Steinberg Dongle Issue

[Infrared]

I'm really not happy with Steinberg's Cubase Dongle (USB eLicenser).
When it's plugged in, the machine takes more than twice as long to
boot as when it's not plugged in. That is simply not acceptable when
the dongle offers no benefit to me whatsoever (it's all about benefits
to Steinberg).

I've filled in several of Steinberg's support request forms and haven't
received a single direct reply (as in addressed *to me*) in two weeks.
I paid a lot of money for the use of this software and they can't even
be bothered to so much as acknowledge a support request. I can't find
a useful looking email address and their support phone numbers are
German (= expensive calls).

Some information has come my way, but a lot of it is contradictory.
Steinberg told the shop they thought the dongle was broken. Then,
in another email to the shop Steinberg blamed it on the computer's
configuration, which is a lot of nonsense. There is nothing very
strange about the way I have the machine set up (Mac Pro, 1
OS X drive, 1 Windows drive). I never had a problem booting this
machine before I plugged in the dongle, and I've had all sorts of
stuff attached to the USB ports before.

Quote 1:

Hallo Patrick,

Is it possible to test the dongle on an other computer, just to see if there is the same problem ? We think that the USB key is broken. We have allot of customers with similar setups worldwide and they do not experience this behaviour.

With regards,

Chris Beuermann
Senior Technical Support

Quote 2:

Thanks for your email regarding this support issue.

Cubase 5 is supported on Windows and OS X machines but using their associated
hardware as specified on the product pages of steinberg.net. What I mean by
this is that we would expect a Windows system to be running on a PC and an OS X
system to be running on a mac. It sounds like your end-user is trying to run a
combination of operating systems and hardware by means of some 'bridging'
software. This is, of course, going to be at the detriment of performance and,
as we know, DAW software prefers a well optimized system. It can also be
assumed that there would be all manner of potential software/hardware conflicts
with running dual operating systems outside of bootcamp.

I am unsure why your end-user wants to run their DAW in this manner (in fact,
I'm struggling to think of any reason so I'd be interested to hear about the
thinking behind it) but I would strongly recommend that a choice is made
between OSX (preferred and default) and bootcamp.

It is important to be aware that neither the software nor it's copy protection
key is at fault here - both products work correctly when used in the
recommended manner - but the problems lie with an individual case of quite a
complex OS configuration.
Mick Hughes
Business Development Manager UK
Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH
Neuer Hoeltigbaum 22-32
22143 Hamburg, Germany

(That second email in particular is quite bizarre.)

Now the shop is claiming it's actually normal for the machine to take
a long time to boot with the dongle attached.

I feel ripped off.

I wonder, does anyone have a Steinberg email address so I can try
and contact them that way? Or any thoughts on this conundrum?

Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I wonder, does anyone have a Steinberg email address so I can try and contact them that way? Or any thoughts on this conundrum"

You could try browsing here:
http://forum.cubase.net

But the truth is, if you want to use Cubase (other than the free "Cubase LE4", which I use), you have to use the dongle and accept its limitations.

If you are unwilling to accept that, your only choice is going to be to use something else.

It's that simple.

 

[Infrared]

"I wonder, does anyone have a Steinberg email address so I can try and contact them that way? Or any thoughts on this conundrum"

You could try browsing here:
http://forum.cubase.net

But the truth is, if you want to use Cubase (other than the free "Cubase LE4", which I use), you have to use the dongle and accept its limitations.

If you are unwilling to accept that, your only choice is going to be to use something else.

It's that simple.

If those limitations had been made clear before installing Cubase, I would
have returned it already. It's a bit hard to make a judgement about facts
that are unknown. I did read around various forums before getting Cubase,
but I can't recall any mention of the booting slowdown.

And the thing is I still have no idea if the problem is widespread or not. I
don't know if the dongle is faulty or not. And Steinberg aren't helping to
clarify matters (I would much prefer to speak to them than rant and rave
here .

By the way: I'm not opposed in principle to dongles, or copy-protection in
general, so long as the method used works unobtrusively. There's no reason
why it shouldn't.

 

[Fishrrman]

A closing thought...

If the only real issue you have with Cubase (and the dongle) is booting time, why not give it some time to get used to the program's capabiltiies?

I've used GarageBand, Cubase, fooled with Logic Express a little, also with "Traktion" (Mackie DAW product).

With Cubase, it's a snap to select a clip of audio, copy it, dupe it, move it, normalize it, adjust the gain, etc.

Cubase is the CLEAR WINNER amongst all these, particularly if you want fast and easy audio editing. NONE of the others come anywhere close.

Can the dongle be inserted AFTER the computer has booted?

Disclaimer: I use Cubase LE4 ("free" edition of Cubase that comes bundled in with certain digital audio hardware products), and it _doesn't_ use a dongle. Instead, it uses an "on-the-fly" online registration check that occurs when Cubase is loaded up (downside is you have to be connected to the net in order to launch Cubase LE).