Activation & Licensing
Activate Aether with your license key, manage up to three machines per license, and understand offline behavior and re-validation.
DocumentationActivation & Licensing
License
Activation & Licensing
First Launch & Activation
Aether is gated until you activate it. On first launch you'll see an activation modal. Until you enter a valid license key, the UI is disabled, audio output is muted, and MIDI output is dropped at the host.
Enter your license key and click Activate. Aether contacts the license server, registers your machine, and unlocks the plugin. Activation requires an internet connection the first time; after that, the license works offline.
Three Machines Per License
A standard Aether license activates on three machines. The allowance is set on the license itself, so support can adjust it without you reinstalling anything. A machine is identified by a hardware fingerprint: no personal data, just a stable identifier derived from the device.
All three plugin formats on one machine (VST3, AU, and the standalone app) share a single slot, so installing everything does not use up your allowance.
If you sell, reformat, or retire a machine, free its slot with Deactivate This Machine in Settings → License, or from your account page. Any slot can be reclaimed at any time.
Offline Behavior
Once activated, Aether caches your license locally, so you can work without an internet connection. AI generation still needs network access to reach a cloud provider, but the license check itself does not. With a local model in Ollama or LM Studio you can work entirely offline.
Aether re-validates in the background about once a day when the network is available. What matters is how long it has been since the last successful check:
| Time since last check | What happens |
|---|---|
| Under 7 days | Everything works normally. You will not see anything. |
| 7 to 30 days | A grace period. Aether keeps working and Settings → License shows a live countdown of the time remaining. |
| Over 30 days | Aether returns to the gated state until it can reach the license server again. Connecting restores it immediately. |
A license that has been deactivated or revoked remotely is different: Aether keeps working for a further 48 hours after it learns about it, then gates. That window exists so a mistake or a billing hiccup never interrupts a session in progress.
What Gated Means
Before activation, and if a license lapses under the rules above, Aether stays loaded but produces nothing: the interface is disabled, audio output is muted, and MIDI output is dropped.
This applies to offline bounces and track freezes
The gate sits in Aether's audio path, so an unlicensed instance renders silence during an offline bounce or a track freeze in exactly the way it does live, and your DAW will not warn you. If a mixdown comes back with an Aether track missing, check its activation state first.If Activation Does Not Reach Your Other Formats
VST3, AU, and the standalone app share one activation file, reconciled every few seconds, so activating in one normally licenses the rest without a restart.
Some hosts sandbox their plugins tightly enough that Aether cannot write that shared file. Logic, GarageBand, and MainStage are the usual ones. When that happens Aether activates for that host only and tells you so, in a dialog titled "License saved to this host only". The fix is to activate once in the Aether Standalone app, which writes the shared file and syncs every format, or to launch the Aether Helper before re-activating.
Settings Tab
Your current activation status and license key (masked) are visible in Settings → License. Open Settings with Cmd + ,(macOS) or the gear icon at the top of the chat panel.
The same panel has a Deactivate This Machine button, which frees this machine's slot without going to your account page. It is available whenever the license is active.
Questions