Every single time I start Nuendo with a new project, on the same day, even an hour later, this stupid licensing system spins for several minutes to check my licence. Really, I’d swear at /the £$%^&*( but it’s a waste of breath. Oh how I hate the company that bought BFD. Oh how I avoid them like the plague when I run across a product owned by them, nope, not going there again.
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same here, and if you dont pay attention and check the wrong option it never recovers, getting really tired of BFD
Not to brag, but I own Nuendo, Cubase, Wavelab, Spectralayers, Studio One, Digital Performer, Reason, NI Ultimate, IK Total Studio Max, and countless virtual instruments and fx plugins and I don’t think any one of the other companies tries to keep me from using its software until I first prove that I own it — each time I open my DAW. It’s a little bit overboard, I think, especially for a piece of software that was first released in 2014 by FXpansion.
Hope they can get over this customer distrust / fear thing.
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*2013 actually and it’s a fair point… Not much has changed as to the functionality of BFD3 with inMusic’s acquisition and most of the expansions were from the Fxpansion days. If we were talking about a brand new BFD4, built from the ground up, then maybe I could understand why they choose to take this stance.
It’s 5 years later and they still have not been able to remedy the authorization woes that continue to hurt the end-user. Either hire people that can design a proper authorizer that only needs to do it once to authorize a machine, or take it back to the days with machine authorization files. We had no worries back then that BFD was going to stop functioning. This is still the main thing hurting the BFD brand atm. They could’ve buried this problem years ago, if only they had listened to the loyal users.
I looked online for that release date, but only found a 2014 Sound on Sound review, so I used that date just to make the point that — it’s a LONG time ago, relative to software aging.
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Superior Drummer 3 is currently available at a reduced Black Friday price. I made the switch from BFD3 for all new projects about 2 years ago and have never regretted it. I occasionally have to open BFD3 when revisiting old projects and hit the authorizing obstacle every time. Superior Drummer has no such problems and opens immediately. BFD3 is now 2 OS updates behind on the Mac for support, expansion packs are being sold off very cheaply, and there is still no sign of BFD4. That all sounds very much like the end of BFD is very close to me.
Because of this constant re-authorisation cycle, once InMusic turn off the authorisation servers BFD3 will be useless immediately, with no possibility of a slow exit period whilst you find an alternative.
Superior Drummer 3 also has BFD3 note maps built in, making transfer of projects a relatively smooth process.
Just for kicks I decided to time how long it took for BFD to open up. From the time anything appeared on the screen it was about 2 to 3 seconds. However, it took about 10 seconds for something to appear on the screen in the first place. Still, that is workable. Maybe there is a background service running that is causing a delay? I have my machine stripped down and running lean. I hate wasting clock cycles.
On another topic, that would be a total catastrophe if BFD shut down their authorization servers. If they decide to go out of business I hope they do the right thing and give everyone permanent authorization. But given that InMusic owns many other companies such as Moog and Akai that gives them some inertia and diversification so hopefully that won’t happen. I’m more worried about Native Instruments and by extension Izotope. I mean, take a look at Reaktor. So old that maybe it’s back in style again. At least BFD has a high level of functionality. I’d be OK with it if they just left it alone, although it could certainly use a more intuitive GUI. And if they think they ran out of ideas for expansions, maybe they could come up with some electronic sounds other than just 8 bit kit.
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Once I have my kits tweaked and routed in the DAW, I don’t really have the GUI open all that much anyways, so it doesn’t bother me. The sound and functionality is there.
I think another cool idea for expansions would be more iconic album drum sounds, like they did with Metallica.
I’ve found that there is a workaround to this licensing issue (which drives me mad too).
Turn off your internet connection. BFD opens immediately, both in plug-in and standalone modes.
I don’t know how easy this on PC, but on Mac all you have to do is have your Setting app open to Network, and switch on/off as needed (if on WiFi). Before opening Studio One then BFD I make sure wifi is off, then launch. If you’re on a landline connection it may be a bit different, it’s been a few years since I had a line connection so I’ve forgotten how that works. But wifi is easy.
Once BFD is open, you can switch between wifi on/off easily as needs be.
Nevertheless, I agree with everyone that this really should not be an issue in the first place. EZdrummer 2/3, AD2, MT, all fire up immediately. So does all my other software.
By the way, I have on several occasions timed the opening of BFD while connected to wifi, and it varies from a minimum of 1 minute to a ridiculous 4 minutes!
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You can disable ethernet connections in macOS Network prefs, but it doesn’t really work. Apps still think internet is active, even though it’s not. I find I still have to unplug the cable. Good tip though.