Physical Dongle - when it will end?

Steinberg Lounge
41

I am not a pro - just a guy that has a few friends that have been writing and recording originals since the early 90s.
I bought the full CB Pro and have been updating every year. I bought Groove Agent 4 and several sound packs.
If I could use all of that on any computer without moving the dongle, then I would continue to upgrade.

I think Steinberg would like to have a constant revenue flow from upgraders like me. If Steinberg is amazing enough to develop CB – they should be able to implement a non-dongle solution.

I am not “pro” whatever that is - so buying double or triple of CB + GA4 + more – is not what I want to do.

I love the ability to impulsively open Logic to listen a mix without having to find which computer you last pugged the dongle into. When Cubase ditches the dongle - I’ll be back!

42

FYI - my needs are simple - just the DAW and its built in plugins and a drum plugin - you can tell by my song example :
Stream You know what they say about love by John Monnett | Listen online for free on SoundCloud.
So you can hear that I am not a pro - but totally enjoying recording and want to do it with the fewest obstacles (no dongle please).

43

Computers are a crude 1950’s technology.

Steinberg should move into the 21st century.

44

Well, nobody’s perfect, but if I were you the biggest trouble for me would be synchronization, I would have to copy the latest version of the project to all computers (looks like you have many) every time I change something to be sure that when I impulsively open the DAW I’m dealing with the actual copy.
For the listening purpose I use MP3 on my smartphone.

Don’t get me wrong, different minds - different problems. I’m not a pro at all and I use DAW on 1 computer only, but I can understand that small inconvenience which dongle brings into your life, but I consider it as small as nothing to make me reject the tools I like (or need).
But if my income depended on Cubase I would buy as many dongles/licenses as I need (or want).

45

Your UR44 did come with a free copy of Cubase AI.

46

All systems are connected to the same cloud account - and I load the project(s) directly from the cloud drive.

47

Yep - and I have purchased elements 8 also to have a lower cost version on another machine but this does not solve the problem of sharing GA4 since that license is tied to a single dongle. Also, it is really annoying when I load a program in elements 8 and it can’t find a plugin that I added from CB Pro 8.5. I don’t think mixing the different versions of CB with the same project is a safe/sane sloution.

48

Yep, Can’t really argue with that use-case. This is the compromise SB accepts, I would suppose- that certain users would not use Cubase- in exchange for having an effective copy protection device.

49

the dongle doesnt really bother me because steinberg is reasonable with their liscense replacement

50

1989,

Are they? I have had to pay for the replacements of all five of mine, and also play for the return postage (from the UK) of the faulty ones!

Cheers,

Paul

51

To be fair, what were the circumstances of the five replacements; i.e., defective, lost, broken?

52

You had five and had to replace them all? What on earth happened?

53

Hi NYC,

I started a thread on this a couple of years back if you wanted to take a look (rather than me cheekily take up real-estate on drorh4’s thread). There are some screenshots on mine of page two if I remember correctly.

Cheers,

Paul

54

5 times + uk postage that is pretty rough

i have had my dongle fail one time and had to buy a new one and put in the zero downtime but that is it no physical mailing to anywhere so it was reasonable to me

i read the other post you linked and i agree they should be made of more sturdy material my old dongles plastic had hairline cracks fresh out of the box and if i used a laptop im sure id have eventually cracked it open and had to tape like you did

55

Hi SD,

In answer to your questions:

Well, I was hanging on for the once promised and long awaited METAL version to be released. But when the release came out, it was of the SAME plastic, albeit the length was somewhat shorter. It was supposed to be released in November but it ended up coming out three months late in February (of the following year); in which time mine had totally packed up by Xmas (so I had to purchase another OLD MODEL because I could not wait another 6 x weeks!).

The reason I returned the FAULTY models to Steinberg was because DIAGNOSTICS wanted to examine them. I actually gained NOTHING from it whatsoever (because the Dongles were purchased from a Music Store trading on eBay UK [and Steinberg said it is not possible for them to retail such items, or provide me with a replacement]). I would say that since 2012 I have spent over 100GBP on these alone!

Best,

Paul

56

Sure you can show us, where this was “promised” by Steinberg…!?

57

Sven,

You are most welcome to traipse through other significant threads of old looking for such reference to the METAL alternative, but I am certainly not. Plus, I was told VERBALLY over the phone (and so it is up to your good-self whether or not you might choose to take my word for it).

In any event, I was kindly addressing another members genuine question and, out of respect, I do not wish to detract from the OP’s subject matter by debating over this issue with you.

Paul

58

Hello!
I really enjoy cubase pro. But I want to add my voice to those who would like a change to the registration protocol.

For example, I would like the software to belong to the band rather than belong to me … or Steinberg could revise the notion of belonging … They could offer packages where it would be possible to ‘Buy’ the software for four people or so… I do not know … something … Change with a little more flexibility!
Already, just for me, it brakes my spontaneous spurts of creativity when I do not think in advance that I might want to make music with my laptop, but that the key is in the studio.

Anyhow, I will upgrade my Halion5 to Halion6 just because they made it working without the dongle. I am waiting for the same thing to upgrade my cubase.

Meanwhile, keep having fun making music!

59

Yes, this “dongle is small, easy to steal, easy to break while it is worth a lot of €€€” is something that bothers me, too.

I’d LOVE to bring Cubase Pro and Halion Sonic (not necessarily Halion itself) to jam sessions, etc… but I treat the dongle, because of the high value of software on it, like a treasure.

So far I didn’t find a good solution. At the moment I use an old Yamaha “desk-hooter” (PSR E-343) so I have a keyboard with me and Cubasis on the iPad, but I’d really prefer to use my home studio software package “on the go”.

What I would prefer: “leasing” the licenses to another dongle with automatic return of the licenses after a set amount of hours (can be limited to 24 or 48 in my case, no problem… even 18 would be enough, I usually do party after jam sessions anyway).

However, imagine the following scenario:

Le me goes to jam session, with the dongle, has fun there, suddenly a wild party ensues out of nowhere - and while doing party things I break the dongle.

Now there is a lot, A LOT, of hassle to follow.

Or: I go home by Uber by 05:30 in the morning and lose the dongle while leaving the car, next car behind me (with some idiot teenager hooting behind me while I exit the car, because he thinks he owns the streets… this is how I lost an expensive vaping mod once, btw…).

…

I just wish for “license leasing with non-interactive, automatic return of the license”. I would be sooooo happy.

60

Keep the dongle on. Period.
Give us a metal-like dongle so it will never broke.