Waves renaissance vs. fab filter

[pascual]

I’ve been playing with fabfilter plugins and some of them are super fantastic, but I feel that the learning curve of some of the tools is a bit overwhelming. Long time ago I used to mix and master with a friends waves bundle and always loved the ease of the renaissance line.
Just noticed a really good Black Friday deal on those! I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but what’s the word. Are those waves plugs still respected and how do they compare with the fancy fab effects?

[jochicago]

Different creatures.

For something that's like 20 years old, the Renaissance series has held up pretty well and is one of Wave's proudest collections. Tons of people use it still and just about everyone likes how it sounds.

It seems to me you are asking about functionality. The Renaissance set is meant to be easy, to the point. The idea is to have competent and great sounding processors that require little effort to use and configure. Fabfilter is also trying to be easy to use on the surface, but carry all the nifty tricks if you need them.

Having said that, there's a couple dozen plugins I would add to this conversation if we are talking plugins that sound good and are easy to use and a joy to own.

[AdvancedFollower]

Most DAWs these days already come with EQ's, compressors etc. that work just fine, and are usually fairly simple and easy to use. I'd start by checking out what's already included in your DAW.

Even though the Renaissance plugins recently got a visual face-lift, they're very, very old plugins. Still, lots of people, both hobbyists and "pros" still use them out of familiarity, and because they still sound perfectly fine despite their age. They're meant to be easy to use and not overwhelm the user with options and features that are only rarely needed, so they don't really compare to Fabfilter, but that's not the point of them.

[jochicago]

On the point of comparing to DAW tools, something like the Ren Vox compressor is very musical and easy to apply, similar to an LA2A solution. DAWs come with compressors, but not every DAW comes with an LA2A thing that lets you get creamy vocals in 2 clicks.

[vitocorleone123]

Nothing wrong with the old Waves lines, but I'd look at the DAW ones, first. Fabfilter are more powerful, and easy to use - or you can dig a bit deeper with additional complexity (still clearly laid out). Watch a few videos on Fabfilter if you need to from their site. Unless you have $$ burning a hole in your pocket, I'd wait and do more research, at least, at the alternatives, which are many.

[atya]

Back in the day I've been using the Renaissance channel strip quite a bit but recently went back to izotope's old Alloy2 as my go-to strip - utterly flexible (2 compressors, saturation module, transient shaper, ...) and compared to something like Neutron, which I also own it's relatively easy on the CPU. I'm also using Waves' Scheps Omni Channel quite often, got it for $25 shortly after it came out, money very well spent, lol.

[ramseysounds]

I'm also using Waves' Scheps Omni Channel quite often, got it for $25 shortly after it came out, money very well spent, lol.

+1

[DCrown]

Waves Renaissance are the best plugins ever developed imo

[martinjuenke]

Never heard about Fabfilter.

[vitocorleone123]

Never heard about Fabfilter.

Well, they only became really really popular and well known 10 to 15 years ago, so it was bound to happen you'd hear at some point. I'm just going to assume you were being sarcastic.

They don't play silly pricing games, though, like Waves has over the last 5 or more years.

[billinder33]

IMO Fab Filter pretty much smokes Waves Renaissance across the board. I own the Mercury bundle and didn't even bother to install it on my current system.

That said, the only 2 FF plugins I really can't live without are Pro-Q and Pro-L. I'll occasionally use Pro-R and Timeless in mix buses to create a room. And Pro-MB on rare occasion to solve some niche problem. But Q and L are hard to replace, even though there are some very good alternatives out there these days.

There's a whole world of plugins, so the best thing to do is demo as many as you reasonably can to see what works for you.

[DNAudio]

IMO Fab Filter pretty much smokes Waves Renaissance across the board. I own the Mercury bundle and didn't even bother to install it on my current system.

That said, the only 2 FF plugins I really can't live without are Pro-Q and Pro-L. I'll occasionally use Pro-R and Timeless in mix buses to create a room. And Pro-MB on rare occasion to solve some niche problem. But Q and L are hard to replace, even though there are some very good alternatives out there these days.

There's a whole world of plugins, so the best thing to do is demo as many as you reasonably can to see what works for you.

If you want as many plugins from the same brand/manufacturer, for whatever reason, I think FabFilter is pretty reasonable. Some people simply don't have fun testing, analyzing & comparing plugins to hells end before purchasing. FabFilter is a "safe" choice. They're great at ironing out bugs & polishing their plugins before release.
However, I don't think all FabFilter plugins are the best at what they do. In fact, I only use their gate & their de-esser. 2 pretty "overshadowed" plugins of theirs, but I believe they're by far their best work.

[vitocorleone123]

IMO Fab Filter pretty much smokes Waves Renaissance across the board. I own the Mercury bundle and didn't even bother to install it on my current system.

That said, the only 2 FF plugins I really can't live without are Pro-Q and Pro-L. I'll occasionally use Pro-R and Timeless in mix buses to create a room. And Pro-MB on rare occasion to solve some niche problem. But Q and L are hard to replace, even though there are some very good alternatives out there these days.

There's a whole world of plugins, so the best thing to do is demo as many as you reasonably can to see what works for you.

If you want as many plugins from the same brand/manufacturer, for whatever reason, I think FabFilter is pretty reasonable. Some people simply don't have fun testing, analyzing & comparing plugins to hells end before purchasing. FabFilter is a "safe" choice. They're great at ironing out bugs & polishing their plugins before release.
However, I don't think all FabFilter plugins are the best at what they do. In fact, I only use their gate & their de-esser. 2 pretty "overshadowed" plugins of theirs, but I believe they're by far their best work.

Some are among the best, some aren’t. All that have been refreshed are very good or better (there's a few old ones that still need some love).

[billinder33]

Some people simply don't have fun testing, analyzing & comparing plugins to hells end before purchasing.

Most of those people will end up buying a lot of plugins they regret. I say that from personal experience.

You don't need to test every single feature, but getting a general sense of "Will I use this enough given the investment?", "Do I like the UI/UE?", and "Does it provide value over the plugins I already own?" takes maybe 10-15 minutes, and is ultimately a good way to not light your hard-earned money on fire.

[seangm]

They don't play silly pricing games, though, like Waves has over the last 5 or more years.

If by pricing games you mean selling quality plugins dirt cheap then let the games continue.