well i don't use cracked software personally as pretty much all my work is done in reason (my sister bought me a copy of v2 in 2002 as an xmas presie) since then upgraded to v4 about a year and a half ago which didn't cost me too much (the best £80 i ever spent in my life!)
although cracked software does get used very widely as so much of it is available online, the only down side with cracks is that they can mess up ur computer big time!
I do agree with the "try before buy" dogma.
I bought the software I use all the time.
A lot of software is way too expensive though... I've posted about this topic on a couple of threads before.
I think it's ok to find your way around software before you spend money on it. But then a demo version should do the trick too.
Often I use a demo version of a synth, bounce the 5-10 good sounds I find to wav and add them to my sample collection
There are some other neat tricks to work around demo protection of plugins, especially the synths from Image Line (you know, the frooty guys).
When you save your work you get a warning that the demo plugins won't be saved together with your project (you are fucked). So before saving you clone the score of the demo plugin into a new channel and replace the demo VST by a simple sampler or anything else, as long as it isn't demo software. Copy the score from the demo plugin into the new channel and rename the channel to the plugin and preset you used. Now save the project. you'll lose the demo pluginm but when you reload you can reconstruct the whole thing. I know this isn't the perfect solution but it's a workaround which isn't illegal.
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its just impossible to justify modern software prices, i am willing to bet more than a million people bought a copy of cubase 5 legitimately and that's 500,000,000 for steinberg. its just bad karma for people to charge 500 quid for software, these company's should expect to loose money through piracy. saying that i have cut back on pirate software lately. i am just using free alternatives and cheaper stuff. i have found some of them to be better quality than these overpriced things and you actually get valued input into their production. unlike other devs who just ignore what you want and put in what they think Mr x will use.
