This is the first time I've bothered to try Waves now that they've got rid of that hated dongle. I wanted to demo Waves Tune. Well...

Creating an account was straight forward. They now have my personal information regardless of whether I ever wanted to buy anything from them.

Trying to find the Waves Tune demo was impossible until I realised I had to demo the whole vocal bundle even though I was only interested in WT.

Then we played a little game where I clicked on a new page and Waves logged me out each time forcing me to log back in again like a moron.

I finally managed to download the Waves 9 Win installer. Installed only the Waves Tune plugin and then had to figure out where the demo licenses were. After searching on Waves for how to activate a demo a few logins later all was clear. Licence activated online.

I then launched Reaper 4 and couldn't find the Waves Tune demo. There was a ReWire Waves plugin but this didn't launch WT.

Finally after about 45 minutes of farting about I've uninstalled Waves from my PC never to touch it again until they make the whole process much more user friendly. The last thing I will do is pay money for that kind of inconvenience. I wish I could delete my account and wipe all my personal info.

This kind of fishing of personal information sucks. They are probably selling the info they gather for marketing or other purposes. I personally stay away from anything by Waves.

That's why I support only, so called, "small developers". Not exactly small in my eyes. If a developer has 1 or 2 great plugins, that's more than enough and it's easier to support 2 than 200 plugins, eh? Say Cytomic The Glue, DMG Audio Equality and Compassion, ValhallaDSP ValhallaRoom and Ubermod, Voxengo plugins... They're all worth every dime!

Cheers!

And what do you do when a "small" developer starts making more plugins, supporting all of them by himself and gets "sloppy", slow and starts expanding?
Are his plugins suddenly not worth using anymore?

Well, in my experience, if a plugin is good - then it's still good. Kinda logical? LOL And if you stay with the same OS and the same host, your setup somehow becomes resilient to bugs to a point. Most of the problems come from upgrading the OS or changing VST hosts every once in a while. Choosing one configuration and staying with it is the way to creativity bliss.

There's nothing worse than when your host crashes in the midst of creativity frenzy.

Cheers!

This has been bothering me too. Waves' web structure is unbelievably (and unnecessarily) complex. They have like ten different domains, every other link takes you to another site, and seems like you need to log in separately to each. Grrh.

Yes, it was infuriating but the different domains must explain it. It's like they got rid of the dongle and then thought how else can we torture our customers.

It's an annoying trend that pops up a lot these days. Recently there was a competition from Sonivox to win a synthesiser of theirs, which is a nice gesture, but in order to enter the competition you needed to enter your full name, home address, email, shoe size. I queried it, but they said it was for anti fraud reasons.

Sorry but that's ridiculous, to enter a competition you should just put in an email or such like, then give the in depth details if you win. It's blatant phishing for marketing purposes and probably sold on too, why else ask.

That is ridiculous, they're harvesting personal info without a doubt. It's similar to those competitions where they try to make you like them on Facebook. We have no way of knowing what they do with this info as they're not bound by the same regulations concerning confidentiality that government institutions are bound by - and they're bad enough as it is.

thing is... aside from all this bs...Waves plugs are excellent !

ffs.. I mean..
installing a plugin is a once in a while task...
not installing it properly is probably due to a user error..
they are entitled to a security scheme to protect their software like all other companies
(ever try to install 'NI komplete'.. one should take the day off..)
they had the ilok.. people complain (including me) .. they get rid of it..complaints...
guess you can never make everyone happy no matter what..

"privacy"
I'm sure if you write waves support a request asking them to close your account and remove your info from the mailing lists.. then they'll oblige..
I'm sure they have many paranoids contacting them with such requests.
also I believe they are required by law to remove your info if you explicitly request
imo..they have much better things to do then sell your contact info..
(which is probably available already to many.. probably much much shadier companies/sites..)

sorry to be a party pooper..
but my experiences with waves have been more positive
(quick replies.. online support.. good manuals ..plugins ...good music etc.)
thought you should get some perspective..
waves tune works under reaper.. since reaper is a vst host..
not being able to install it is probably your own fault.. and not waves fault..

cheers.

So anyone who doesn't want to give their personal details to try a demo is "paranoid"? When you try on clothes in a shop before you buy them are you happy to hand over your address for the pleasure? You can buy a £1,000 coat in cash and return it just with a receipt if it's unsuitable. We're talking about a $230 plugin here.

Really I could care less if Waves nursed your sick dog back to health. They are not our friends. And yes I have installed Komplete because I bought it - but that's entirely different to a single plugin demo that doesn't even show up in Reaper. Of course it's my fault not being able to find it among all the other plugins I've successfully installed. How could Waves possibly ever get anything wrong in the Waves wonderland you live in.

Thanks for the suggestion of contacting Waves to have my details deleted. That really didn't occur to me. Probably because now that they've got them deletion is about as verifiable as WMD's in Iraq.

chill...I'm not saying they are your or my "friends" ..they are a commercial company !

it's kindof funny... when you think about it..
because you WILLFULLY gave your info to demo the 230$ plugin..
(means you DID trust them for a minute or two that it took to fill the form)
and now that you couldn't get it to work on your system..you're worried about it ??!!
what if it did work ? how would you have used the plugin without being registered ?
your approach is flimsy at best..
this is not a "cash deal" neither is it a "frontal" sale..
so comparing it with a shopping mall experience is pointless..
have you gotten any more spam since you gave them your info ?
have you given them some info that you think can risk you ?
because afaik companies like waves have a reputation to keep ..
I don't think they would bother with selling/leaking their client db ...
(I know I wouldn't "share" my client list and info.. and I have a smaller business ..)

I'm not a waves fan or something like that .. (other than liking some of their processors)
I just clicked on the "waves!" OP title out of boredom..
and read some very weak arguments as to why waves is such a bad company to deal with and chimed in with my experience/opinion..(take it or leave it!)
I'm really not here to answer for them.. or make excuses..
just thought I'd balance the scale a bit..

http://www.wavesupport.net/content.aspx?id=182
it's pretty clear..
the process is similar to schemes by other companies..
(register in the site/install the 'license center'/get license/load plugin)
if it doesn't work you can contact support and fix the specific issue with.. either your system/their bug.
(either way ..happens! and probably could be remedied easily skipping the crybaby routine..)

I don't think waves any intention or interest in working against their own clients..
it's a smallish software company.. that develops plugins and sells them...
and so there is no actual realistic reason for you to be afraid..
I'm probably naive like that..but..
a paranoid existence sucks.. and "fear is the mindkiller"..

again ..only my opinion.

And neither are you. Heartless puppy hater!

I love the new waves set up. I even actually bought my first waves plugin EVA!

Yeah, it was just Rbass, but still. However, reaper is not supported by waves so make sure it works before purchasing

If you're going to challenge my so-called "weak" arguments then deal with what I actually complained about. My criticism was very specific. I did not call Waves a bad company. They could worship Satan for all I care. I complained about their crappy demo system that keeps logging me out, requires personal information and doesn't install the plugin. If the demo procedure had been plain sailing I wouldn't be on here complaining would I?

If you're going to compare Waves demo procedure to a system used by another company then be specific because I've not come across such a frustrating system with any other company whose products I wanted to demo. And I've demoed and own a lot of plugins. I never wilfully gave my info - I was coerced into it to try the demo. It shows how insidious marketing has become when people believe that choice has anything to do with this kind of strategy. When I buy the product then they can have my information but until then you've reassured me that Waves won't spam me even though I'm now on their mailing list.

Wait a minute, they've just sent me a "need any help with the demo" email. Looks spam-like to me and kind of confirms that I'm not the first to have problems with their demo procedure.