Copy protection that takes up 10 gigs, jeez.

[jcrosby]

Is anyone surprised about this crap from Acustica Audio?

They don't have the best reputation...

Not at all. I used to be an Acustica fan, but they really do run like utter dog shite. They introduce huge amounts of latency as well, which makes it nearly impossible to have inserted a production template. They used to have additional zero latency versions, but (at least as of a few years ago), they stopped including these.

They're support are also somewhat infamous for being rude... Can yout tell I have a chip on my shoulder? I've never 'hate-uninstalled' any of my software before Acustica

 

[arafaratanran]

Oh stop it with the conspiracy theories to justify piracy or complain about your extremelye rare use case.

Atmos is not perfect but it is an objective improvement over old surround formats based on discrete channels.

There is no conspiracy theory ... what are you talking about? What I explained is true and everyone can check it out for himself. You seem to misunderstand what a conspiracy theory is: you cannot simply call anything a conspiracy theory simply because you don't agree with an opinion. Unfortunately, this kind of rejection is all to common these days on the internet ...

Also, you falsely accuse me of something I did not say at all (which is also way to common on the internet): I never justified piracy! I only said, the measures taken by the industry to try to prevent it don't work and instead limit the way legal buyers can use the content.

So you're happy buying expensive pro audio gear but you can't justify buying an AV decoder?

Yes, I sometimes buy something for the studio, when I get the feeling something will give me an additional value. But why should I pay for a device that does not give me any other benefit than making something possible that should really work without any additional equipment than what I already had? Your reasoning eludes me ...

Is it a pita for some people? No doubt. I was one of the weirdos with an HTPC setup who then switched to 4K Blurays and then stopped buying optical physical media because the format is dying. But these use cases do not represent even 0.01% of the people consuming Atmos.

I really don't believe today is still the time to buy expensive devices that will be useless in a decade or so. There is already enough electronic gear produced that will be waste rather sooner than later. The days of optical media are pretty much gone. But that is exactly why I despise the way the content is sold online. I would simply like to be able to buy a digital copy of a film for download that is usable on any software player like QuickTime Player. That way I wouldn't have any headaches about audio not playing in surround or the whole fucking film not playing because the player doesn't accept my monitor. At this point, the only legal way to do that is buying the physical medium (blue ray) and ripping it. And that type of ripping for personal use is not illegal, in case you still want to call me a criminal ... But that is again producing unnecessary waste and it costs time, while they could simply offer their films that way. And all of that effort for what? Do you really think there is less pirated films on the internet because of these measures? I don't think so. If these measures would really prevent piracy, I would be willing to reconsider ... but they don't!

 

[jcrosby]

No other plugins from any other company made a mess of my plugin folder like AA did, and I have many plugins from many companies.

True. This is definitely another thing about them that really bothered me. Folders and folders of garbage added to my AU/VST folders, also, little things, like every plugin showing up the plugins browser with all capital letters, and "x64" at the end of all names, making it hard to tell the plugin names apart... Acustica's an all-around sloppy developer.

 

[elucid]

...everyone can check it out for himself.

You might want to edit that so it doesn't exclude half the planet.

 

[lettucehat]

Yes pretty much fed up with this company and want to offload any of the plugins I haven't quite used yet. Only keeping the others if I used them in a session I might need to open up again. I got into AA because I was very much sold on the quality by others, and the company started offering big discounts.

Over time the sheen wore off and I realized the good stuff was mostly in the third party developers, though the acqua interfaces generally look awesome, and that the compressors were mostly useless. The more I've observed the writings and attitude of the CEO, not to mention employees on forums and through support, the more I just got that feeling that they were full of it.

One of a handful of developers that's incredibly thin skinned and dramatic online, which does not inspire confidence. CEO always has lots of time to address any topic with multiple paragraphs, even pages of text. A lot of filler about this and that, about how actually you are wrong with your criticism, etc. With support, it's always the user's system that's the problem. The well known criticism that their compressors were not that good, or accurate at all? "Ah ah, then why is our best selling plugin a compressor?" which is a deflection. Meanwhile, they completely overhaul their compressors, new and improved! What was there to improve? I don't get it, you just told me they were amazing. Same with bloated file sizes. It's suggested these are tens of GB of hardware samples. All of a sudden, a totally new line, and updated versions of old plugins, that are light on resources. Releasing new plugins at an unheard of rate while spending all day posting online. Now a changing resale policy. "Pay no mind to the recent drama, we were always going to change the resale policy at some point." All right man. Just incredible insecurity and shifty behavior. People who make good products and have nothing to hide don't act like this. Or any public-facing people with just basic common sense and self awareness.

Between third party developers who do a better job (although you have to use separate Nebula instances for each component, worth the effort but definitely an advantage of acquas) and the new crop of machine learning plugins like NAM and Proteus, there's just no place for AA in my view. Totally bush league and not changing anytime soon.

 

[jcrosby]

One of a handful of developers that's incredibly thin skinned and dramatic online, which does not inspire confidence. CEO always has lots of time to address any topic with multiple paragraphs, even pages of text. A lot of filler about this and that, about how actually you are wrong with your criticism, etc. With support, it's always the user's system that's the problem.

Well said... 'Thin skinned' is a really great way to describe their attitude, even when simply juts trying to get support... Just something for people considering their plugins that may stumble on this thread in the future to keep in mind...

 

[LinusW]

I usually just keep every plugin I have installed, I mean I have a user license so why shouldn't I?
But I never use the Acustica stuff because it is eating way too much resources for what it does. So now that they have never been opened for the last two years, and the drive space used is abnormal, I think it's time for them to go. 17 GB excluding the binaries and extra data in every plugin format folder. It turns out the installer does not uninstall. Now I have to manually clean out their stuff.
So I thought I should see if anyone else in here got tired of this company, and came across this thread. Just wow...

 

[LinusW]

Hold up, I just did manual uninstallation and saved 150 GB after emptying the trashcan!

 

[Guy Rowland]

I only have Acoustica which works well for me - can someone summarise the stuff to look for resource-wise?

 

[gamma-ut]

I only have Acoustica which works well for me - can someone summarise the stuff to look for resource-wise?

Do you mean Acoustica or Acustica? Because they are completely different and not helped by the fact that Acoustica the company sells Mixcraft and Acoustica is an audio editor sold by Acon. If the latter, you don't need to delete anything.

 

[Guy Rowland]

Do you mean Acoustica or Acustica? Because they are completely different and not helped by the fact that Acoustica the company sells Mixcraft and Acoustica is an audio editor sold by Acon. If the latter, you don't need to delete anything.

Ah yes, it's Acon. Hooray, thank you - I'll retreat to slumber.

 

[re-peat]

They swarm like moths around a lightbulb: the whiners, the disgruntled, the entitled, the paranoid, the dissatisfied and the merely stupid who, usually unhindered by any knowledge or insight, pollute — or used to pollute until, long overdue, the moderators stepped in — every single Acustica thread on Gearspace with endless rants about pricing and/or with company bashing, combining a degree of arrogance and childishness with an hostility I can find no rational explanation for.

Given the amount of idiocy and venom that Acustica gets attacked with, thread after thread after thread (I’m not even talking about some rather vicious YouTube videos), l must say I find the company’s response on the whole very impressive, managing to keep their tone and conduct surprisingly civil, friendly and helpful, even at moments when they would have every justification to respond in a far more unpleasant manner.
People have even criticised the appearance and accent of the guy who presents their videos.

I don’t find Acustica’s online presence thin-skinned at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. Compared to nearly all sample library developers, Acustica seem to have an elephantine epidermis.

And I honestly don’t know what they’re supposed to have done wrong. They make a unique series of plug-ins, they’ve travelled a long and difficult road hardly anyone else has travelled, researching and developing new technologies for hardware emulation, they’re constantly at work to improve things, they update much of their catalog on an almost weekly basis, … not forgetting that no holiday passes without Acustica giving away a plug-in for free.

Just to be clear: I don’t know anything about Acustica. They’re simply a company, like dozens others, I buy stuff from.

I’m not suggesting they never make a mistake, I’m not implying that every single one of their choices and decisions is a success, you won’t hear me say that Acustica has navigated every obstacle on their path in the most elegant way, and there are a couple of things and routines which they insist on which I, as a returning customer and user of their stuff, would prefer to see done very differently, but none of that changes the fact that, in my experience (quite a few years by now), they do and deliver quality work — in some cases: exceptional quality work —, and I, for one, am very happy and thankful to be able to work with their plug-ins. It’s made a significant change for the better to several aspects of my work.

(By the way, jcrosby: they still include ZL-files with all of their releases. And if the file-naming of their plugins bothers you, that’s easily and quickly changed in Logic’s Plug-in Manager. I hope other DAW’s provide similar functionality. First thing I do after I’ve installed a new Acustica plugin: delete all the ZL-files — I never use those —, rename the plug-ins in Logic to something I like the look of and, finally, have AudioGridder rescan my AU-folder.)

When the GREY compressor (originally a freebee) got updated and added to with an Ultra-version some weeks ago, there was an idiot going berserk on Gearspace complaining that he had to pay for the Ultra-upgrade, claiming that Acustica had, at one time, promised that all updates of their plug-ins would forever be free. The facts (conveniently ignored by the raving multitude) were as follows: the update *was* indeed free, as promised, the Ultra-upgrade however wasn’t. But the guy refused (or was too dumb) to make the distinction between update and upgrade and Acustica was, once again and totally unfairly, painted as the Evil Company. That’s the sort of idiocy that Acustica constantly has to deal with online: half-truths, plain lies, ignorance, greed and baffling amounts of aggressive internet imbecility.

Shakespeare’s slings and arrows of outrageous fortune come to mind. I must say I find that Acustica manages, quite admirably, to keep their head suprisingly unbowed. Good on them.

_

 

[jcrosby]

(By the way, jcrosby: they still include ZL-files with all of their releases. And if the file-naming of their plugins bothers you, that’s easily and quickly changed in Logic’s Plug-in Manager. I hope other DAW’s provide similar functionality. First thing I do after I’ve installed a new Acustica plugin: delete all the ZL-files — I never use those —, rename the plug-ins in Logic to something I like the look of and, finally, have AudioGridder rescan my AU-folder.)

They removed ZL presets from N4 (which wasn't clear from my original wording). N4 was my favorite of the bunch, as unlike Acqua plugins the ZL N4 versions didn't grind your CPU to a halt. Compared to the 20 odd Acqua plugins I own, N4 was the only thing I could reliably use in a production template.

I can appreciate your enthusiasm so I'll leave it at this... I personally find that 10 GBs of CP per plugin is absurd when you compare it to anything else on the plugin market. The kicker however is that the protection is largely the source AA's infamous CPU bottleneck. I've tried to make AA work for nearly a decade now, this was enough for me to accept that it's time for me to move on to greener pastures.

I have found their support to be dismissive, and IME they have an attitude problem that's often reinforced by a cult-like following of users eager to pile on when someone upsets the apple cart.

I caught a bug the day the released Taupe, (two actually, IIRC). I posted screenshots & audio to GS clearly documenting the issue, asking if they could address it. Instead of saying 'thanks for catching that we'll sort it out', (as you see with developers here), they gaslit me and the other users who raised the same issue, claiming it was user error, while the their fanatical pack of fanboys picked us apart for getting their knickers in a twist. It took them a week to concede and fix the issue, only after others continued to notice it, and point it out.

Paul Third had the same thing happen to him. He caught a bug on the day they released Rust, and instead of being thanked for catching it he was publicly gaslit as he describes below...

 

[Bee_Abney]

They removed ZL presets from N4 (which wasn't clear from my original wording). N4 was my favorite of the bunch, as unlike Acqua plugins the ZL N4 versions didn't grind your CPU to a halt. Compared to the 20 odd Acqua plugins I own, N4 was the only thing I could reliably use in a production template.

I can appreciate your enthusiasm so I'll leave it at this... I personally find that 10 GBs of CP per plugin is absurd when you compare it to anything else on the plugin market. The kicker however is that the protection is largely the source AA's infamous CPU bottleneck. I've tried to make AA work for nearly a decade now, this was enough for me to accept that it's time for me to move on to greener pastures.

I have found their support to be dismissive, and IME they have an attitude problem that's often reinforced by a cult-like following of users eager to pile on when someone upsets the apple cart.

I caught a bug the day the released Taupe. I posted screenshots & audio to GS clearly documenting the issue, asking if they could address it. Instead of saying 'thanks for catching that we'll sort it out', (as you see with developers here), they gaslit me and the other users who raised the same issue, while the their wolf pack of fanboys picked us apart for getting their knickers in a twist. It took them a week to concede and fix the issue, only after others continued to point it out.

Paul Third had the same thing happen to him. He caught a bug on the day they released Rust, and instead of being thanked for catching it he was publicly gaslit as he describes below...

That does sound awful about the bug. It makes a lot of sense. While I have no personal negative experiences with Acustica Audio, I have read lots of vague expressions of discontent. So it is good to hear a specific example.

I don't think that any Acustica Audio plugin that I have is anything close to 10 GB, though; including the older ones - newer ones keep getting smaller and more efficient as far as I can tell; though I haven't done any very close testing, I'm just guesstimating from download times and release dates. I've been using Acustica Audio plugins a lot for about a year and I have a few older releases and several new ones.

The two N4 plugins that I have do have ZL versions, so I guess you mean that at some point they stopped including them with new releases. I don't think that they release anything new for Nebula these days. I had thought that part of the discontent with Acustica Audio might be the way they dropped development of Nebula. They seemed to have done the same with Modula.

The latency is barely an issue for me personally, given how I'm using the plugins. The CPU hit is high; and when using multiple Acustica Audio plugins at high oversampling rates I do have to process it offline.

Acustica Audio definitely isn't something I'd recommend for the process of composing with a large template. But for sound design, mixing and mastering, I have found some that really work for me. I trust my ears up to a point, but there is always a risk of suggestibility. But comparing Acustica Audio plugins to each other, there are only some that really sound to me like they are adding something special. (For anyone who doesn't know, you can do trials of plugins before buying, so it is possible to do comparisons with a lot of their plugins without buying anything.)

 

[AudioLoco]

that weaver video is full of speculation, hyperbole, and misinformation...but the reactions intrigue me..
Am I the only one seeing a shift in attitudes based on the recent cracking of AA?...There are tons of conversations happening on social media and it seems like the general zeitgeist perceives software piracy as victimless and doesn't trigger the moral/ethical response that it used to...I've actually been taken aback by the majority of what I have been reading...It got me thinking so I'm curious what others think
a. Is this worse than 10yrs ago, 20 yrs ago, or the same?
b. Is this laissez faire attitude limited to audio software, software generally, or any content that can be digitized??
c. Is this a generational shift, or across the board?
d. Is there anything that would change the calculus, organically or forced?
e. What is believed should be done if anything?

After reading a lot of these conversations, I walked away with some thoughts

1. The argument about poverty seems BS...That is what open source, freeware, and donationware community is for...everybody is not entitled to everything just because they want it or someone else has it...so because someone in africa will never be able to afford a ferrari, they should be entitled to one?...and then when they see one carjack it?

2. The argument about prices seems BS...Prices in free markets are determined by supply and demand...the objective and perceived value of intellectual property within a market vertical will vary because all intellectual property is not equal...prices don't care what you think they should be or some subjective notion of fairness...never have never will...plugin makers are creators as well as contributors...you are consumers and takers...does the average person know dsp?...can the average person write software?...what basis are they saying the tool prices are unreasonable?...seems this is what parasites who have never created intellectual property would say...have they ever attempted to calculate or understand the time value of money involved?
it shows the juvenile naivety of the average person today...have they ever run a business?...do they understand cash flow?...business overhead, employee wages, taxes?

3. The argument about piracy not causing lost sales seems BS... not to mention it misses the point...they will still have access to the benefits of the product however, which is destroying the value proposition of the product...if everybody has it, its value decreases...it is no longer a differentiator...so they are losing brand share and mind share because they are losing exclusivity...so even if they are not losing sales, they are still losing and piracy is still hurting them...this is how every market works...rappers don't even like patek phillipes or know anything about horology...they just know they are hard to get and exclusive so they want them...you cant pirate a watch...that's why their value has spiked recently with the new interest...that's why photoshop is subscription only in the cloud...because it's value added proposition was ruined by piracy as the most hacked thing of the myspace era...seems lots of people especially gen z just making excuses for having no moral compass nor ethics...I wonder how their tastes would grow up when they try and run a business

4. The argument about Cracks create paying customers seems BS...a million streams on spotify is on average $2800...you think bedroom producers are goin to have an impetus to go legit?...please...again business operators expenses are monthly...do you think companies have time to wait years for some person to be "won over"...you think that keeps lights on?...do you go to work everyday for free cause your boss tells you he is "a noob at running a business", ...but when he figures it out and gets some revenue, he will pay you?

5. The argument about developers being rich greedy people who don't need the money seems BS...how many are corporate behemoths?...these guys aren't jeff bezos...from reports I've heard many of them were struggling to stay afloat before the pandemic and stimulus checks caused a sales spike...look how many developers threw in the towel in the last 10 yrs...linplug and tone2 being some of the latest...seems that's why everyone is pivoting to the cloud or bundling into hardware as dongles

6. People continue to try and pretend like developers are not being hurt by piracy and the ROI on their time and skill is not being damaged...this seems simply lies...it's unethical, immoral theft, plain and simple

7. you don't NEED a lot of stuff...you WANT a lot of stuff...why do so many people today not understand the difference...The world is not a meritocracy and has never been fair...no one owes you anything...you don't deserve to make music...you don't deserve to have plugins...access to plugins is not some basic human right

I agree with every word...

 

[AudioLoco]

Acustica is known to have a rather "combative" attitude online. I honestly find this off putting as in my opinion if you represent a company you should at least try to be calm and not show yourself to be triggered everytime there are criticisms addressed at you. You should be confident, professional and collected. It make you look really bad honestly. (IK used to be guilty of the same some years ago, but have learnt their lesson I believe).

My experience with the company is; I was using quite often one of their earlier free plugins called Ochre.
Ochre is an OK EQ overall, but has an exceptionally good and musical low band boost that I still use as a special weapon sometimes.
The owner/founder certainly "leaves a mark" on it, as it is the only plugin I have ever seen that had some cryptic pseudo vindicative sounding writing embedded on the GUI (something about someone stealing his ideas).

For years I was reading about the new plugins from a growing crowd of devoted users. I didn't decide to try it for myself because of Nebula's "complicated" and "particular" reputation. Then a few years after the Acquas came out i finally took the plunge, did a research on the most beloved and rated AA plugins and went for it and bought 3-4.

I found the EQs to be OK, not bad but nothing to write home about compared to the competition and the compressors just plain weird, don't know how else to define them.
The thing that made it absolutely impossible to use for me was the terrible latency between turning a virtual knob and hearing the plugin react. It became unbearable when using them in stereo as my brain didn't like hearing left and right totally decorrelated for seconds while messing with the plugins.
Not to mention the ridiculous and unjustified hit on the CPU.
As the "sound good as hardware" claims, honestly I don't hear it and I have used and still own lots of high end analog devices.

Then there is also the fact they "sample" hardware units, don't mention them by name or share any revenues with the creators of the original sampled machines, still people know exactly what device was sampled as you can find the info online half an hour after every release.
(not sure how I feel about it morally and how I would feel if I spent years and years on developing, manufacturing and releasing an X hardware device to see it then digitalyzed in a few days by a company and sold to everyone)
They have been now releasing plugins with incredible speed and frequency, I think they found an "industrial" way to sample units and they are just churning them out one after the other...
(BTW the bugs that every new version has left many customers feeling like beta testers)..

I perfectly understand and support companies defending themselves from piracy, but if the fact they are so slow and hard on the CPU really depends on their copyright protection and not their inherent
"special-ness", I would find it kind hilarious.

Anyhow, many people do swear by these plugins and love the company, that's awesome, I'm just giving my personal experience and opinion and don't have any personal beef with the company or its users.

 

[Bee_Abney]

Sampling hardware is legal and the stuff of many of the products covered on this site. Some of the sampled hardware is built by Acustica themselves, though not much of it. Other cases do involve specific effects chains and licensing deals.

The CPU hit is an issue on older computers or for composers with large templates. As ever, it is a matter of picking the right tools for your workflow.

I judge these plugins based on comparisons with other plugins and the little hardware that I have used. So I don't know how they compare to the hardware that was sampled.

If there are better sounding more efficient plugins out there, I'd love to find them!

 

[AudioLoco]

Sampling hardware is legal and the stuff of many of the products covered on this site. Some of the sampled hardware is built by Acustica themselves, though not much of it. Other cases do involve specific effects chains and licensing deals.

The CPU hit is an issue on older computers or for composers with large templates. As ever, it is a matter of picking the right tools for your workflow.

I judge these plugins based on comparisons with other plugins and the little hardware that I have used. So I don't know how they compare to the hardware that was sampled.

If there are better sounding more efficient plugins out there, I'd love to find them!

Heya Beeee!
Yes, sampling hardware is perfectly legal. But there are many things that are legal but still morally doubtful.
Let's say I don't find it elegant, that's it.

The CPU hit makes it impossible to use as I use any other plugin I have: open as many as I need without even thinking about it like I would in 2004....

The judgment about the sound is pretty subjective, and I really think their plugins certainly don't sound "bad", i'm sure some are pretty great. If you found the tools you get along with and enjoy, that's cool... (like I said I personally I wasn't too impressed comparing results to other plugins, and found the latency+CPU toll to be unacceptable)

But 100%; the efficency is the worst there is in the plugin universe (and that isn't subjective)

 

[Bee_Abney]

Heya Beeee!
Yes, sampling hardware is perfectly legal. But there are many things that are legal but still morally doubtful.
Let's say I don't find it elegant, that's it.

The CPU hit makes it impossible to use as I use any other plugin I have: open as many as I need without even thinking about it like I would in 2004....

The judgment about the sound is pretty subjective, and I really think their plugins certainly don't sound "bad", i'm sure some are pretty great. If you found the tools you get along with and enjoy, that's cool... (like I said I personally I wasn't too impressed comparing results to other plugins, and found the latency+CPU toll to be unacceptable)

But 100%; the efficency is the worst there is in the plugin universe (and that isn't subjective)

I don't really get the issue regarding the sampling of hardware. Most sampling involves that. Nor do I have an issue regarding the CPU hit. That is more about usage, templates, midi versus audio and so on. It is significant for a lot of folks.

But, for me, it comes down to the sound. For now, I'll give Acustica Audio a try. But I am always happy to find something cheaper, more efficient, and better sounding! I'm giving Acustica Audio a try for now; we'll see how that works out!

 

[estolad]

Then there is also the fact they "sample" hardware units, don't mention them by name or share any revenues with the creators of the original sampled machines, still people know exactly what device was sampled as you can find the info online half an hour after every release.

A company cannot use other brand's trademarks in their own marketing. So they cannot always mention the original hardware unit. For example UVI also doesn't do this. It happens quite often.