What about this thing that Magix installed called E-License Control Center? I don't remember that when I installed Sound Forge 16 before. I just tried to open Steinberg Spectra Layers and it is not working and opened E-License Control Center. Spectra Layers was bundled with my Sound Forge 16. This is really draconian and annoying. So, now I can't even open Steinberg Spectra Layers after installing it in the Sound Forge 16 bundle.

As you can see from the screenshot, it seems to have already captured Spectra Layers in the drop down. But, Spectra Layers won't open.

I want to shoot myself. After 20-minutes of playing with this E-License Control Center and going to Steinberg's site to see my account, it tells me that Spectra Layers is activated, but, it still does not work. I don't see a phone number for support for Steinberg on this or an easy way to fix this.

Frankly, I don't care about Spectra Layers. I'll never use this horrible designed non-user friendly software, but, could it be causing a problem getting Iztope Mastering Suite activated? Any idea if it is causing the conflict?

I'm absolutely disgusted. All the time I've invested in this and I can't even use it and I can't even have a seamless installation of Sound Forge 16 which should work without issues. Just draconian poorly designed and developed authentication software to make the consumer lose their mind. This is a horrible horrible experience dealing with this.

I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go for support. It may be time to go 100% Apple and just use
Logic and Garageband and just stop dealing with all these hassles. At least Apple support is better.

I'm just venting now. Excuse me, but, I am thoroughly disgusted. Please excuse my frustration. It sounds like it will take several weeks waiting for email responses and replys from Izotope and Magix and Steinberg and ELicense Control before I will get any help and they will probably tell me it is a legacy product and don't want to help. Buy something new. Like $1000 plug-ins. But, I will still have to deal with things like E-License Control Center, I guess. There's no support phone number to get E-License Support Center on the phone. What a mess and nobody cares about the end user.

Wow! I started testing my installation of Sound Forge 16 - remember this is on a clean Windows Installation - there's no corruptions - no conflicts - I haven't installed lots of other software. So, I started testing out the plug-ins that installed automatically from the Magix Sound Forge 16 Install file and I opened Izotope Ozone Elements. The program is blank. There's nothing in there. It opens to nothing. The Magix plug-ins work, however, but, not the 3rd party plug-ins. Look at this screenshot from trying to open Ozone Elements which is bundled in the installation of Sound Forge16 and note Izotope is not showing up in that awful E-License Control Center for the Steinberg Spectra Layers. What is going on???

More crazy stuff. I re-booted the computer several times. The Izotope Mastering Suite opens now finally to a strange screen I've never seen before in the other installs on my other computers which are all Windows 11, but, were installed a long time ago, but, they are receiving the same Windows 11 updates.

So, in Sound Forge, It has the drop downs, but, when I apply the Mastering Suite, like the Limiter or the EQ or the Exciter, it erases part of the file??? The only plug-ins that work are the native Magix plug-ins like Express FX and Essential FX. That long list of Magix plug-ins are the only ones that work properly.

Can somebody make some sense of this? I have all the Windows 11 updates installed and I'm on expensive loaded laptop computers. This is happening on an ASUS with 64GB Ram. It was about $2500. It's not a cheap lower end computer. It runs NVIDA graphics, etc with an AMD processor. NOTE, everything worked fine on this computer before except the SSD went bad and I replaced the SSD with a brand new Samsung SSD and it is working perfectly with all the other software I have loaded into it and seems to work fine with the Magix built-in plug-ins. It is definitely not a hardware issue. It's something going on with the installation of 3rd party plug-ins or the Ozone Elements and RX Elements would be working fine. They were automatic installs with Sound Forge16 from Magix's installation file.

The first 2 screenshots show the Izotope mastering suite EQ with adjustments and the 3rd file shows the Magix Essential FX Plug-In applied. Only the Magix plug-ins work without erasing part of the file and no controls appear at all for the Ozone Elements or RX Elements.

file of the magix plug-in that works

@Burton-Allan It's a little complicated. Currently you're also unlucky that Steinberg and Izotope are reorganizing the way they handle licenses.

As you already noticed, Steinberg had the E-Licenser System. To my knowledge, this system is too old for Steinberg's taste and it will be disabled at the end of 2024. Then you no longer can install SpectraLayers. And need to upgrade to a newer version (also before the end of 2024!). The newest version uses a different license system. The old system is then no longer supported at all.

In case you installed SpectraLayers before, your license is on your old, broken SSD. If I remember it correctly, you need to deactivate it on Steinberg's website first, in your old E-Licenser account settings to free it up again. Otherwise you cannot place it on your new hard drive. Like I wrote, you you need get this working before the end of 2024 or you're out of luck.

Izotope offers a separate Product Portal app. You need to download and install it, enter your serial number to register your software and then you can download or activate the software through it. Izotope was bought by Native Instruments some time ago and is currently integrated into their account and licensing system. So the way to register and activate your software can change in the future. They will probably use the Native Access app for that.

Hey, thanks, SP, for the information. Y'know, you'd think that when a merger happens, they'd send out a mass email to their subscribers/customers to let them know something like a change of ownership with more changes to come. I also heard something that Magix is bankrupt and was looking for a buyer. Their support and even pre-sales support is horrendous and slow probably because they have reduced staff.

I was also looking at Vegas Pro upgrade. I guess the developers are still employed hoping the new owners or investors will save Magix and/or their jobs. These are good products and the perpetual licenses make it even more desireable.

I would pay for the upgrade of Sound Forge Pro, but, it won't solve my problem, then, with Izotope. I never liked Steinberg Spectra Layers. I didn't find it user-friendly. I've been using some AI that drowns out unwanted sound that most of the time is acceptable, if not as precise as Spectra Layers, which I never mastered completely as a user. If it does the job better, I just didn't invest the time to learn the program, I guess.

I know I rambled on with my messages, but, where I'm at is that Izotope's licensing is not the problem. I finally got the software installed. But, it's the strangest thing as I explained. When I apply the plug-ins, they delete part of the files. I tried fine-tuning the presets, but, every time it processes, it removes part of the file. Never experienced anything like this.

On my other install and computer with Sound Forge 16, the Izotope plug-ins work perfectly. I guess I can create an image (which I should have done with the bad drive computer) to preserve it, but, I don't think that will work if I took an image of the program and files and tried restoring it on a different computer. I think these license softwares would make that impossible unless I first install the software on the computer where I am having a problem now.

This is all really disappointing news. I've been reluctant to invest in Vegas Pro because of what I heard about Magix. Is it true? And, while I am not heartbroken about Steinberg Spectra Layers, I don't see any new features
important enough to buy an upgrade to Sound Forge 18 and I wonder what kind of future and support the program has, but, I've been using it for years. I hate to have to look for another DAW. Who knows? The Izotope plug-ins might work with another DAW, but, now Izotope is changing gears, too, so, they may not install in the future.

Wow! Very upsetting and not a clear path on what to really do about any of this. Thank you for your update. Would love to know what the status of Magix bankruptcy is, if you know, as well. Thank You, SP!

@Burton-Allan Version 16 of Sound Forge is still fine. No need to upgrade. I'm still using version 12 and 15. I'm not sure why parts of your files get removed. Are you doing something different than with other plugins?

You can upgrade SpectraLayers directly at Steinberg. There is no need to buy a new version of Sound Forge for this.

The Vegas/Sound Forge/Acid team is from the US. It's the same team that worked for Sony and Sonic Foundry. In case they stop working for Magix, I think they will look for a new publisher or even publish the software themselves and carry on. At least Vegas seems to be somewhat widespread as a video editor. SoI don't think it will simply vanish.

Technically, Magix isn't bankrupt but is doing a self administrated insolvency. This can take months or even years. The point is that they have time for a internal restructure while their creditors have to wait for their money. And if I understood it correctly they don't need to pay the wages completely themselves and they don't need to adhere to protection against dismissal which makes it easier to reduce their staff.

The current Magix also isn't the "original" Magix. The original Magix renamed itself to Bellevue Investments about a decade ago.

There is a big conglomerate of different companies and sister companies and other investors around which handle all the assets. These are hundreds(!) of millions of Euros. It's all publicly accessible data. But of course, if they invested the money for 10 years or longer, but the last five years went bad for some reason and maybe they currently cannot access all of it to pay their creditors.

I'm not sure what the point of this all is, but my guess is, that they want to do a restructure with as little costs as possible and self administrated insolvency is probably the way to go.

Hi, SP, Thank You so much for the information. It's hard to make a choice or decision when you are completely in the dark. I feel like I'm dealing with open source software, but, one expects better from being a paid customer.

At my day job, you can wait 2-hours to get support or customer service at Quickbooks, but, a same day resolution. This emailing and waiting 2-3 days for a response and then another 2-3 days for a reply and having a month long back and forth to get support on an activation or ask a pre-sales question on Vegas or tech support really makes you feel like you are on your own completely. Truth is, it looks like I am. I'm going on Day 5 waiting for a response from Magix tech support, by the way. Nothing yet.

I really don't know what to do. I guess I'll try to re-install Sound Forge and all the plug-ins again, but, I don't think it will work because the registry is now corrupt with whatever the first install did and I don't really want to have to blow up Windows and start all over again with the SSD.

In addition to being devastated that I can't use the Izotope Mastering Suite, I can't even use Izotope Ozone which was bundled in Sound Forge 16 right now. The Steinberg problem is just icing on the cake.

I really don't know what to do. These companies just do not care about their customers to leave them abandoned like this and it is hard to feel sorry for their financial woes. They find money for everything they need, but, there is no priority to provide reasonable support for their existing customers. Just keep upgrading for junk upgrades and 3rd party tools that leave you on your own.

It's like maybe you are better off buying a shell DAW or even an open source DAW and just going to a company like Waves or something that is invested in just making and supporting plug-ins as their core business and answers the phone 6-days a week for customer/tech support and has Live Chat and 24-hour email response.

I'm just venting, but, I'm really frustrated. I don't want to have to invest in Pro Tools or $1000 for Izotope's flagship plug-ins or have to start with a new DAW. Just upsetting.

@Burton-Allan Do you have current graphic drivers installed? Just in case Ozone and other plugins need graphics acceleration? Maybe that is why you can only see the parameter view instead of the visual plugin interface.