Introducing A.L. (Newfangled Audio's new Store, User Area, and Licensing System)

When we launched the Elevate Mastering Bundle our friends at Eventide offered to distribute it for us. That has been, and continues to be, a great partnership - their help with everything from marketing to hosting us on their store has enabled us to focus on product design and customers.

However, the last couple years we've been getting an increasing number of confused emails about where our user area is, why we show up as an Eventide product on iLok, or why our buy buttons go to an Eventide store and registration process. It became clear that we needed to build our own store and user area. We decided we'd try to build the best one we could, and that we wanted an integrated licensing system. We've named that platform A.L., and we'll be rolling it out over the next month.

TL;DR

We're proud of what A.L. has (and will) become, and I'll get into details below, but first here's the tl;dr.

1. A.L. is a new store, licensing system, and user area for Newfangled Audio plug-ins.

2. A.L. is compatible with your existing iLok licenses, and will continue to issue new iLok licenses if you so desire.

3. We will still be selling plug-ins through Eventide and if you like purchasing through them you can continue to do so. We love Eventide and will continue working with them for the foreseeable future.

4. A.L. is entering public beta for about a month. You can create an account, link your iLok, and receive A.L. licenses in addition to your existing iLok licenses - but you do not have to.

5. Once the beta period is over new purchases will require an A.L. account, but existing iLok licenses will keep on working without you having to do anything.

6. A.L. is brand new: in order to use it everyone will need to create an account. You will then be issued A.L. licenses when you link one or more iLok accounts to your A.L. account.

What to say about A.L.?

Launching a store and licensing system is a little weird: it costs you nothing, and ideally you guys won't even notice it's there. But it is a change so I figure we should talk the decisions we made.

1. You should never have to think about licensing. If you log in and purchase a plug-in from us, you should pay, install the plug-in, and just use it; so that's what we built. Once we launch the store, if you purchase when you're logged in, and you log in to the plug-in, everything will just work. No license codes, no activating machines, it should all happen automatically.

2. You should not see any disruption. We have many existing users happy with their iLok licenses. We want you to keep on using those and never have to think about licensing. This is why we've built it to issue you an A.L. license in addition to your iLok license. These licenses mirror each other and will mostly end up on the same machines - but this is on purpose. It's not a second license, it's just a mirror of your existing license implemented in a way to make sure you never go down.

3. You don't need to stay connected to the internet. It's 2026 and almost all computers connect to the internet sometimes. You do need to connect to the internet to authorize an A.L. license, but you don't need to stay connected to keep using it. Don't worry that it will lock you out.

4. You might still prefer iLok. Lots of people like iLok and we like iLok, too. We haven't removed any existing iLok licenses, and when you purchase a new license you can go into the user area and request an iLok license once you've linked your iLok account.

5. You like buying from Eventide or Plugin Boutique or our other partners. You can still do that. We'll issue you a license code that you can register in the user area, or in the plug-in itself to receive your license.

If you'd like to try it out please visit newfangledaudio.com/getting-started. If you'd like to try the beta please go to my.newfangledaudio.com and create an account. If you have any issues please contact support.

This is just the beginning, we have other ideas for how we'd like to grow and improve the plug-in experience. Thank you for supporting us and we can't wait to show you what else we have cooking.

Thanks,

Dan