Waves - WUP vs sale prices

[morelia]

Others resort to releasing "v2" of their plugins instead of fixing problems with the current version, making you buy a new plugin instead of paying a maintenance fee like WUP. Others simply don't get around to fixing things at all because they feel there's no money in it, or they make you wait 4 years for an update.

Exactly. there are many way of doing the support/update thing. That's why I take each one on it's own merits. They all have their pros and cons, both for the user and the developer. I personally don't like the way Waves do it. That's my opinion. I still support them because they make products I like but I'm not going to let anything stop me from expressing my point of view on their operating procedures.

[LeVzi]

Caps required.

YOU DON'T NEED TO F*CKING WUP!!!! AND DID YOU TICK THE BOX AT THE TOP?

We need something bigger than CAPS for that. Because its true.

Waves disgust me with this WUP crap. I love their plug-ins and I always get something when it's on sale, but I refuse to annually pay for nothing.

[AdvancedFollower]

Something to keep in mind:
Waves does a lot of maintenance on their plugins. They also have exceptional customer service. How do they budget for that? WUP.

Would it be fair to say that implies that Companies that don't have WUP but do have perpetual licenses are not maintaining their products or supporting their customers as well as Waves?

It really depends on the company, but a WUP-esque scheme isn't a prerequisite for continued, good support IMO. In some cases, support ends after 12 - 24 months unless you buy the next version. In other cases, free updates still keep coming out for 10+ year old plugins.

However one has to keep in mind the price of Waves plugins - yes, they are listed with a "regular" price of hundreds of $'s, but they *never* cost that much. The "standard" price of a single plugin is really $29. That means if support have to spend an hour on your case, they've essentially lost money on that sale.

[morelia]

Waves disgust me with this WUP crap. I love their plug-ins and I always get something when it's on sale, but I refuse to annually pay for nothing.

You really don't need to do WUP every year. There are pretty specific reasons WUP has to purchased so it depends on what you want. That might not be an annual event.

[lfm]

Caps required.

YOU DON'T NEED TO F*CKING WUP!!!! AND DID YOU TICK THE BOX AT THE TOP?

We need something bigger than CAPS for that. Because its true.

Waves disgust me with this WUP crap. I love their plug-ins and I always get something when it's on sale, but I refuse to annually pay for nothing.

You misread what Mushy meant - you don't need to be in a wup to get bugfixes and help if you reinstall and fail and similar. From the release of v9(if it was 2013) it was when v10 arrived(was it a year ago? ) you got all updates of plugins you had. Now they don't maintain v9 anymore, that's all.

Not that I know what exactly brought v10 on. When version 9 came it was getting rid of iLok and got x64 support as well, as I recall it. So that was a biggy.

[cprompt]

but I refuse to annually pay for nothing.

But you don't need to anyway!

[noiseboyuk]

Actually there is now a third reason to get WUP - so all plugins are on the same version and Waves Central won't therefore break your computer. I realise you should be able to update v9 plugs separately using the off-line installer, but many people miss that little checkbox and as many threads have stated, the whole system is terribly flaky. I have about 10 single plugs and 2 bundles, so there's no quick and simple way to update them all using the cheap cheap upgrade method. If I just want the maximum chance of the minimum headaches, updating everything to v10 via the WUP is still the way to go, mad though it is.

Something to keep in mind:
Waves does a lot of maintenance on their plugins. They also have exceptional customer service. How do they budget for that? WUP.

If you want your plugins to continue to work after years, on your new computer, new OS, etc, and you want support when something goes wrong, we have to pay for these things they don't just happen. Waves came up with WUP. I think it's flawed, but that's what they have. Other companies don't have anything, and the plugins end up abandonware or even simply unsupported by a perfectly well-known company (i.e. see McDSP and Windows woes).

I have plenty of problems with Waves. The installer tends to break things. The rules for license transfer border on draconian. The WUP is convoluted. But ultimately we need a way to pay for long-term support. I'd rather the company has some system in place to professionally guarantee the plugins, vs a developer that has no way to charge for maintenance/support and so simply lets things break down over time. We've seen plenty of that and nobody is happy with that either.

This is a slightly confusing train of thought. On the one hand, customer service you suggest is excellent, but on the other hand installer breaks stuff, license transfers are a nightmare and WUP itself is convoluted. If we broaden Customer Service to include the Customer Experience, I'm not sure its working very well. Personally I'd take lousy customer service as long as I never needed it because Stuff Just Works. And that means Waves putting major resources into the root of nearly all of our problems - Waves Central. A Waves member of staff here actually conceded to me that this was "probably" a good idea - they do know just how awful it is.

So I've taken the view for the time being that I'm not buying any more Waves, no matter how cheap, until Waves Central is a reliable and rugged piece of software. Every time I have to open the damn thing I feel like Nic Cage in the Rock:

[chk071]

Caps required.

YOU DON'T NEED TO F*CKING WUP!!!! AND DID YOU TICK THE BOX AT THE TOP?

We need something bigger than CAPS for that. Because its true.

Waves disgust me with this WUP crap. I love their plug-ins and I always get something when it's on sale, but I refuse to annually pay for nothing.

You don't have to.

[jochicago]

So I've taken the view for the time being that I'm not buying any more Waves, no matter how cheap, until Waves Central is a reliable and rugged piece of software.

I hope that day will come but I'm not holding my breath. I think Waves knows that the Waves Central thing is their #1 problem, and part of the reason they have such stellar customer service is because they know they would lose all the customers that struggle with this thing. But still, every time the thing goes wrong it turns into a disaster, and it is also often the reason for compatibility problems with unsupported DAWs.

Waves Central 11 needs to be a completely overhauled masterpiece.

I swore I wasn't buying any more plugins but last year I bought the Morgan Page bundle: Vocal Raider, NLS, H Delay, L3 limiter. These things are now basically in all my mixes. The Scheps Omni is also in every mix. It's hard to shrug off Waves with such a majestic arsenal of daily essentials and clean solutions for specific problems.

[noiseboyuk]

It's hard to shrug off Waves with such a majestic arsenal of daily essentials and clean solutions for specific problems.

Not actually all that hard when a) you have a ton of them already and b) the competition is so strong. That's Waves' problem. They now have a real devaluation problem where people are now - incorrectly in my view - thinking that they're no good because they're always sold at fire sale prices. And that runs straight into practical problems with their disastrous authorisation system. Scan though any of 100 threads here, and every one will have people saying "no more Waves for me, it's just not worth the aggro".

This is why I told them that Waves Central has to be their priority. Let's imagine a world where Waves Central just worked. Reliably. Every time. It knows what licenses you have, so it never changes your system to break it (that's not an unreasonable expectation, by the way). Threads like this would become far shorter because all these secondary issues wouldn't come up all the time. I'd be back on their wagon impulse buying stuff I don't really need as such because.... well, why not? Shiny shiny, its cheap as chips and a cinch to add to my system. I sure wouldn't be the only one.

[dreamvoid]

Surprising comments ... I have three machines with Waves Central, two Macs and one PC. On all three Waves Central worked and works flawless - I have several bundles and many single plug ins. Currently I run V10 and V9 versions side by side. I use USB sticks as dongles.

[samsam]

Well done !

[punkfest2000]

I choose never to WUP, and I choose never to buy another Waves software. You couldn't give me Waves for free. Too many other good companies that don't have such bullshit

[simon.a.billington]

Right now WUP for Waves Gold is $225, or I can buy Waves Gold from Audio Deluxe for 75.95.

I ask nicely... why do you want to WUP your Gold?

The only reasons I can think of are:

You're running a really old copy (pre v10) and need to get V10 licenses
or
You need to get support from Waves and buying the WUP is (slightly) obligatory

There is NO other reason to buy WUP. If you are not doing either of the above, you do NOT NEED WUP!

Actually Waves does add plugins to bundles on occasions. Maybe once a year?? Sometimes you'll want WUP to get the access to the extra plugins, cheaper than what you would have to pay for them individually - in theory.

WUP certainly isn't necessary for upgrades. Waves Central will drip feed them over time.

[Patapoo]

"Let's imagine a world where Waves Central just worked. Reliably."

I don't doubt folks have issues with Waves Central but I have a 10-year-old computer running window 7 and never have had a single hiccup.