The Pro Audio Suite: Software licensing structures... The good the bad the ugly (2025)

Aug 21, 2023

Waves have just announced some big changes to its licencingstructure. What does it mean for you and how does it compare toother software that might be in your studio?

https://www.waves.com/support/using-waves-plugins-on-multiple-computers

PLUS, Robbo reviews the SSL bundle. Try it free for a month andsee for yourself...

https://www.solidstatelogic.com/products/ssl-complete-bundle-subscription

A big shout out to our sponsors, AustrianAudioandTri Booth. Both thesecompanies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partnerwith them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market forsome new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and besure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As apart of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering$200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So getonto their website now and secure your new booth...

https://tribooth.com/

And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair ofheadphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range oftop-shelf gear..

https://austrian.audio/

We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able topay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn helpthem with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren'tfamiliar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in ourshow to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, alongwith a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as littleas $1 per month. Find out more here..

“When the going gets weird, theweird turnprofessional.”

Hunter S Thompson

#rode #rodemicrophones

Summary
In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, hosts George Wittam, RobertMarshall, Darren Robbo Robertson, and Andrew Peters discuss thelatest events and updates in professional audio technology.

A significant highlight of the episode is Source Elements' winat the One Voice Service Provider award for the second time. Thisis followed by discussions on software licensing structures,especially about plugins by Waves and Twisted Wave. George Wittamoffers insights into ethical business strategies and effectivemarketing. Further, Robbo shares his intriguing experience with theSSL bundle and emphasizes its unique features. Finally, the episodereflects on the importance of imperfections in audio production foran authentic sound output. The Pro Audio Suite also acknowledgesits sponsors, Tri-Booth and Austrian audio, and tech support fromGeorge Wittam. Enjoy and engage in further discussions on theirFacebook group. Don't forget to subscribe!

#ProAudioSuite #TechPodcast #OneVoiceAward

Timestamps
[00:00:00] Intro: Meet the Talent & Special Offers

[00:01:01] One Voice Service Provider Award: PersonalInsight

[00:03:04] Waves Announcement: New Subscription System

[00:05:25] Twisted Wave’s Policy: More Freedom forUsers

[00:11:02] Excellent Marketing?: A Case Study onGeorge

[00:13:22] Robbo’s Experience: Navigating the SSLBundle

[00:20:11] SSL Plugins’ Uniqueness: The Beauty ofImperfection

[00:22:29] Ends Credits: Thanks & Reminders

Transcript
Speaker A: Y'all ready be history.,Speaker B: Get started., SpeakerC: Welcome., Speaker B: Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the Pro AudioSuite.,: These guys are professional and motivated. To the Vo starsGeorge Wittam, founder of Source Elements Robert Marshall,international audio engineer Darren Robbo Robertson and globalvoice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Tri-Booth Austrian audio makingpassion heard. Source elements. George, the tech. Wittam and Robboand AP's International demo. To find out more about us, check thepro audiosuite.com. Speaker B: Line Up Ladies. Here we go., SpeakerC: And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite. Don't forget, if you dowant to buy a Triboof, use the code trip a P 200 to get $200 offyour Triboof. Also Rombo and AP's international demos. We areoffering a 30% discount. Just go to thepro audiosuite.com, and havea look at the link, which is up in the top, which says Robo andAP's International Demos. Click on that and drop us a line ifyou're interested. Also, while we're recording, you, George, are inDallas at One Voice, and somebody won an award that you saw. Whowould that have been?,: Well, not only did I see I was anothercandidate for the award. Another nominee., Speaker A: Oh, were youreally? We're surrounded by brilliance.,: I'm sorry, man., SpeakerC: And the nominations are there's two One.,: Voice nominees righthere in the room. One of them won. Yeah. So there was a categorycalled they did it Last Year as well, called Service Provider. Andthey make it very clear it's voted on by the public. Andnominations are, I think, nominated also by the public, or at leastthe judges. So, yeah, I got nominated and my friend Uncle Roy did,and a whole bunch of other people that I know were nominated andSource Elements. So last year Source Elements took it, and thisyear they did, too, because they do good service.,Speaker C: Thereyou go.,: They do good service and they do it all around theworld.,: Thank you.,: Which is a lot of people.,Speaker C: Indeed.Yes, indeed. Indeed. Well, congratulations, Robert.,: In a way, I'dlike to fuse the discomfort of me or Uncle Roy winning it's becausewe're buddies.,: You guys would have to sit at the same table.,:It's awkward. We're buddies and we do the same business. It justfeels weird. It just feels weird. So anyway, congrats SourceElements, and maybe we'll see you next year.,Speaker B: Cool.,:Well, awesome.,Speaker C: I think the key actually, George the keyis just don't turn up and you'll win an award.,: Yeah, well, itdidn't work last year.,: Let me see. Do I have it here?,: The bestspeech, actually, was a woman who said, I thank myself.,Speaker A:Oh, really?,: Because it was a self submitted it was a self book onthe gig. It was not through an agent. So she said, I thankmyself.,Speaker A: There you go.,Speaker C: Well, that was a goodnice.,Speaker B: Absolutely.,Speaker A: Yeah.,Speaker C: Now, weshould be thanking Waves, actually, because Waves have justannounced that you can use their plugins if you pay yoursubscription, I guess it is, on.,: Two computers without having tobeg them for it because you could do it before by begging them andthey would let you use it on two computers. But now it'sofficial.,: Yeah, they would always let you do it on two computersif you maintained your whoop. Actually, that was one of thebenefits of maintaining the whoop. But it is interesting. In theemail, it very explicitly says this is for the sameoperator.,Speaker C: Here comes your takeaway.,: They're using thesame exact business model as Adobe does, where the activation isgood on two machines. If you log into a third machine on Adobe, itwill tell you you're on a third machine and you must disableanother machine and or it disables all of them and then you juststart reactivating again. I can't remember which one it is.,SpeakerA: But it tells you. Yeah, it tells me anyway.,: Yeah.,Speaker C:Which is really handy because as I've said many times before, Idon't know anybody that actually works on one computer. We all haveat least two devices that we work on. So it makes perfect sense tobe able to do that. And it's funny because I don't know whetherTwisted Wave you can use at one license on two computers. I'mpretty sure. Steinberg you can't.,: So, Twisted Wave, before thenew subscription plan, it was unlimited. And I know that becauseI've used it on unlimited computers, technically. I mean, everycomputer I've ever owned has had a license.,: Just drop yourlicense.,: I don't remember or recall reading any stipulation onthe site about numbers of computers per user. So they may still beholding on to that same policy. I don't know. I would have to lookthat up.,Speaker C: Yeah, because it is very handy.,: I mean, it'sinteresting because it is like a potential leak of licenses forthem. But at the same time, to police it, you have to make thatinto the licensing structure. Especially for Twisted Wave. They aredoing their own. We're basically licensing through Ilock so wedon't have to build it and we just live within the structure thatthey provide.,Speaker C: Which leads me to the next bit, becausewhen you jumped online, George, we were having quite a deepdiscussion about the pros and cons of the eye lock.,: I wasliterally saying I was looking forward to the day where I couldopen my house, start my car, like you name it, with my eye lock.,:Well, once you're in an ecosystem, you want everything to be inthat ecosystem.,: Whatever that yeah, my keychain would be sosimplified.,Speaker C: It would be just one it would.,: Be nice ifit was also a pass key as well. So it had the password manager forall of your stuff.,Speaker A: That would be nice.,: Yeah, it'sreally interesting. If I lock was supposed to get into that andthen you could have a hardware dongle for your pass parents. Myparents would actually relate to that. That's funny.,: Yeah. It'sso much easier than saying, okay, use this authenticator app onyour phone that you installed just to use this one thing and openthat app up and then authenticate off of that. It's a lot for theuser.,: The two factor authentication sometimes is annoying, andI'm trying to get all my two factor over to Google Off, but I havesome that's through my text, some that's through the email, somethat's through Google Off.,: I mean, it's difficult for us. I mean,imagine what it's like for know the know the regular user. OrAndrew.,: Or Andrew.,: It's very challenging. Well, I just checkedon Twisted Wave FAQ. Can I install Twisted Wave on more than oneMac? Yes. According to Twistwave's license, you're allowed toinstall Twist Wave Mac on as many computers as you want, as long asyou are the main user. It says the main user of the license. Sothat would mean to me that you could have an assistant or an editoror an engineer working with you sharing that license. That's what Iinterpret that as to say.,Speaker A: But anyway, okay, so VoodooSound bought Twisted Wave, and Mrs. Voodoo Sound was using TwistedWave upstairs in the voice booth for her own voiceover company.Even though you could technically say that Voodoo Sound is at thispremises, is that this is where it gets interesting, doesn't it?And you can get yourself in trouble.,: It's two simultaneous usesfor it's, like being, very strictly speaking, even though it's onehousehold, it is two uses on two jobs. And I think the intention isthat you as a person cannot be duplicated, and so you should beusing your license once, regardless of where you are. Here's theway Waves phrase it. Starting November 1, we will add a secondlicense to all active creative Access subscriptions, allowingsubscribers to use their plugins on separate computers withouthaving to move licenses between devices. The second license is foruse by the owner of the main product license only.,: Yeah, I thinkthat's what Thomas's and.,: They do state it. And it's an honorsystem is what it is.,: He's just not getting as quite as a finetooth. He didn't have an attorney rewrite it for him. It's just himtrying and I'll speak for Thomas when I say this, so you have toverify with him is really he's going again by a bit of an honorsystem, which he's known for that anyway, like for many, manyyears. He didn't enforce really anything with the license.,: Did hedo anything else or did he only do Twisted Wave?,: I only know himas doing Twisted Wave, period. And then he branched out to the iOSversion and then the online version, and then the Windowsversion.,: His whole living. He feeds all twelve of his kidsthrough Twisted Wave?,Speaker A: Yes.,: Well, he's got fourplatforms he's supporting now. So it's a lot to support and keeprunning and debugging.,: I mean, it's impressive because he had apretty permissive licensing thing and he's a one man show. It'samazing actually, assuming he does not have some other second gigand that this isn't just like a side hustle, it's actuallyimpressive.,: My understanding is he doesn't have a sidehustle.,Speaker C: No, it's definitely not taking up enough.,: Timethat he just can't do other things. Maybe he got the Mac version toa point where it was running so well that he thought, well, it'stime, let's get the Windows version built. So the Windows versionis fully released and it supports stacks just like the Mac version.You got to bring BYO plugins because there's not a single freeplugin on a Windows machine. So you start right out of the gate byhaving to get plugins. Right? That's a big difference right there.But I have a few plugins of my own that I prefer to use that aretotally free for those who really need to set it all up. And one ofthem is because of Robo himself, said have you ever used MeldaProductions plugins? And I was like, Nope. And I have installed andused them and for the free bundle that they have is pretty darnfeature rich.,Speaker A: There's some kick ass stuff in there,isn't there?,: Pretty darn good. Yeah, exactly. So I have used themelba. EQ. I haven't used much else from them, but it did a finejob for some folks. But I've really been enjoying being able tosupport that cross platform at last without having to run an actualWindows PC to make a stack. As long as I build that stack using VSTplugins on my Mac, it will load those plugins and everything on thePC, which is nice.,Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool.,: Yeah.,Speaker C:Back to Thomas though. If you meet the guy, which I'm sure one dayhe will jump on a silver bird and head to North America at somepoint depending how much money he makes out of Twisted Wave. Butyou can tell like you meet the guy, you know, when you meetsomeone, you know they're just a really honest character andincredibly intelligent, obviously. And that's thomas. That's theguy.,: If he starts showing up at conferences and sponsoring, we'llknow.,Speaker C: Exactly.,: As far as I can tell, he has spentabsolutely $0 on marketing.,Speaker A: But it's a good product andgood products market themselves sometimes, don't they? Let's behonest.,: That's what I'm saying. Can you please tell that to ourdepartment of marketing?,: Well, I mean, honestly, I never had amarketing budget until the last year or so. And now that George thetech is a team of people, marketing is becoming much more of a realthing. Like I really need to get the marketing machine running. Sowhen you start hearing George LATEC on different places anddifferent platforms and you start getting tired of hearing thatname then it means I'm doing the right thing. So that means mymarketing is working.,Speaker C: There was a thing that we used totalk about in radio and when you're at the point of hearing a song,if you work in a radio station that is driving you insane becauseyou're just overloading on that song, you usually find that it'sjust starting to get some traction with the listener.,: The regularlistener. Yeah, the listener in the real world.,: So as soon aswe're sick of George, that's when George really hit it. That's whenGeorge changes his name to Uncle George.,Speaker C: No.,: Can'tbe.,Speaker A: Uncle George.,: My dad's Uncle George, UncleGeorge.,Speaker C: But the whole uncle thing. Yeah. All I can thinkof when you say uncle anyone is some old bloke in a pair of shortsthat are too tight with one knacker hanging out the side. That'swhat it sounds.,: You got to work on that for your Uncle Roy.,: I'mjust not letting my daughter call.,Speaker A: Yeah.,Speaker C: Nowspeaking plugins robbo, you've been mucking around with the SSLbundle?,Speaker A: Yeah, I downloaded it because I'd had the SlateDigital bundle and I sort of got to the point where there was onlya couple of things that I really sort of liked and continued usingbeing a couple of compressors, the gray compressor, fresh air,which is free anyway, and a couple of other things. So I actuallylet that go. And talking of budgets, I sort of realized, hey, I'vegot X amount of dollars a month free. What other bundles are outthere to sort of rent and have a play with? And so I downloaded theSSL one which I've been playing with for a couple of months now.And can I just say, there's not a dog in there. It's so good.There's so much stuff that's sort of really nice to play with. Imean, compressors and EQS go without saying. There's some otherstuff like they've they've done some instrument specific stuff.They've done, like a drum strip and a guitar strip. The vocal stripI kind of like, I guess. I mean, it's not a dog, but I don't reallyuse it a lot. The drum strip I use all the time. The guitar strip,I don't really do a lot with guitars, so I don't have much to dowith that. But the other stuff that's really good is they call itthe flex verb, which is their reverb and the X delay, which is alsoreally cool. So, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff in there that'sreally worth playing around with. And I guess when the time comesand I sort of get sick of it, what will I keep? I would definitelykeep the reverb. The DSR is very nice. Their limiter, which theycall X limit, has been the final plugin on my mastering chain nowsince I downloaded it because it's particularly sweet is it like abrick wall? Yeah, it's a brick wall.,: Brick wall limiter?,SpeakerA: Brick wall limiter, yes. And it's just seamless, though. You getit set up right, you just don't hear it working at all. And itgives everything that sort of nice punch, obviously, that you lookfor from a limiter I'm really enjoying based.,: On some other modelor something from their own.,Speaker A: There's a whole bunch ofmodels of stuff. There's two bus compressors, a couple of channelstrips, bus Compressor Six, I think they call it, and the BusCompressor.,Speaker B: Two.,Speaker A: Channel Strip Two. But look,they've got a 30 day free trial, so you can have your first monthon them. So definitely worth downloading and having a play with.,:You have to give them the credit card.,Speaker A: Give them thecredit card. So you got to put a date in your diary if you want tocancel it. I think I'll probably have it for another couple ofmonths. Well, until something else pops up, probably, I'll justhang on to it because, as I say, I do set aside some money to playaround with new plugins each month, and that's what I've landed onat the moment. So until something else crops up that I want to try,that's where it will stay.,Speaker C: It's funny with the SSLplugins, though, because when I bought the SSL Two, it came withthese plugins. I thought it was in perpetuity, but of course it wasnot. So there was a whole bunch of stuff like a channel strip and aflex verb and vocal strip xCOMP, there was an EQ, XEQ, X phase, etcetera, and X valve comp.,Speaker A: Sounds like you've got thesame bundle.,Speaker C: Yeah, but the thing is, I can't use any ofthem.,: Why not?,Speaker A: You can't physically use them or theywon't work on your machine.,Speaker C: I don't think I can use thembecause I think from memory, it was like it was just atrial.,Speaker A: Yeah, well, you would have got the 30 day freetrial of this.,Speaker C: Possibly, yeah. In fact, I just clickedon it, it says all visible licenses expired.,Speaker A: There yougo. Yeah.,: I've been also using the Plugin Alliance stuff, and themain reason why I got Plugin Alliance was because having a HDX cardand Waves stopped doing HDX plugins, which are the DSP chip on thePro Tools cards. So the only ones that you could really get the lowlatency on was Plugin Alliance. And I have to say, they have a lotof really good stuff, especially their channel strip emulations ofvarious consoles. They have like an API and a Neve and an SSL, andlike every generation of SSL and every generation of or a fewgenerations of Neves and the Focus, right, and the AMIC 90, 98,they have a pretty broad range of plugins and they're all easilythe same similar quality as the Wave stuff. I have to say, somepeople I think actually think better, but it's really hard to knowwhen, like, oh, this emulation is better than that emulation. Andyou're sitting there going like, I've never touched the realthing.,Speaker C: Yes, exactly.,: I have no idea. Really? Theysound good.,Speaker C: Well, that's true, though, because everyonethat's got these buying plugins guarantee that 95%, if not more,have never actually used the real thing.,Speaker A: Oh, sure, yeah,totally.,Speaker C: So it's like you could basically sell themanything.,: You just use the same EQ algorithm in all of them.Yeah, exactly.,Speaker A: But you would have had to work in a lotof rooms for anyone to have done that. Or be a Chris Lord Algie orsomeone like that who mixes in different rooms. The average schlopplike you and me, who works in a studio for a few years and thenmoves to a different job. You certainly wouldn't have played withall of them.,Speaker C: And then half the gear that you wereprobably using, that was actually the original piece of equipmentthat they were emulating was probably broken anyway or just gettingtired.,Speaker A: Well, that was part of the charm, though.,:That's my good friend Jim Reeves, who mixed a lot of stuff I mean,like, free ride and all kinds of stuff back in the day. And he wasjoking, but I don't think so much. He was basically saying, like,all these kids, they love the sound of analog. They're in love withthe sound of a tape deck that hasn't been aligned in three weeksand its heads are worn out. That's what they think of analog,because that's what we were working on in the studios. There werecranking sessions out left and right. The decks were notnecessarily aligned every single time. There was a lot of yeah.,:What people miss is the imperfections of analog. Yeah. They don'tmiss improperly recorded audio. They just miss the imperfectionsand the distortion. I mean, the thing that makes a neve preampsound like a neve or whatever is not that's right. It's accurate.It's that it's not accurate.,: You can say the same thing for a416.,Speaker C: Yeah, sorry.,: 41 six. That's the distortion thatmakes it that edge.,: It's the color, it's the EQ curve, it's theway it sounds compressed. All those things is what makes the micwork.,Speaker C: It's funny. I'm sure that we've all been down thistrack before, but when it's your turn to clean the heads on thereel to reel and you realize that no one has cleaned them for solong, you got the cotton bud, and it's like it's black. You go likewhat?,: You go through, like, ten swabs. You're like,really?,Speaker A: What do you mean, your turn? It was my job everyfriggin morning.,: That's exactly what Jim was saying.,Speaker C:Yeah, well, I tell you what. In the studios, the on air studios, noone did it.,Speaker A: I can imagine. Too busy smoking a joint toclean the heads.,Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.,: Blowing the smokeright onto the head.,Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.,Speaker C: Andthrough the mic capsules and everything.,Speaker A: Sitting theresmoking a siggy while you got the razor blade and the splicingblock out. Yeah, totally.,Speaker C: Exactly. But that's true,though. It's the imperfection that everyone tries to emulate. Butthe thing is, the imperfection was different on every singleunit.,: Well, that's where it's funny, because literally one of thepatented things, or whatever that plugin alliance has is this thingcalled I can't remember it, but basically, when you throw down theplugins, if you throw down 20 SSL plugins on your daw, all 20 willbe different.,Speaker C: Oh, really?,: Because no channel in reallife, no channel on that board is identical.,Speaker C: Yeah,exactly.,: You all knew that there's like some channels that hadthe red tape on it and some had the they have the same thing wherethey vary the performance of the plugins themselves so that you getthat same chaotic variation across your daw.,Speaker C: Yeah,because I mean, if you're looking at a huge console, there's allsorts of things coming to play. One of the main things probably isheat.,: Well, like, the channel is closer to the power supply on.Correct. Like, I have a four channel mic preamp and the channelclosest to the power supply is a little bit noisier than the othertwo.,Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Well, there you go. Plugins.,SpeakerA: Hey, plug in, baby.,: Yeah, plugins.,: Plug me in, baby.,SpeakerB: Well, that was fun. Is it over?,: The Pro audio suite withthanks to Tribut and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect,edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robo Got your own audioissues? Just askrobo.com tech support from George thetech Wittam.Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversationon our Facebook group. To leave a comment, suggest a topic or justsay g'day. Drop us a note at our website.,Speaker B: The Pro audiosuite.com.