Waves Codex and the Current Sale

[Apostate]

I just realized the Codex was under fifty US dollars with the current Waves sale. Although I already own this synth, I highly recommend anyone on the fence to go ahead and buy it now, you will not regret it. There are plenty of lukewarm reviews about this plugin but I assure you, even the presets are great. But there's more to it than that, the Oscillators sound excellent (at least to my ears), and there are some really good modulation options (the punch option is something a lot of other synths would do well to add imo).

Faults? The filters aren't spectacular, the effects are less than adequate, and there could be at least another page in the matrix. But at under fifty dollars, you are getting an overall really good synth, one that I paid around seventy for and don't regret in the slightest. In fact, I'm breaking out Codex right after this topic. Both fun to program and use, plus great sounding...and NO I don't work for Waves lol!

[wagtunes]

Curious. In your opinion, how does it stack up to Serum?

[Numanoid]

If I had $49 I would buy it from Waves now, no doubt.

I seem to remember that users right after it was released, complained about CPU spikes.

Is that a problem you have experienced?

[Apostate]

There can be some minor cpu spikes, nothing worse than any of the other Waves plugins, and I've owned at least 3/4 of them.

Serum vs. Codex? In this case the prices reflect the quality. At the limited time, current price of $99 (without the code), Codex is a very good deal. Serum is close to a hundred dollars more, for mostly good reason. To begin with, the effects in Serum, both the sound and the extraordinary malleability, blow Codex righteously away. Same with the extent of modulation. On the other hand, Codex's oscillators sound to me at least as good as Serum, and overall I am going to be bold here and pronounce myself more impressed with Codex soundwise. The presets in particular are superior (again from an overall perspective, there are some great presets in Serum, though nowhere near opaque to Serum's ultimate capabilities).

You buy Codex for great sound, fun programming, great presets. Serum you buy for the freeky great modulation capabilities, the best in that aspect, head and shoulders above the rest.

So, Codex is basically around 90 to 100 dollars less than Serum for good reason...unless you're abstracting it soundwise from Serum, in that case I really can't make that argument. I daresay the filter in Serum is better than Codex (not particularly soundwise, but again in terms of the amazing modulation options...said modulation capabilities in that category putting Serum AGAIN head shoulders above so many other synths in that dept).

[aMUSEd]

tbh I avoid Waves stuff because their whole licensing system just seems convoluted and expensive in the long run, plus the complications of having shells to deal with too, just isn't worth it for one plugin and their bundles have too many dupes.

[TheKid]

tbh I avoid Waves stuff because their whole licensing system just seems convoluted and expensive in the long run, plus the complications of having shells to deal with too, just isn't worth it for one plugin and their bundles have too many dupes.

+1!
Serum all the way. I never regretted the purchase. Best gui, awesome modulation, great quality and a very kind developer.

[Apostate]

tbh I avoid Waves stuff because their whole licensing system just seems convoluted and expensive in the long run, plus the complications of having shells to deal with too, just isn't worth it for one plugin and their bundles have too many dupes.

There are plenty who would agree with you. I personally have owned a ton of Waves and now only have Codex and Renaissance Bass. The only Waves plugin I recurrently miss is the SSL package, which in hindsight I wish I hadn't sold, a great plugin bundle...just extraordinarily expensive (plus, extremely hard to sell at any kind of reasonable price, at least from my experience).

[Numanoid]

I had $19 bux in my paypal account.

So I went and bought Manny Marroquin Delay

The installation and activation this time went fast and smooth

Been playing with it for an hour or so, quite happy with it, easy to create some presets for pads. I like that there are separate delays for left and right channel, can create some complex sound setting each channel to different times.

[zerocrossing]

If I had $49 I would buy it from Waves now, no doubt.

I seem to remember that users right after it was released, complained about CPU spikes.

Is that a problem you have experienced?

I haven't experienced anything like that. (Windows 8 i7 2.5 ghz) Seems fairly light on CPU, especially next to Serum... actually that might not be a fair assessment, as Serum has so much more going on. I wonder how they'd compare in a patch with similar modulation and effects.

As for how it stacks up to Serum? I think if I had bought Serum and really dug into it first, I might have not have purchased Codex. At first Serum sounded kind of... cold and clinical to me, but after a few weeks with it I learned which filters to use to get a more "juicy" and "hardwarish" sound. (the answer is French and German) I think I bought Codex first as it really seemed to sound very good to me and had a very sort of hardwarish sound. That might not make any sense as a term, but that's how I think of it.

So, here's my assessment of both. Serum is a beautiful playground of wavetable fun. It's very comprehensive in its features. Can sound very cold and clinical, but it can also sound sweet and juicy. Its effects are OK but you'll probably want to use a separate reverb plug in for your final mix. It's great that you can modulate effect parameters. Audio import is the best out there. Presets aren't very good if you care of such things.

Codex is a beautiful jungle gym of wavetable fun. Not a large feature set, but a good one. It tends to sound warm and juicy and while it doesn't have many effects, the ones it has sound good. It has pretty good audio import and I love the formant function. I don't think anything else but Malstrom has that. Presets are good.

So, if you want a plug in with a specific "flavor" and you like to work fast, Codex is your synth. If you want to lose a day messing with modulation options (but a very fun lost day) then Serum is your synth. I own both and I'm happy.

[Apostate]

If I had $49 I would buy it from Waves now, no doubt.

I seem to remember that users right after it was released, complained about CPU spikes.

Is that a problem you have experienced?

I haven't experienced anything like that. (Windows 8 i7 2.5 ghz) Seems fairly light on CPU, especially next to Serum... actually that might not be a fair assessment, as Serum has so much more going on. I wonder how they'd compare in a patch with similar modulation and effects.

As for how it stacks up to Serum? I think if I had bought Serum and really dug into it first, I might have not have purchased Codex. At first Serum sounded kind of... cold and clinical to me, but after a few weeks with it I learned which filters to use to get a more "juicy" and "hardwarish" sound. (the answer is French and German) I think I bought Codex first as it really seemed to sound very good to me and had a very sort of hardwarish sound. That might not make any sense as a term, but that's how I think of it.

So, here's my assessment of both. Serum is a beautiful playground of wavetable fun. It's very comprehensive in its features. Can sound very cold and clinical, but it can also sound sweet and juicy. Its effects are OK but you'll probably want to use a separate reverb plug in for your final mix. It's great that you can modulate effect parameters. Audio import is the best out there. Presets aren't very good if you care of such things.

Codex is a beautiful jungle gym of wavetable fun. Not a large feature set, but a good one. It tends to sound warm and juicy and while it doesn't have many effects, the ones it has sound good. It has pretty good audio import and I love the formant function. I don't think anything else but Malstrom has that. Presets are good.

So, if you want a plug in with a specific "flavor" and you like to work fast, Codex is your synth. If you want to lose a day messing with modulation options (but a very fun lost day) then Serum is your synth. I own both and I'm happy.

+1 nice and detailed post. It's really cool to have both, they each yield different, yet consistently interesting, sounds. And I guess I give the green light to Codex's effects...it just seems so basic compared to Serum. Of course, the majority of synths would seems basic in that area compared to Serum, but to me Waves could have tried a little harder in that regard especially...plus, the aforementioned limited matrix pages. How bout a Matrix 2, Waves? (Butthead voice: "I'd buy it heh heh").

[Numanoid]

I haven't experienced anything like that. (Windows 8 i7 2.5 ghz) Seems fairly light on CPU

That's a pretty good processor, isn't it?

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu ... 40+2.50GHz

[Robmobius]

I just realized the Codex was under fifty US dollars with the current Waves sale. Although I already own this synth, I highly recommend anyone on the fence to go ahead and buy it now, you will not regret it. There are plenty of lukewarm reviews about this plugin but I assure you, even the presets are great. But there's more to it than that, the Oscillators sound excellent (at least to my ears), and there are some really good modulation options (the punch option is something a lot of other synths would do well to add imo).

Faults? The filters aren't spectacular, the effects are less than adequate, and there could be at least another page in the matrix. But at under fifty dollars, you are getting an overall really good synth, one that I paid around seventy for and don't regret in the slightest. In fact, I'm breaking out Codex right after this topic. Both fun to program and use, plus great sounding...and NO I don't work for Waves lol!

Fifty bucks! It's a total steal... I paid $99 when it was released, and I was pretty happy.

As you said the presets are very good. But it's really easy to program and tweak on the fly too. Nice (but) limited unison. More of that please!

But Overall I like it's sound, it's quite thick and warm (despite being glassy). Would be nice to have some more filters, but I think it's definitely one of the better synths around.

Serum is better overall, but the two sound quite different. The Waves being very distinct (in a good way). But Serum is a mammoth imo and easily eclipses it...

But both would compliment each other because of the difference in sound.

[Mushy Mushy]

Fifty bucks! It's a total steal... I paid $99 when it was released, and I was pretty happy.

The OPs post is a little misleading.
It is still $99 but you get a $50 voucher that can be applied to that or anything.

[Robmobius]

Fifty bucks! It's a total steal... I paid $99 when it was released, and I was pretty happy.

The OPs post is a little misleading.
It is still $99 but you get a $50 voucher that can be applied to that or anything.

Ah riiight.... So I guess if you've not got anything you're specifically looking for in the Waves collection, Codex might be worth a look.

[Numanoid]

Too bad the $50 code only can be used once