Waves Scheps Omni Channel

[Daimonicon]

I thought this thread was about Scheps Omni Channel, not Waves Central. I must be confused

If it had been an ilok plug-in it would had turned into a I-hate-ilok-thread. As soon something is released the kvr trolls wake up and complain no matter if it’s ilok or anything else. They’re never satisfied with anything.

[sugo]

I thought this thread was about Scheps Omni Channel, not Waves Central. I must be confused

If it had been an ilok plug-in it would had turned into a I-hate-ilok-thread. As soon something is released the kvr trolls wake up and complain no matter if it’s ilok or anything else. They’re never satisfied with anything.

THIS is really OT!

[imrae]

So, does anyone with relevant experience have an opinion about how the compressor on this stacks up against the Waves CLA-76 and CLA-2A? Is it the same tech or have they upgraded? Are you going to stick with the old ones?

[planetearth]

Off-topic a bit...
How do you uninstall single Waves plugins? Say ones that you've demoed, but haven't bought.
Is the only way to uninstall everything and reinstall the ones you want to keep?

That would be a big waste of bandwidth to redownload all those plugins.

I once asked Waves and they told me I had to uninstall all of it and reinstall the ones I want to keep, so that's what I did.

That's the same answer I got. Ridiculously inefficient, but there you go. And honestly, it's kept me from demoing--and then potentially buying--more Waves plug-ins, because of it.

Steve

[gas pump]

Off-topic a bit...
How do you uninstall single Waves plugins? Say ones that you've demoed, but haven't bought.
Is the only way to uninstall everything and reinstall the ones you want to keep?

That would be a big waste of bandwidth to redownload all those plugins.

I once asked Waves and they told me I had to uninstall all of it and reinstall the ones I want to keep, so that's what I did.

That's the same answer I got. Ridiculously inefficient, but there you go. And honestly, it's kept me from demoing--and then potentially buying--more Waves plug-ins, because of it.

Steve

A few minutes of install time for a lifetime of audio production goodness? It's really a no brainer, some people just get caught up in their own thoughts of how things should be. No two companies do everything exactly the same on how to install, configure and demo.

I'm sure you could just as easily complain about installing anything to an iLok just to demo it, but I don't think that's what this thread is about.

For $49 the haters are kicking themselves for spending hundreds $$$ on other plugins half as good with half the features.

Waves has the plugin market on lockdown, the sooner you realize this the better.

[subtlearts]

Hmm. Well, I understand what you mean, Waves has been at this game for a long time, has an enormously deep stable of effects, many of excellent quality, and has been particularly aggressive with their sales for some time now in a push to expand their market saturation even more. I also agree that their CP scheme is actually not especially egregious, just one flavour among many, and we all know that it kind of sucks to have to pay for something that adds nothing to the functionality and actively detracts from the overall user experience, but we more or less have to because unfortunately people suck, by and large, and will abuse any situation if given half a chance, so we are paying to protect the economic viability of the companies providing the tools we want to use, against the abuse of those who don't want to pay for them. The irony abounds!

But I'm not sure Waves is killing it so hard that other devs and manufacturers should just give up and go home. SoundToys, FabFilter, Kush, McDSP, Melda, Brainworx, Softube, Toneboosters, Unfiltered Audio and the other Plugin Alliance folks, and a bunch more all seem to be doing OK from what I can see. If anything, it's Waves that has been forced to adapt to a changing market by having a more or less permanent fire sale - when was the last time anyone bought a Waves plugin *not* on some kind of sale?

I think Scheps Omni Channel looks like a winner and will almost certainly pick it up at the intro price because even though I have 5 or 10 good tools to do what each of its modules does, I think having them all in one place in a flexible package adds value, and with the Scheps name attached I feel fairly comfortable about the quality assurance (plus I'm demo-ing it and like what it does so far). Maybe that's me falling into a marketing trap, and certainly I don't *need* it per se - I can mix my stuff without it just as I have been doing - but I've always been of the persuasion that if it's a quality tool and the price is not stupid and it helps you one time solve a problem that might have been tricky otherwise, or provides a sound or workflow improvement that you might not have found otherwise and raises the level of one track as a result, it's worth it.

Looked at another way, in 6 months after I've used it on however many mixes, am I likely to feel like I'd rather have the money back than everything I've done with it? Depends on how much money. In this case? Not much money at all? There's your answer.

[cturner]

But I'm not sure Waves is killing it so hard that other devs and manufacturers should just give up and go home. SoundToys, FabFilter, Kush, McDSP, Melda, Brainworx, Softube, Toneboosters, Unfiltered Audio and the other Plugin Alliance folks, and a bunch more all seem to be doing OK from what I can see.

Nice post, thanks. Certainly interesting to review the SOC in light of what it takes from the design of McDSP plugins.

[gas pump]

Hmm. Well, I understand what you mean, Waves has been at this game for a long time, has an enormously deep stable of effects, many of excellent quality, and has been particularly aggressive with their sales for some time now in a push to expand their market saturation even more. I also agree that their CP scheme is actually not especially egregious, just one flavour among many, and we all know that it kind of sucks to have to pay for something that adds nothing to the functionality and actively detracts from the overall user experience, but we more or less have to because unfortunately people suck, by and large, and will abuse any situation if given half a chance, so we are paying to protect the economic viability of the companies providing the tools we want to use, against the abuse of those who don't want to pay for them. The irony abounds!

But I'm not sure Waves is killing it so hard that other devs and manufacturers should just give up and go home. SoundToys, FabFilter, Kush, McDSP, Melda, Brainworx, Softube, Toneboosters, Unfiltered Audio and the other Plugin Alliance folks, and a bunch more all seem to be doing OK from what I can see. If anything, it's Waves that has been forced to adapt to a changing market by having a more or less permanent fire sale - when was the last time anyone bought a Waves plugin *not* on some kind of sale?

I think Scheps Omni Channel looks like a winner and will almost certainly pick it up at the intro price because even though I have 5 or 10 good tools to do what each of its modules does, I think having them all in one place in a flexible package adds value, and with the Scheps name attached I feel fairly comfortable about the quality assurance (plus I'm demo-ing it and like what it does so far). Maybe that's me falling into a marketing trap, and certainly I don't *need* it per se - I can mix my stuff without it just as I have been doing - but I've always been of the persuasion that if it's a quality tool and the price is not stupid and it helps you one time solve a problem that might have been tricky otherwise, or provides a sound or workflow improvement that you might not have found otherwise and raises the level of one track as a result, it's worth it.

Looked at another way, in 6 months after I've used it on however many mixes, am I likely to feel like I'd rather have the money back than everything I've done with it? Depends on how much money. In this case? Not much money at all? There's your answer.

You're right, Waves isn't the only plugin company kicking arse in this new audio economy. Where all the prices are being slashed from software to hardware. I think you can buy analog synthesizers for less then $99 these days, which was just a pipe dream not even a decade ago.

There are so many plugin developers now, so the price wars were pretty much unavoidable. Some companies are even giving away top notch cut down versions for free. I've noticed a lot of free plugin developers and smaller ones closing up shop. The competition is greater these days and the pool of talent is vast. Social media and marketing of these companies is all about fighting for brand recognition, because the quality and feature sets are pretty identical.

I still believe there are a handful of great companies and thousands of mediocre copycats, and their days are numbered. Especially when DAWs are starting to release high quality stock plugins with their updates and upgrades. Eventually there will be little room for what was once a market with holes to fill, now everyone is caught up and waiting for the next big thing.

Meanwhile, Waves are still pumping out new innovative approaches to new and old techniques at a fraction of the cost.

[subtlearts]

Exactly, agreed across the board.

It's a better time to be a plugin buyer than a plugin seller, it would seem... I'm surprised more talented solo devs haven't gone the same route Chris from Airwindows has and just say, screw it, it's all free, please support me, here's my Patreon page. If I get enough support I keep making things, if not, not.

[cturner]

I'm surprised more talented solo devs haven't gone the same route Chris from Airwindows has and just say, screw it, it's all free, please support me, here's my Patreon page.

Last time I looked Chris was getting $800/month from his Patreon. That’s $9,600/year, or $2,400 below the poverty line for a single individual in the US.

[subtlearts]

For sure, it's not a perfect solution and I'm sure he'd like it to be more (and it does seem to be slowly building). I think it's not the only thing he has going on - his higher-income goals indicate that if he reaches them he will focus exclusively on development, suggesting it's still a sideline - as indeed it is, I believe, for Jeroen at Toneboosters and probably others... That said, it's more than many amateur or even semi-pro users of plugins make from their work.

[gas pump]

Exactly, agreed across the board.

It's a better time to be a plugin buyer than a plugin seller, it would seem... I'm surprised more talented solo devs haven't gone the same route Chris from Airwindows has and just say, screw it, it's all free, please support me, here's my Patreon page. If I get enough support I keep making things, if not, not.

Let's not forget the recent onset of the inexpensive subscription (rental) model, which has played a big role in the slashing of prices. I don't find the subscription model my cup of tea, because I'm in it for the long haul and don't want to end up spending more then buying "everything" out right.

On a side note, I still can't figure out why Slate Drums and Trigger are a separate software company, other then a way to sneak in another financial gain and shortchanging his customers.

I have a feeling the user base of subscription models will start to shrink up in the future for all companies, as the total spent on renting software reaches the actual cost of buying them out right, especially in these price wars.

[Aloysius]

What the feck are these people talking about?

Waves Scheps Omni Channel takes ages to load on my olde Windows 7 Laptop. I'm using 32-bit in Ableton Live 9 Suite. It would be nice to have a new computer but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

[subtlearts]

Let's not forget the recent onset of the inexpensive subscription (rental) model, which has played a big role in the slashing of prices. I don't find the subscription model my cup of tea, because I'm in it for the long haul and don't want to end up spending more then buying "everything" out right...

Yeah I guess some people must use them, otherwise they wouldn't be popping up everywhere. I can see why the developers want to use them - steady, predictable income! - but I've never really been tempted. The only one I *would* do is Kush, but you need an actual hardware iLok for most of the juicy stuff, and I don't have and don't want one.

What the feck are these people talking about?...

That's fair, we're well OT. Sorry!

[simon.a.billington]

So, does anyone with relevant experience have an opinion about how the compressor on this stacks up against the Waves CLA-76 and CLA-2A? Is it the same tech or have they upgraded? Are you going to stick with the old ones?

It's an interesting question that I'm not really qualified to answer, but I can hazard a bit of a guess to how they may gone about it.

It's no secret that Scheps loves his 76's, you can see he's an LA2A fan too, so its fair enough to think that the FET and VCA compressor options may be modelled on these to some degree. I think there are many of us who think this. Not sure what the VCA would be, it could be based on a Neve or it could be based on another compressor that he uses a lot. Renn Comp??

It's clear that apart from the three distinct tone and characteristics he wanted to have on demand, he also wanted to make sure that they would work well on practically anything you could throw at them. He also wanted to make it easy to switch between the 3 with very little gain difference for easy comparison. Plus he wanted the controls to be consistent when switching between types

To make this possible there would have to be a lot of testing, comparing and calibrating to be done. There would have head to be some improvements mad to the original designs if they did base these on a 76 or a 2A. Clearly, when you think about the LA2A it has NO attack and release controls. I also believe that its attack is internally set at 10ms, but the Omni begins at 50ms!!

Although we need to take into the account of the way the photoelectric circuit works and its response characteristics its clear that if the Opt circuit was based on the 2A, they've had to do quite a bit of redesign to make it work consistently with the other compressors, which would have almohad to be modified for the occasion.

So my guess at all this, is the compressors were probably closely inspired by the classics, but have probably been changed enough to become their own thing.

As a side note, I do wish they had faster attack times on this, but hey, if it comes to it, I can always use the insert and use something like the H-Comp which would give me lots of options.