KVR Audio

sounddesigner · Post by **sounddesigner** » Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:35 pm

I just bought the Abbey Road's Plates from Waves and I am VERY impressed with their level of modeling and developer's talent with this particular plugin. I have NEVER been a fan of Waves and I NEVER bought any of their products before this AbbeyRoad's reverb purchase. In the past I only demo'd their products and never thought they were anything special. Plus I HATED Waves's business-model: I hated the ilok when they had it, hated the extremely high prices for their plugins, disliked only allowing their best plugins to be sold in expensive bundles, and hated how they nickel-and-dime you to death by charging you for everything such as tech-support.

Even tho Waves still are not ideal and not have the perfect business model they have made some MAJOR changes over the years such as dropping the dongle and dramatically dropping prices of plugins and selling the best plugins individually now, plus they have huge no-brainer sale's now. I'm still not a big fan of their business-model and copy-protection but they are DRAMATICALLY better than before and tolerable now IMO.

The Abbey Road's Plates are on sale for only $99 at JRRshop (regular price $249) and Uncle E even gave me a slightly better price. The huge sale at the moment makes this ARP reverb a HUGE steal right now IMO since I truly believe they are amongs the VERY best reverb plugins out here and I suspect may be THE best Plates emulations out here. This ARP reverb emulation plugin has a very high degree of life/motion and realism to them. It seems they have a tiny bit less sense of space to them compared to the real deal analog hardware but that's insignificance cause they still hit the mark and sound very close to real hardware plates I've heard (but I never owned or used a hardware plate, I've only heard them so I'm no expert on them, but I do know what my ears like.). Waves did a heck of a job with this ARP Reverb and they seem to wrap around the original source better than the overwhelming most other reverb plugins and are more organic and alive than most, and they just seem to work on sources I tried them on. This is very impressive work from Waves who are definetly a company I did not care much for in the past. This Abbey Roads Plates is extremely cpu-hungry but the plugins that tend to sound best to my ears usually are cpu-hungry so I'm used to it. I'm just glad that Waves and JRRshop decided to have a no-brainer sale on this high quality and wonderfull plugin wich is definitely amongs the best out here IMO. I couldn't be happier with my purchase!

Here's a link to the JRRshop sale - https://www.jrrshop.com/waves-abbey-road-reverb-plates

EDITED

jens · Post by **jens** » Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:58 pm

For Waves usually Everyplugin has got the lowest prices, not JRR. It's $82.something in this case... (still a lot of dosh though)

Harry_HH · Post by **Harry_HH** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 12:15 am

Yeah, its great - but one of the cpu hugriest plugins I've seen. And funny is that depends very much on the processor type, the faster/more advanced is not always better in this case.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 2:00 am

What else do you have to compare it with? I'm not being critical, I love reverbs, I've just not been over the moon about the AR plates.

sounddesigner · Post by **sounddesigner** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 2:43 am

ghettosynth wrote:What else do you have to compare it with? I'm not being critical, I love reverbs, I've just not been over the moon about the AR plates.

Well it's very common for some people to like and some to dislike every plugin released, nothing strange here

. . Regardless to what anyone say whether good or bad about a plugin I simply demo it and see what my own taste buds say and how it fits my music and generally that is sufficient and the best way for most people. So my positive review of Waves ARP should not carry much weight anyways, only direct personal experience matters significantly IMO.

As far as the reverbs I have and compared Waves ARP reverb to, I've either demo'd, owned or listened to extensively most of the top plugin reverbs out here. But as far as plates specifically i've owned or still own uad plate 140, SCOPE's dsp plate reverb , Izotope Nectar 2's plate (wich is VERY good, just a little stiff/static sounding at times), and several general purpose multi-type reverbs that have plate algorithms. Some of the general purpose and specialized reverbs I own wich are great as well are Acon Digital's Verberate, LiquidSonics reverberate 2.0 with new fusion IR tech, SonicCore SCOPE's Celmo Spring reverberator, SCOPE's Ursa Major Space Station SST-282 emulation (beta), etc. The Waves ARP reverb is definitely the best plates I've heard ITB and amongs the best reverbs in general from all I've heard and own that are ITB wich is just about everyone out here. Altho I still have more reverbs than I need I try not to own too many reverbs or too many plugins period cause that's not cool to me, but none-the-less I have owned many and still have too many (more than enough to know what's going on out here). The Waves ARP definitely sounds special IMO. I'm sure some others like yourself Mileage May Vary, ultimately that's a good thing

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ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 2:49 am

sounddesigner wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:What else do you have to compare it with? I'm not being critical, I love reverbs, I've just not been over the moon about the AR plates.
Well it's very common for some people to like and some to dislike every plugin released, nothing strange here . . Regardless to what anyone say whether bad or good about a plugin I simply demo it and see what my own taste buds say and how it fits my music and generally that is sufficient and the best way for most people. So my positive review should not carry much weight anyways, only personal experience matters significantly.

As far as the reverbs I have and compared it to, I've either demo'd, owned or listened to extensively most of the top plugin reverbs out here. But as far as plates specifically i've owned or still own uad plate 140, SCOPE's dsp plate reverb , Izotope Nectars plate (wich is very good, just a little stiff/static sounding at times), and several general purpose reverbs that have plate algorithms. Some of the general purpose and specialized reverbs I own wich are great as well are Acon Digital Verberate, Liquidsonics reverberate 2.0 with new fusion IR tech, SonicCore SCOPE's Celmo Spring reverb, SCOPE's Ursa Major Space Station SST-282 (beta), etc. The Waves ARP reverb is definitely the best plates I've heard ITB and amongs the best reverbs in general from all I've heard and own that are ITB wich is just about everyone out here. Altho I still have more reverbs than I need I try not to own too many reverbs or too many plugins period cause that's not cool to me, but none-the-less I have owned many and still have too many (more than enough to know what's going on out here). The Waves ARP definitely sounds special IMO. O'm sure some others like yourself mileage may vary, ultimately that's a good thing .

Awesome response, thank you. I wasn't trying to be critical, really, I just wanted to put your enthusiasm in perspective. I don't use plates as much as other kinds of spaces but you identified two that I do like to use, reverberate 2, and Nectar's plate.

I do think that the higher end modeling stuff is what Waves does well. I'm going to pass on them at this price, but I'll keep my eye out for one of their ridiculous sales that they have from time to time.

sounddesigner · Post by **sounddesigner** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 4:42 am

ghettosynth wrote:
Awesome response, thank you. I wasn't trying to be critical, really, I just wanted to put your enthusiasm in perspective. I don't use plates as much as other kinds of spaces but you identified two that I do like to use, reverberate 2, and Nectar's plate.

I do think that the higher end modeling stuff is what Waves does well. I'm going to pass on them at this price, but I'll keep my eye out for one of their ridiculous sales that they have from time to time.

Oh. no problem! I understand your view point now and I know if I start a thread I may have to answer some questions, that goes with the territory. Thanks for the further clarification

.

DrGonzo · Post by **DrGonzo** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:18 am

sounddesigner wrote:I'm still not a big fan of their business-model and copy-protection but they are DRAMATICALLY better than before and tolerable now IMO.

Slightly off topic, but I'd just like to share my experiences with Waves since I think you touch on a very interesting topic. I have in the past also been quite skeptical towards Waves, but it have changed quite a lot in the recent weeks - to the point where I almost feel the more plugins from Waves I have the better.

First - I agree with you. Their copy protection is WAY better than before. And not just better - but quite amazing compared with stuff based on iLok or eLicenser for example. If you put all your licenses on your computer and your computer gets stolen - you can still get back your licenses without paying anything extra. Since Waves own their plugins and don't rely on an external copy protection mechanism - they can do stuff like that. If you lose your iLok stuff - there's nothing iLok can do about it since the licenses come from other developers. That's a huge plus for Waves.

Secondly - and this was pointed out to me in another thread here at KvR. Waves plugins are close to immortal. I'm not a fan of their Waveshell thingy - but considering that Waves have never discontinued any plugins. The stuff I bought 15 years on my PC ago runs today on my new Mac. I don't know how many plugins that I have bought that are unsupported because of a reason of another. With Waves - not so.

Again - sorry for the OT. There are a lot of things you can get annoyed with Waves about. But there are some things that are absolutely fantastic.

Waves Plates - haven't listened to them but I cannot imagine anything loving any reverb more than Valhalla VintageVerb

/C

simon.a.billington · Post by **simon.a.billington** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:37 am

Big fan of their Plates too and you don't have to be a Beatles or a Stones fan to to appreciate it for its unique qualities. Im certainly not.

However, it can be a bit too metallic sounding for some applications in my opinion. However I do have other choices for that. I certainly love it's non-liniariries and density that really does not sound like a convolution to my ears.

Good to see when other people likethe same stuff as you. Helps you feel a little less like a freak!! Haha!!

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:32 am

simon.a.billington wrote:Big fan of their Plates too and you don't have to be a Beatles or a Stones fan to to appreciate it for its unique qualities. Im certainly not.

However, it can be a bit too metallic sounding for some applications in my opinion. However I do have other choices for that. I certainly love it's non-liniariries and density that really does not sound like a convolution to my ears.

Good to see when other people likethe same stuff as you. Helps you feel a little less like a freak!! Haha!!

Yeah, I've noticed the metallic qualities as well. I like the Nectar plate because it's smooth. I imagine using the abbey road trick might help a bit with that.

simon.a.billington · Post by **simon.a.billington** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 9:43 am

ghettosynth wrote:
simon.a.billington wrote:Big fan of their Plates too and you don't have to be a Beatles or a Stones fan to to appreciate it for its unique qualities. Im certainly not.

However, it can be a bit too metallic sounding for some applications in my opinion. However I do have other choices for that. I certainly love it's non-liniariries and density that really does not sound like a convolution to my ears.

Good to see when other people likethe same stuff as you. Helps you feel a little less like a freak!! Haha!!
Yeah, I've noticed the metallic qualities as well. I like the Nectar plate because it's smooth. I imagine using the abbey road trick might help a bit with that.

Good point. In part the reason why they came up with that trick was to circumvent the shortcomings of the metallic plates.

sounddesigner · Post by **sounddesigner** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:42 am

I think the discount sale on Waves Abbey Roads Plates reverb only last a few more days. I think a Waves agent told me via phone the sale lasts till the end of March. I thought I'd bump this thread up one more time to inform those who don't know about this great sale and high-caliber reverb.

I myself am still getting use to the Waves ARP reverb and have not used it yet in a real Mix but I can just tell this is going to end up being one of my top favorite plugins on any platform. I am so impressed with this plugin and how amazing it sounds that I had to start up a thread here and bump it to extol its virtues. Its great sounding algorithm and simple parameter controls design keeps it from being too fiddly and hassle causing to get a great sound that just seem to work. If you have not demo'd it I strongly recommend trying this plates reverb cause it truly is special IMO and Waves has definitely made a power statement with this release. ARP tells me that Waves are in the league with the best of them now and thus I look forward to trying their newest plugins when released. As I stated before i never use to like Waves as a company but they are some old veterans who know how to survive and thrive, and now they have ARP and it shows me that they are seriously improving. It's definitely worth a demo if you have not done so yet, I'm glad I decided to demo it myself!

simon.a.billington · Post by **simon.a.billington** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:51 am

sounddesigner wrote:I think the discount sale on Waves Abbey Roads Plates reverb only last a few more days. I think a Waves agent told me via phone the sale lasts till the end of March. I thought I'd bump this thread up one more time to inform those who don't know about this great sale and high-caliber reverb.

This makes sense. I've made the casual observation myself that I'm pretty sure they have a different sale every month.

Plus some weekenders and the odd 24hr sale.

Probably a good as reason as any to not pay full-price wor their stuff. Unless you find yourself in an extremely desperate situation.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:03 am

simon.a.billington wrote:
sounddesigner wrote:I think the discount sale on Waves Abbey Roads Plates reverb only last a few more days. I think a Waves agent told me via phone the sale lasts till the end of March. I thought I'd bump this thread up one more time to inform those who don't know about this great sale and high-caliber reverb.
This makes sense. I've made the casual observation myself that I'm pretty sure they have a different sale every month.

Plus some weekenders and the odd 24hr sale.

Probably a good as reason as any to not pay full-price wor their stuff. Unless you find yourself in an extremely desperate situation.

I've been following their sales for a bit. They have a pattern.

A selection of plugins are on sale every month.

Every weekend they have two groups of three of their lesser plugins on sale, one group for Saturday, the other group for Sunday.

Twice a week, I believe on Tues and Thurs, but don't quote me, they put a single plugin on sale, usually one of their better plugins.

At the end of the month they have an end of month sale where a group of their better plugins go on sale in addition to the monthly plugins.

If you aren't in a hurry, wait for at least three plugins to show up in the monthly and end of month sales and buy them at the same time. If you're only buying one or two plugins it's better to buy them from third party resellers. If you are buying three or more, it's often cheaper to get them from Waves. This is assuming that they have their multi-plugin discount going as well. They often turn this off when they have coupons.

This is all in addition to their seasonal sales.

simon.a.billington · Post by **simon.a.billington** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:06 am

Great advice!!

Waves Abbey Road's Plates are amazing, and on sale!