Soundtoys have announced that their brand new Sie-Q equalizer effect for PC and Mac based digital audio workstations is being offered as a free download until October 13th.
The plugin was released today and it’s on offer as a free download for everyone interested. After October 13th, the price will be increased to a whopping $129. It’s worth noting that even though an iLok account is required in order to register and activate your Sie-Q license, you don’t need the actual iLok dongle. In case you’re wondering, anyone can register for a free iLok account and download their License Manager application which is used for activating licenses (although some users like to completely avoid installing iLok software on their machines).
Now, the bad news is that Soundtoys’ website is down at the moment, and this has been the case for the past few hours. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to test Sie-Q yet, so I can’t give you any additional info apart from what was mentioned in the company’s newsletter I received earlier. It’s quite possible that their website will return back to normal soon, though, because Soundtoys certainly do have quite a bit of experience with managing server issues caused by spikes in traffic.
Anyways, all I can say about the plugin is that it seems to be an emulation the Siemens W295b, an old German equalizer from the 60s. It is available for both PC and Mac based host applications that work with VST, AU and AAX plugins. Looking forward to taking it for a spin!
Sie-Q is available for free download via Soundtoys.
24 Comments
Poofox
onSorry Soundoys, not running antipiracy software for free plugins. Not even for paid ones. Punishing people who are legitimately not pirates is why there is still piracy.
Niedec
onHave to second this. I stopped using Soundtoys and UVI plugins, because too often, I’d open a session to find that my plugins weren’t working, and see this error message:
“Activation Error: The licensing service required to activate this software is not running. Please reinstall the product or download and run the iLok License Manager installer here: http://www.ilok.com”
When this happens, you have to uninstall the previous license manager, restart your computer, then install the new version, restart your computer again, and then reopen your project and hope it works. After the fifth or sixth time this happened, I stopped bothering with iLok/PACE in any form.
Most devs don’t cripple their software with bad DRM. Why use a product from a company that does?
Al Capone
onThat’s why I like Klanghelm, and other “little” companies
Tomislav Zlatic
onI also prefer freebies with no activation required (even without an installer for that matter), but then again I don’t mind installing things like iLok and other activation software if the freebie is good enough. One of these days, though, I’ll need to go through all of my installed plugins again and sort out the unnecessary ones in order to create the ultimate minimalist plugin setup.
Ike
on“One of these days, though, I’ll need to go through all of my installed plugins again and sort out the unnecessary ones in order to create the ultimate minimalist plugin setup.”
That’s what we all planned at some point. Now we keep hording new plugins and overwhelming ourselves. Damn, we need to discipline ourselves and focus on the essentials. ;-)
Animus
onmy tactic is to designate each plugin for use in only one specific channel strip, as if if were a single instance of analog gear. Thus, i get to use all the tools without getting overwhelmed by them. Unless a plugin is a literal 1:1 copy of something else, everything has its place and worth.
Windows 10 and the pace service don’t seem to like each other… i have to re-enable it from the task manager any time windows updates. Not that big of a deal unless i forget.
Poofox
onThe way I did this was to simply copy my whole VST folder to another computer. Then I run Reaper or some other DAW and write down every plugin that fails to load and just delete them. Now I have a ready to go collection of plugs that I can put on any system.
Sleepydog
onI’ve seen other, supposedly good/no brainer, being released free but with the small consequence of installing ilok. Call me paranoid but i think this is just to lure people in to using ilok. Once they have it installed they may just as well buy ilok software. Maybe not that paranoid after all. I mean … you get 129$ for free! It’s just a three band EQ but hey, it’s 129$. Seriously, let me rant a little. If you buy that EQ for 129$, how long would it take to make that money back? Whatever little edge that EQ would give your mix that either brings you the quality for extra sales or saves time by being easy to use, compared to any freeware EQ or stock DAW EQ, how long before it pays off??
(please dont take this as any critique at you BPB!! I <3 you ^_^ )
Roman
onThis happens on Windows because PACE service couldn’t be launched on startup, because of all other apps loading: messengers, cloud storage clients, graphic and other drivers. To fix that you need to go to Services, find PACE and and choose launch option “Automatic (Delayed)”, and if it’s not running at the moment, relaunch manually. Don’t need to reinstall iLok at all.
_TIP_
onThank you very much for letting us know about that great freebie Tomislav!!!
Tomislav Zlatic
onCheers! :)
Marcus Rasseli
onTheir web page is working now!! I donwloaded my copy in about 5 minutes :-)
It really sounds great for me, it’s not a drastical EQ but it does the job very well to add some color to the mix.
Tomislav Zlatic
onAwesome, works here now as well. Off to download my copy!
Sleepydog
onIs the ilok software something that will be running in the background afterwards? Can you stop it? Can you uninstall after activating license?
Roman
onNeeds to run to use plugin. Otherwise can be stopped.
Tomislav Zlatic
onYes, it will run in the background all the time by default. You can stop it, but you’ll have to launch it manually if you want to use the plugins that are activated via iLok.
Jane
onThanks to all involved in this freebie ! (y)
Toaster
on179 mo for an eq WTF ?
Carlo
onYou want to buy the whole Soundtoys 5. Believe me, those plugins are incredible. Try on sale times, maybe you’ll get a discount!
Cali
onSidebar: The Siemens W295b has incredibly silky highs.
I wonder how this emulation will compare to some of the amazing emulations for Acustica’s Nebula.
Misha
onafter installing iLOk manager I’ve found program called “bonjour” on my computer. What is it? Spyware or something like it?
avon
oni never know why it install it. maybe this articel will help from wikipedia:
“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)”
Frank
onIt’s totally safe to uninstall that shit.
jbennett
onDid this plug-in stop working for anyone else on November 1st??