So Waves has gone subscription.

[kelvyn]

I would be interested to know how many KVR members are professional full time musicians or technicians.
The music industry is strugglng to find ways to turn todays marketplace - Spotify, everything musical for free culture - into a money a making business again.
There are some positive signs but at the moment only baby steps and really no one knows where the industry is heading.
As a full time musician in todays music universe income has become sporadic, inconsistent where price dumping -in not only music but in many fields - has become the norm. Large studios are closing down and record companies won't even consider an artist now until they have at keast a few hundred thousnad clicks on youtube and FB, which means do the work first - composing, recording, artwork, videos etc.

So, the consumer market for musicians and technicians can be split up into roughly four categories:
Succesful professional musicians, composers, technicians, studios.
Not so succesful musicians, composers, technicians, studios.
Semi professional hobbyists with a day job that finances their music making.
Semi professional hobbyists with day jobs - or not - that hardly finance their music making.

There are less and less pro musicians and studios who can afford to pay the subscription plans being offered without blinking and eye.
There are more and more not so succesful full time musicians who are depemdent on deals and sales to finance what they do.
Obviously lots of semi pro hobbyists who can afford lots of stuff due to their day jobs
And lots and lots of semi pro hobbyists who can't afford the subscriptions but can afford to splash out on a good deal every now and again.

So as I see it there is a far greater market for the deal seeking music maker than those able to afford tons of subscriptions.
My greatest fear is that all these companies who are now deploying subscription plans will stop doing special deals.
Only time will tell how things pan out with Waves... but I'm not holding my breath.

And as a side note. Most musicians I lnow mix as they go so just using the Waves subscription - for example - for just the mix is not really an option... it's either on or it's off.
I"m in complete agreement with the pay as you go and then it's yours idea. Let's have more of those:)

[whyterabbyt]

You might want to consider that the music industry isnt the only one where there's a market for audio software.

[kelvyn]

You might want to consider that the music industry isnt the only one where there's a market for audio software.

I agree but Waves aim their product primarily towards music makers and shapers and not quite so obviously to post pro houses.
Even they are in a similar situation with regards to new technologies, making it difficult to sustain their income at the same rate year after year. Here where I live a lot of the larger post pro houses have folded due to the fact that anyone with a little money and a small room can do what they were doing at a fraction of the cost with hardly any overheads.
Of course if you are taliking about film post pro with the ability to render huge CGI effects thats a different story but thats not sound.

[Daimonicon]

Soon this will be the only choice for vst's and DAW's and then...the price will raise!

[Dominus]

Soon this will be the only choice for vst's and DAW's and then...the price will raise!

They can pry my Reaper license and free VSTs from my cold dead hands.

If I had to, I can do just about everything I need to with what I have now. I can freeze this computer where it's at today and get 5-10 years out of it. (Replacing hardware components as needed, but I do that with my first gen XBox so I can continue to play old games when I want to.)

If you can't make good music with what you have available now, it's not the software that's the problem.

[Guenon]

Waves aim their product primarily towards music makers and shapers and not quite so obviously to post pro houses.

It's one of the main categories in their product site map, http://www.waves.com/bundles/post-production

I agree it's not the majority of their material, but it's definitely "obvious" in the sense you put it ^ (long-time user of their Sound Design Suite here, heh).

[kiezum]

These subscriptions are interesting for people who want to try out Waves plugins. I've got a lot of Waves plugins, but I use a few plugins regulary (for example SSL and the CLA plugins). So I would buy a subscription and find out which plugins I use the most. And buy those plugins during sales.

[kiezum]

If you can't make good music with what you have available now, it's not the software that's the problem.

True, but to be competitive (sonically) and to save lots of time upgrading software/hardware is important.

[Ryan99]

These subscriptions are interesting for people who want to try out Waves plugins. I've got a lot of Waves plugins, but I use a few plugins regulary (for example SSL and the CLA plugins). So I would buy a subscription and find out which plugins I use the most. And buy those plugins during sales.

Or you can try the free demos...

[kiezum]

For me a 14 day trial is too short to know if the plugin is useful.

[Omkar]

So have all the people who join every Waves thread just to say they're not going to use Waves plugins managed to post saying they're not going to use Wave plugins because of this, or have we missed somebody?

My readout of the topic is different as far as I was able to follow.

Some Waves plugins or bundles are well recognized and will be purchased anyway.

The critics goes to the (no) choice of what is offered for a subscription plan (in a long term usage)
and how the plan is offered (no buy out option).

Out of the comments I can`t come to the conclusion
the subscription plan is a reason not to buy Waves plugins,
but it is a reason to do some critics on the plan itself.

I catch the train from there with questions like,
why not let users choose what they want with a buy out option.

Or in general,
why is Steve Duda currently one of the rare guys who gave some serious thoughts
on how to create user friendly and beneficial subscription plans.

Etc.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Or in general,
why is Steve Duda currently one of the rare guys who gave some serious thoughts
on how to create user friendly and beneficial subscription plans.

Because he is a forward thinker who understands that consumer favour will ultimately be paid back, and this will mean he will likely re-coup the supposed potential loss from not having an ongoing rental model

[Dominus]

If you can't make good music with what you have available now, it's not the software that's the problem.

True, but to be competitive (sonically) and to save lots of time upgrading software/hardware is important.

Nonsense.

Some of the best *sounding* recordings (not just musically) were made when Pro Tools was in its infancy and there were very few options for plugins.

Today's computers can run WAY more plugins natively than those early PT machines as well.