Yours for good, on up to five machines.

This is the license for Helder Audio software: the plugins, their standalone versions, their presets and sounds, and their manuals. It is short on purpose. Where the law gives you more than this page does, the law wins.

1. Who this is between

You, and me: Andrew Evans, trading as Helder Audio, Haarlem, the Netherlands (KvK 69763143). Lemon Squeezy sells the software on my behalf and handles payment, VAT and receipts. This license covers how you use what you bought.

2. What you get

When you buy a Helder Audio product, you get a license to use it:

• for good: it doesn't run out, and there is no subscription;
• on up to five machines that you use, each unlocked with the code from your receipt;
• for any purpose: personal, commercial, teaching, broadcast.

The license covers one major version of the product, for example every 1.x release (see §5). A bundle such as Double Dutch gives you this license for each product in it.

Before you buy, you can try the same software free for 14 days, with everything working. After that it keeps working but stops saving into your session. This license covers both, within their limits.

3. What you make is yours

The music, sounds, patches and presets you make with Helder Audio software belong to you. You don't owe me anything for them, and you don't need to credit me.

That includes sounds built on the factory presets and, in products that ship samples, the samples: use them in your music as you like, royalty-free. What you can't do is pass on the factory presets or samples themselves, as presets, samples or a sound library, whether you sell them or give them away. Samples recorded by others and listed in section 13 are the exception: their own terms apply to them.

4. What you can't do

• Share your code or your unlocked license file with anyone, or use them on more than five machines.
• Copy the software to other people, put it up for download, or bundle it with anything else.
• Remove, bypass or crack the unlock, or help anyone else do so.
• Take the software apart to copy it, except where the law allows (for example, to make it work with other software).

5. Updates and new versions

Every update within the major version you bought is free and comes through the same download: if you bought 1.0, every 1.x is yours.

If there is ever a version 2, it is a new license, and it costs less if you own version 1. Version 1 keeps working, and stays yours.

6. Passing it on

If you stop using the software, you can pass your license to someone else. Email me their name and email address, and I move the license to them and free your machines. After that, you stop using it. A license can't be split, and a bundle passes on whole.

7. Your license lives on your machine

Once unlocked, the software checks your license on your machine, without contacting me. If my server is down, or if Helder Audio stops trading, your licensed software keeps working.

8. What the software sends, and what I keep

The software talks to my servers in four cases, and never otherwise:

• Starting the trial. When a plugin opens online with no license or trial, it asks for a trial, sending the product's name and a one-way code for your machine, never its hardware ID. I keep one record per product and machine (the product, the dates and that code), so that each product gets one trial per machine.
• Unlocking. Your code from the receipt, the product's name and the same machine code. The machine code is passed to Lemon Squeezy with your activation, so the five-machine limit can be counted; it sits there beside your purchase. What comes back, a license with your name as the shop has it, is kept only on your machine.
• Freeing a machine. Your license (your name, the machine code and a seat number) and your code, so the seat can be released at Lemon Squeezy.
• Checking for updates. At most once a day per product when a plugin's window opens, and whenever you choose Check for updates, the plugin fetches a small version file from downloads.helderaudio.com. That request carries no code and no identifier of yours, only what any web request carries. You can turn the automatic check off in the Check for updates window; the manual check still works.

The machine code is the same for every Helder Audio plugin on that machine. There is no usage data, no telemetry and no crash reporting. My own code doesn't log or store your IP address. Cloudflare, which hosts both servers, sees it as any web host does, and uses it briefly to stop floods of trial requests. My privacy policy, at helderaudio.com/privacy, covers this and the email address you bought with.

9. Refunds, and if something doesn't work

The trial is how you decide: fourteen days, everything working.

If you change your mind after buying, you can have a full refund within 14 days, as long as your code isn't unlocking any machine when you ask. (If you've unlocked, use Release this machine on each one first.) Email me; there's no form.

Otherwise, the trial was your chance to decide, so I don't refund a change of mind. But if the software doesn't do what I describe, or stops working on a supported system, tell me and I'll fix it. If I can't fix it, you get your money back, whenever that happens. Bought something twice, or the wrong product? Email me and I'll put it right.

These are your rights under the law as well as my promise, and nothing on this page limits them.

10. Liability

I make this software carefully, but I can't promise it will never have a bug. Keep backups of your projects. As far as the law allows, I'm not responsible for lost work, lost income or other indirect loss caused by using the software, and my total responsibility is limited to what you paid. This doesn't limit anything the law doesn't let me limit, including my responsibility for deliberate or reckless harm, and your rights as a consumer.

11. If you break this license

If you break §4 and don't put it right when I ask, your license ends, and you must stop using the software. Your music stays yours either way.

12. Law and courts

Dutch law applies. If you're a consumer, you keep the protection of the law of the country you live in, and you can take a dispute to the courts there.

13. Software and sounds by others inside Helder Audio products

Helder Audio products include software, fonts and recordings made by others, used under their own licenses. Their full notices are in each product's About sheet and manual. Where one of those licenses gives you more rights to its part than this page does, that license wins for that part.

• Golos Text — SIL Open Font License 1.1 (every product)
• TweetNaCl — public domain (the license verifier, in every licensed product)
• msfa FM synthesis engine — Apache License 2.0, with its NOTICE (products with FM: Kelder, Sfeer, Podium)
• Voc by Paul Batchelor, a port of Neil Thapen's Pink Trombone — MIT License (Sfeer's vocal layer, Podium)
• VST 3 SDK — MIT License. VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
• JUCE — used under the JUCE 8 End User License Agreement (Starter tier)
• Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm — declared public domain by its author (4 March 2022), first released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0; rytmenpinne.wordpress.com/sounds-and-such/salamander-grandpiano/ (Vleugel, Podium).

14. Changes and contact

If I change this page, the version you bought under still applies to what you bought; changes apply to new purchases. Questions: support@helderaudio.com.

Version 1, 24 October 2026.