Ernie Slenkovich knows music. As an in-demand session drummer as well as a sought-after producer, he knows the ins and outs of the creative process. While he still gigs and produces, Ernie is now the VP of Mixwave, a boutique plug-in company based out of Bethesda, Maryland, that is revolutionizing plug-ins that emulate instruments, amp simulations, and mixing tools. We sat down to talk to Ernie about Mixwave’s relationship with PACE and implementing Fusion software security and iLok licensing with PACE’s new Shopify integration.
MixWave was founded in 2021 by a group of mixers/producers/musicians Taylor Larson, Luke Holland, myself, and Calin Enache with the sole purpose of creating products that not only make their jobs easier, but for any creative who works with audio.
We’re known for mix-ready drum libraries and our one-to-one amp emulations. Our libraries with Mario Duplantier and Luke Holland as well as our guitar amp plugins with Mike Stringer and Benson have shown to be very receptive from our users.
Our vision is to create world-class audio tools that effortlessly enables any musician to create.
We support all levels of people who want to make music or work in audio. Our users range from beginners who are learning how to program with virtual instruments and record for the first time to award-winning mixers/producers and everyone in between.
We get a lot of positive feedback ranging from how accurate and pleasant our plugin models are to how all-around our products have empowered people to create music. Which reiterates to us that we're achieving our goal of creating easy-to-use, mix-ready solutions for all types of creatives.
We believe that having security and protection for your software products is invaluable. It’s comforting knowing that we have complete control of the security for the entirety of the product's life. PACE products allow us to build plug-ins with security so we can effectively protect our digital assets from potential threats and vulnerabilities. It’s important for us and our customers.
Being mixers and producers that use plugins and audio software on a daily basis, iLok protected software is very familiar. It’s truly the industry standard and we knew we could trust it.
It was a no-brainer when it came time to figure out what we would do for licensing. We were already familiar with it as long-term end users and knew that it was the licensing solution we needed. We knew it would make it easier for the company to sell our plug-ins and safer for the customer.
We use PACE’s Fusion with all of our plugin products because it is the best protection out there. With Fusion, our plug-ins are protected at the binary level and our developers have complete control of where the license checks occur. This kind of protection is very hard to attack and gave us confidence that our code wouldn’t be hacked.
Visit the Shopify Integration page to learn more about how to easily sell products enabled with iLok Licensing through a Shopify store.
Our experience with the iLok License Delivery app has been nothing short of seamless. We were graciously given the opportunity to be one of the first companies to onboard and test out the new system while being able to collaborate with PACE on improving it. It was a great experience.
Our relationship with PACE has been more than what we expected. It doesn’t just feel like we’ve enlisted a licensing service, but have gained a network of people and collaborators who want us to provide the best licensing experience for our users.
No. Creating a licensing system as robust as PACE just doesn’t happen overnight and PACE is at the forefront of this technology. We needed a secure and easy-to-use system and PACE delivered.
Having an automated license delivery system within our online store was a goal of ours when we initially started utilizing the PACE tools. It was quickly written off after learning the complexity of the implementation process. As soon as the PACE and Shopify integration was introduced, we couldn’t have implemented it faster as it makes and continues to make the way we issue licenses to our end users better.
There are countless things that make life easier using the PACE tools. If I had to boil it down to a couple, it would have to be the ease of license deployment and the fast-responding yet helpful support team PACE has.
Not only does PACE give us a sense of security, but it gives our users the same as well. They become owners of our products that they can always rely on.
If our peers don’t already use PACE, we absolutely do!!.
We’re constantly finding more ways to further integrate the PACE tools into our development to ultimately create a better user experience. We look forward to our continued success because of our relationship with PACE.
There is a lot of meticulous hard work and dedication that goes into each and every one of our plugins or virtual instruments. We will not stop with development until it is a product we can truly stand behind. The end result is not only something we're proud of but tools that we all personally use on a daily basis.
Mixwave is a boutique plug-in software company. Created by fine craftsmen of world-class audio software, their plug-ins emulate instruments, amp simulations, and mixing tools that are made for musicians by musicians. https://mixwave.com/
