, and don't give me a plugin manager to just do it all inside one app. I forget which company it is (D16 maybe?), where I had to download like 11 different .exes, manually set VST2 32/64 11 times, auto installed CLAP, AAX, VST2, VST3, in multiple bit formats, and then had to download 11 different authorization files and then manually authorize each one by opening them in the DAW.

Remember.....this is how it used to be for almost everything! New OS installs would take many many days because of this. And you'd constantly be dealing with a dozen different authorization formats - some requiring downloadable authorization files, some had challenge / response, copy / pasting serial numbers, logging in for every install, having to open every single plugin in the DAW to authorize manually, and on and on. Then, a couple months later you'd realizing most of your plugins were out of data, and you'd have to manually download everything again to update one by one. F that. Those days are not missed. I actually can't believe Spectrasonics is still on challenge / response authorization.

I fully appreciate that I can now download, say, Plugin Alliance's manager, select ALL, select VST3, and it installs and authorizes the entire subscription catalog in a couple minutes running in the background. Same goes for Native Instruments - holy hell, is it way better to do installs and library relinking in Native Access than it was before. These apps save literally hours and hours or time.

Anyway - that's my defense. I do get annoyed when I have to install a whole app when I only own 1 product from a company. That's a PITA. I will agree there. But not when it's dozens or hundreds of plugins from a company to manage. Once a month I'll open Native Access or Ujam app or whatever, and just hit "update all" and it's done. This is so much better than the past.

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl Ewing

[Carl Ewing]

On 11/30/2025 at 8:08 AM, MusicMan said:

There were a lot of similarities between the Crow Hill app and the Ujam one and I've seen the exact same thing you mentioned about it being open after the computer has been sleeping.

These are (I think) identical apps. uJam are co-founders of Crow Hill along with Henson. Perhaps in the future they'll just have one app for both.

[Starship Krupa]

4 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

I used to 100% agree with you. However, I do appreciate these installers more lately, since I have a large collections from many of these companies (Arturia, NI, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Waves, IK, Spitfire, uJam, East West, Orchestral Tools, etc.) and it massively helps simplify installation, updates, removals, inventory, etc.

I actually do not miss the days of downloading a gazillion .exe files, having to manually set installation paths (plugin & data) for 100s of programs, manually keep track of updates, having to go a website to check on what I do / don't own, etc., automatically authorize new plugins through account linking to desktop app.

I recently did an OS reinstall on one system - it is sooooo much easier than it used to be. Other than a few outlier companies (eg. Fab Filter), I just install a company's app, set up install preferences, and let it install everything while I move on the next install.

For many of them it also automatically syncs external drive data across a dozen + products within a couple clicks, allows me to only install VST3 (or whatever format I need), and once everything is installed I will only need to open the app again to check on updates, or install a new product.

I'm actually now annoyed with companies that want me to download a new file for every plugin, and don't give me a plugin manager to just do it all inside one app. I forget which company it is (D16 maybe?), where I had to download like 11 different .exes, manually set VST2 32/64 11 times, auto installed CLAP, AAX, VST2, VST3, in multiple bit formats, and then had to download 11 different authorization files and then manually authorize each one by opening them in the DAW.

Remember.....this is how it used to be for almost everything! New OS installs would take many many days because of this. I fully appreciate that I can now download, say, Plugin Alliance's manager, select ALL, select VST3, and it installs and authorizes the entire subscription catalog in a couple minutes running in the background. Same goes for Native Instruments - holy hell, is it way better to do installs and library relinking in Native Access than it was before. These apps save literally hours and hours or time.

Anyway - that's my defense. I do get annoyed when I have to install a whole app when I only own 1 product from a company. That's a PITA. I will agree there. But not when it's dozens or hundreds of plugins from a company to manage.

I think you missed my earlier post where I said:

On 11/28/2025 at 11:58 AM, Starship Krupa said:

I don't mind a well-designed omnibus installer shell, in the case of companies whose plug-ins a have many of I even like the ones that work well. But I draw the line at installer services.

I'm not objecting to installer/manager apps (when they do their job well). I would HATE, for instance, to have to either run installers or unZIP and copy the over 100 MeldaProduction plugins or even the 40 or so Kilohearts plugins I own, and that's not even considering authorizing all of them.

What I don't want, and don't see the need for, is plug-in installers that install constantly running services along with the plug-ins. I haven't run into any yet, but if I found a plug-in that wouldn't function without its company's service running, I'd uninstall it/them immediately. If by some chance I had paid for it, I'd demand that I be allowed to surrender the license and get a refund.

[MusicMan]

14 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

These are (I think) identical apps. uJam are co-founders of Crow Hill along with Henson. Perhaps in the future they'll just have one app for both.

Thanks Carl, I wasn't aware of the ujam link, but now some of their symphonic ranges make a little more sense, as I thought they were a slightly unusual fit for them.

I'd actually love to see consolidation of a lot of company's installers, similar to how we have iLok being common across many developers. At this stage though, I'm only thinking the likely contenders would be either Native Access, or Pulse and I'm not sure either of those would be a desirable fit.