Activation Manual

General Information
Alliance products (that is, plugins as well as standalone software) include a propri-
etary licensing system which is completely software based. Thus, no hardware USB
dongle is required to run any of them. No additional software or drivers are needed,
either. Everything is handled from within the software product. All of your licenses
are stored in a single file that resides on your computer or USB flash-drive. This file
must be updated whenever you buy or demo a new Alliance product and install it on
your computer. We support either online or offline activation.

We highly recommend using online activation if possible as it is the most user-friend-

ly method. By default any product can be activated on up to three different comput-
ers or USB flash-drives per license.

You must create an account on our website before using our products. Opening an
account at www.plugin-alliance.com is free.

License Types
Our license system supports Full Licenses, Trial Licenses and Lease Licenses.

A Full License unlocks your product for an unlimited amount of time. You will obtain
a full license whenever you purchase a new Alliance product.

A Trial License will let you try a product for 14 days. Trial licenses are free of charge.
There are no limitations to the demo versions of the products. All features are avail-
able during the demo period. A trial license can be activated on three devices as well,
but it will only be valid for 14 days after the first activation.

Lease Licenses are valid for a period of 30 days. They can be renewed after expira-
tion (see below) by paying your next installment. This allows you to perform an in-
stallment purchase of a product.

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Installation

Download the installer for the product you want to use from our website's download
section at www.plugin-alliance.com/downloads. It doesn't matter if you are going to
try out a demo or if you are going to install a product for which you have bought a
full license. The installer will be the same. We have separate installers for Windows,
Mac OS, and specific systems for plugins (e.g. VENUE). Run the installer by double-
clicking the EXE-file contained in the downloaded archive if you're a Windows user, or
double-click the PKG/DMG-file if you're on a MAC, respectively.

For plugin installers, confirm the legal information and select which plugin formats
you want to install (for example VST, AAX and AU). The format you need depends on
the audio host program you are using and which plugin format is required for your
host. By default all formats are selected. We recommend to install ALL versions, es-
pecially if you aren't sure about the format you need.

For standalone software on Windows, follow the instructions given by the installer.
The Mac OS version consists of a disk image that just requires you to drag-and-drop
the software to your Application folder.

Fig. 1: Activation Dialog

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Activation Process
For plugins start your host software once the plugin installation has finished. Unau-
thorized plugins will be grayed out and disabled. In Pro Tools unactivated plugins will
bring the activation dialog shown below (Fig. 1) during the plugin scan at startup.
Simply click on the plugin window to bring up the activation dialog in all other DAWs.

For standalone software, the activation dialog will appear during startup of the soft-
ware.

You can choose if you want to use the online or the offline activation procedure by
clicking the I'm online or I'm offline buttons. We highly recommend using the online
option since it's most easy and automated.

Since we're using a single file to manage all your licenses, there is no need to reacti-
vate the same plugin in different DAW-formats. This means that if you activate a
plugin using e.g. Pro Tools you can use it with Logic as well, as long as you are on the
same computer or USB flash-drive.

Fig. 2: Online Activation

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Online Activation
If you chose I'm online the online activation dialog will appear (Fig. 2). You will be
prompted for your registered email address and your password. The process is identi-
cal to your login at www.plugin-alliance.com/myplugins.

As soon as you click Activate, the product will contact our server and download a
fresh license file to your computer or USB flash-drive.

In case there is a valid full license in your account the product will be activated for
the selected device, otherwise a 14-day trial version will be activated and started.

Save Password

It's possible to save your password by selecting the Save password checkbox in the
online activation dialog. Saving your password allows you to activate new products in
the future without having to re-enter your login data for every activation process.
When enabling this feature, passwords are encrypted and securely stored on your
system's hard disk.

Fig. 3: Offline Activation

Offline Activation
If your computer is not online the product activation and the transfer of your license
file must be done manually via an additional computer with internet access.

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In this case choose I'm offline in the Activation window. The offline activation dialog
(Fig. 3) will pop up.

You have to exchange a file between your offline computer and your online comput-
er twice to activate a product on an offline computer using e.g. a USB flash-drive.

Step 1: Make sure you have created a trial license in your Plugin Alliance account or
you have purchased a full license in our store. Of course, this can only be done on a
computer with internet access as well. To create a trial license in your Plugin Alliance
account please see details below.

Step 2: Submit your Machine ID in your account. The Machine ID is the number dis-
played in blue in the activation window (Fig. 3). It is used to identify your computer in
our system.

Choose Save to file and store a text-file called machine_id.txt on a removable drive
(e.g. USB flash-drive) connected to your offline computer. Now connect the USB drive
to your online computer and log into your account.

Fig. 4: Offline Machine Activation.

Upload the machine_id.txt file from your USB flash-drive using the Activate NEW
Device option (Fig. 4) by opening your license under View & Manage Registered
Plugins and click Activate. Download your new license file to your USB drive by click-
ing Download License File on the top of that page (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5: License Download.

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Step 3: Connect your USB flash-drive to your offline computer. In the product activa-
tion window please click Open license and choose the license file named pa.license
which is now located on your USB flash-drive. Finally, click Activate. Your product will
be working now.

Offline License Management

Every offline computer has to be registered only once in your Plugin Alliance account.
To activate a yet registered device skip Step 2 and select it in the drop-down menu
under Activate EXISTING Device. Finally, click Activate, download a new license file
and proceed to Step 3.

To start a new offline demo use the Create Demo / Free License option in the Cre-
ate Demo / Free License section and choose the product you would like to test. Click
Create License, download a new license file and proceed to Step 3.

USB Activation
Alliance products give you the ability to transfer your licenses to an ordinary USB
flash-drive, which then can be used to run your products on other computers without
the need for these computers to be activated. This is especially useful for traveling
FOH engineers or engineers who have to work in different studios a lot. We highly
recommend to activate USB flash-drives via an online computer.

Step 1: In order to activate your product on a flash-drive make sure that this drive is
properly connected to your computer and currently mounted in your file-system. Use
an online computer on which the product is installed. Start the standalone software
you want to activate on your USB flash-drive or open the plugin(s) in your DAW of
choice.

Step 2: Bring up the activation dialog (Fig. 1) by clicking on the little key-icon in the
product's toolbar (Fig. 6). There will be a pull-down menu that contains a list of de-
vices the product can be activated on. Your flash-drive will be listed in case it is sup -
ported by our licensing system. The local machine will always be listed as first entry
and is selected by default. Select your flash-drive and click I'm online.

Step 3: Enter your login data and click Activate. The product will contact our activa-
tion server and download a mobile license file to your flash drive that can be subse-
quently used on any computer just by plugging it in.

There may be some very old unsupported flash-drives that won't appear in your de-
vice drop-down. If your USB flash-drive is among the unsupported models, please
switch to a newer drive.

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Licenser Toolbar
Alliance products have a toolbar (Fig. 6) below their user-interface giving you access
to additional functionality, which is described in the following.

Fig. 6: Licenser-Toolbar

PA Logo: Clicking the Plugin Alliance logo takes you to the Plugin Alliance website
via your web browser if your computer is online.

License Type: The toolbar displays information about the type of license you're run-
ning: Trial and lease licenses will be displayed along with number of days until expira-
tion while there simply isn't any note for full licenses as these run unlimited.

$ Icon: If you run a demo version of any of our products this icon will be visible. Click-
ing this icon opens up a browser that redirects you to the respective product page in
the Plugin Alliance store so you can easily purchase a product or pay your next install-
ment without having to look it up on our website.

Key Icon: Clicking on the key icon brings up the activation dialog allowing you to
manually change from trial status to full licenses before the end of the trial phase (in
case you have bought a license in the meantime which has not yet been activated on
the current device). You can also use this feature to activate additional computers or
USB flash-drives.

? Icon: Clicking the ? icon opens up a context menu that links to the product manual
PDF besides other helpful links, e.g. to check for product updates online. You must
have a PDF reader installed on your computer to be able to read the manual. Get a
PDF reader for free at www.adobe.com.

Plugin Alliance LLC

World Trade Center Delaware
702 N. West St Suite 101
Wilmington, DE 19801
United States of America

www.plugin-alliance.com