Wow! I didn't realize there were so many drama queens on this forum. Choose not to use Landr if you don't want to. I may or may not. I usually send my stuff to a human for mastering. All this argle bargle stuff is much to do about nothing :)
My .02 cents anyway........

bapu
Beeps,
 
For the way you work, you actually get what you want.
 
You don't use CCC (IIRC) and you download the installer from your store account.
 
When you run that installer you have the verbose option. 
 
In the verbose option DO NOT check LANDR.
 
Simples.
 
Beeps stays with Cakewalk. YAY!!!!
 

Indeed and I know that because I've been paying attention and scour this forum daily. HOWEVER the app still gets downloaded (every month) and has to be unpacked (every month... and I don't know what that might release onto the system) and has to be installed using the advance install option (every month... whereas before I could just safely intall the main SPlat package without advance install... even though I do anyway but have never had to uncheck anything).
 
As mentioned earlier there is also some kind of log made if the LANDR app was rejected and that file is still on the system. It should also be noted I keep backups of the dowloads (I'm an offline installer) for various reasons. The extra monthly data adds up which has been described as up to 100MB but Noel is now claiming it's 50MB... urm.. whut?.
 
and so forth...
 
So for me, who's been paying attention to this issue (as I'm sure you have as well), I know how to kind of sort of avoid it. Other poor buggers will get zapped by it (and already have which is what brought this to my attention). I feel a bit of duty to my fellow Sonarites to point out the things that are (potentially) truly problematic.
 
No matter what I do though I still cannot completely avoid that extra 50-100MB worth of data being downloaded and added to my installer backup folder (so I can rollback or reinstall as needed since I don't use CCC). I don't know what is unpacked from the LANDR app as soon as I start the install process (but as reported something gets logged even if the app isn't installed and the way this has gone down I have very little trust other weirdness may not be going on) and if I forget about the app or screwup my install I'll have to do a full restore to a previous state to start over again.
 
So at the very best it is extra download time, disk space used and the inconvenience of doing an advanced install and unchecking the LANDR option every month.
 
All for absolutely no real benefit.
 
If there was much more information on all of this then maybe these concerns could be quelled but it's all being done in such a way that I personally do not trust it. If I knew exactly what was doing what, when, why, how, etc then I might be cooed into complacency or at least feel that I wasn't having a fast one pulled on me.
 
I am however much more concerned about the precedence this is setting for the company. If we let this type of thing get snuck in without saying anything where does it end? Are gonna end up with little dancing widgets and billboards scrolling across our projects unless we do some magic voodoo dance every time we update?
 
Now THAT'S unprofessional and I put up with enough of it with other programs and doodads.
 
Whatevs... you know what I mean (hopefully).
 
I am everyman. Hear me whine. lol

Anderton

tenfoot

Anderton
 
I'm not a big fan of presets, here's why. 

So you truly believe that landr is that different to a preset in a mastering plugin Craig? I have given it a spin and to me the results were pretty similar. Like any mastering plugin preset,  it certainly works better on some tracks than it does on others,  and the end result is sometimes better but never brilliant.  Surely your 'works by coincidence' assertion could apply equally to it? 

Yes and no. First, the "no" part. I'm quite sure it does more than a preset because on the examples I've heard, it has identified build-ups that need to be tamed, and these have been in different frequency ranges. I commonly need to add shallow cuts at various places in songs when mastering, but they're not always in the same frequency range. LANDR seems capable of identifying where those kinds of issues are, and dealing with them.
 
Similarly, it seems to know how much brightness to add. Noel's cut needed more high end, and LANDR added it. OTOH when I fed in a song that I'd mastered to see if I could fool it and LANDR did essentially nothing at all, it must have "decided" that the spectral balance was correct.
 
I don't know about the extent of "artificial intelligence" in the program, but it clearly makes decisions based on contextual analysis. Presets can't do that.
 
Now for the "yes" part - it's not a human, so I doubt that it can (at least not yet) make "out of the box," or perhaps more correctly, "out of the algorithm" decisions. LANDR claims the engine will learn over time, so this may become less of an issue in the future. I also think this may be why LANDR has emphasized offering free previews, because it's not good to have disappointed customers . Some music will be a better fit with the system and some won't, so with the previews, people will know whether what they've submitted is a good fit or not.

Thanks for taking the time to respond Craig. You are certainly right in saying that no plugin is capable of successfully identifying the problems you describe.  If you think Landr really can it is certainly worth another listen.  I will also be most intrigued to see if it really does get better over time. I am not even sure I do that:) 
Sound is so subjective,  and am l not yet entirely convinced that we aren't all being taken for a ride and falling prey to suggestion and conformational bias.  I am certainly willing to be convinced given more evidence though.  On the strength of your recommendation  I will send it (let's call it Hal) a few more creations and see what pops out.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Regarding the Landr app itself, their client app is exactly like the soundcloud app in that it does nothing until you choose to export. There is no impact on system performance since it doesnt run in the background. It has its own uninstaller that you can access from Windows add | remove programs should you choose to remove it. As many have pointed out there is also the possibility to avoid installing it if you use the command center custom options.

 
Hey guys, I'm Ludovic from LANDR. Desktop app developer team lead, and I just wanted to add a few points to Noel's response.
 
The LANDR desktop application is not an agent, and will not perform any operation in background if not launched.
 
The SONAR installer is installing the app, but never launches it. The user can choose to export to LANDR, and in that case the LANDR app is launched. When the user closes the window of the app, or quits the app, there is nothing happening in the background.
 
When the LANDR app is launched, it will check for updates to our server (standard for most apps). 
 
On Windows, the uninstaller removes the whole application, logs out the user, and removes all cached tracks that have been downloaded through the app by the user. The only thing that could remain are the installer logs (and a few registry keys), and app logs that are managed by Windows.
 
We understand your concerns and appreciate any additional feedback.

I have a question about the LANDR process. I tried it out, and it only does a 30 second preview, other than that you have to pay (or you get a couple of freebie masters, I guess). The preview is too short to be useful, so would you have to send a bunch of 30-second sections of the song and individually preview each one? Seems like something I wouldn't waste my time doing.  What I had hoped was that you could at least preview the entire piece before making any changes in the original or sending the master to someone for review. Am I missing something here? Thanks, guys.

Hi SONAR forum!
 
I've been using Ozone since ver. 1 (got 7 Advanced before Christmas). I've gotten very comfortable with the program and stopped using the presets long ago. I'm no professional ME, but I have been doing some paid mastering work for others, and the clients have been happy.
 
I tried Landr earlier today but shooting out the resulting file with one of my own recent masters and I was very dissapointed... that the Landr master sounded better than mine!! The "medium" intensity roughly matched the loudness and percieved "squash" of my file, but the Landr file actually sounded somewhat fuller and "livelier" and the vocals sat better. The low-end sounded very "right" as well!
 
This song (a pretty hard hitting urban/soul tune recorded and mixed by some friends of mine) was probably not my very finest work and the source mix was by no means perfect, but I'm intrigued! I may have to get at least the 320 kbps mp3 subscription!
 
Sven
 
 

Beepster

bapu
Beeps,
 
For the way you work, you actually get what you want.
 
You don't use CCC (IIRC) and you download the installer from your store account.
 
When you run that installer you have the verbose option. 
 
In the verbose option DO NOT check LANDR.
 
Simples.
 
Beeps stays with Cakewalk. YAY!!!!
 

Indeed and I know that because I've been paying attention and scour this forum daily. HOWEVER the app still gets downloaded (every month) and has to be unpacked (every month... and I don't know what that might release onto the system) and has to be installed using the advance install option (every month... whereas before I could just safely intall the main SPlat package without advance install... even though I do anyway but have never had to uncheck anything).
 
As mentioned earlier there is also some kind of log made if the LANDR app was rejected and that file is still on the system. It should also be noted I keep backups of the dowloads (I'm an offline installer) for various reasons. The extra monthly data adds up which has been described as up to 100MB but Noel is now claiming it's 50MB... urm.. whut?.
 
and so forth...
 
So for me, who's been paying attention to this issue (as I'm sure you have as well), I know how to kind of sort of avoid it. Other poor buggers will get zapped by it (and already have which is what brought this to my attention). I feel a bit of duty to my fellow Sonarites to point out the things that are (potentially) truly problematic.
 
No matter what I do though I still cannot completely avoid that extra 50-100MB worth of data being downloaded and added to my installer backup folder (so I can rollback or reinstall as needed since I don't use CCC). I don't know what is unpacked from the LANDR app as soon as I start the install process (but as reported something gets logged even if the app isn't installed and the way this has gone down I have very little trust other weirdness may not be going on) and if I forget about the app or screwup my install I'll have to do a full restore to a previous state to start over again.
 
So at the very best it is extra download time, disk space used and the inconvenience of doing an advanced install and unchecking the LANDR option every month.
 
All for absolutely no real benefit.
 
If there was much more information on all of this then maybe these concerns could be quelled but it's all being done in such a way that I personally do not trust it. If I knew exactly what was doing what, when, why, how, etc then I might be cooed into complacency or at least feel that I wasn't having a fast one pulled on me.
 
I am however much more concerned about the precedence this is setting for the company. If we let this type of thing get snuck in without saying anything where does it end? Are gonna end up with little dancing widgets and billboards scrolling across our projects unless we do some magic voodoo dance every time we update?
 
Now THAT'S unprofessional and I put up with enough of it with other programs and doodads.
 
Whatevs... you know what I mean (hopefully).
 
I am everyman. Hear me whine. lol

Beeps,
 
(somewhat) Tongue in cheek.

lthomas

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Regarding the Landr app itself, their client app is exactly like the soundcloud app in that it does nothing until you choose to export. There is no impact on system performance since it doesnt run in the background. It has its own uninstaller that you can access from Windows add | remove programs should you choose to remove it. As many have pointed out there is also the possibility to avoid installing it if you use the command center custom options.

 
Hey guys, I'm Ludovic from LANDR. Desktop app developer team lead, and I just wanted to add a few points to Noel's response.
 
The LANDR desktop application is not an agent, and will not perform any operation in background if not launched.
 
The SONAR installer is installing the app, but never launches it. The user can choose to export to LANDR, and in that case the LANDR app is launched. When the user closes the window of the app, or quits the app, there is nothing happening in the background.
 
When the LANDR app is launched, it will check for updates to our server (standard for most apps). 
 
On Windows, the uninstaller removes the whole application, logs out the user, and removes all cached tracks that have been downloaded through the app by the user. The only thing that could remain are the installer logs (and a few registry keys), and app logs that are managed by Windows.
 
We understand your concerns and appreciate any additional feedback.

Welcome, Ludovic and thank you for the additional information. It is appreciated.
 
I would still prefer this not be included in the main Sonar installer but that is likely out of your hands. If you do have some say in it or have influence with those who do that is the number one suggestion and recommendation from me.
 
Aside from that that all sounds like pretty standard stuff for such an app. I would however allow users to completely disable ANY auto connect/update features to avoid any distractions and disruptions to workflow and streaming audio.
 
Currently I understand there is an option to disable advisory popups but it is unclear whether that option actually disables searching for an internet connection and/or seeking out and/or downloading updates.
 
So an option (similar to other programs) that allows...
 
1) Auto Update at launch
2) Inform me of updates at launch
 
3) Let me search for updates (no action taken/no internet connection made at launch)
 
Simple things like that help.
 
Again though... this needs to be removed from the main Sonar installer. It will do more harm to your brand (by way of simply annoying people) than if it were some nice little goodie on the side we could all play with at our leisure.
 
Best of luck to you and again thank you very much for chiming in.
 
Cheers.

bapu
Beeps,
 
(somewhat) Tongue in cheek.

Ya cheeky monkey, you.
 
OT: I haven't ripped out anything for you in a while. If you've got something quick and dirty in the next month lemme know. I could use some cheering up in betwixt the current winter drudgery.
 
Hope you've been well, bud.

lthomas

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Regarding the Landr app itself, their client app is exactly like the soundcloud app in that it does nothing until you choose to export. There is no impact on system performance since it doesnt run in the background. It has its own uninstaller that you can access from Windows add | remove programs should you choose to remove it. As many have pointed out there is also the possibility to avoid installing it if you use the command center custom options.

 
Hey guys, I'm Ludovic from LANDR. Desktop app developer team lead, and I just wanted to add a few points to Noel's response.
 
The LANDR desktop application is not an agent, and will not perform any operation in background if not launched.
 
The SONAR installer is installing the app, but never launches it. The user can choose to export to LANDR, and in that case the LANDR app is launched. When the user closes the window of the app, or quits the app, there is nothing happening in the background.
 
When the LANDR app is launched, it will check for updates to our server (standard for most apps). 
 
On Windows, the uninstaller removes the whole application, logs out the user, and removes all cached tracks that have been downloaded through the app by the user. The only thing that could remain are the installer logs (and a few registry keys), and app logs that are managed by Windows.
 
We understand your concerns and appreciate any additional feedback.

Very cool of you to drop by Ludovic -  you are all we're talking about here today!  Now you've gone and interrupted our paranoia with some actual facts and common sense:)