Question about Waves licenses

[BJ]

Last year during black friday I bought some Waves plugins. My update licenses have now expired so I guess I'm getting familiar with why so many on KVR always say they avoid Waves.

The plugins still work of course but I'm a bit worried what will happen if I get a new PC? Can I download Waves central on a new PC and redownload my plugins? Do I need to deactivate my licenses on my old PC before I do an upgrade?

[Synthman2000]

Plug ins from Waves should still work without WUP payments unless you move to a DAW version/OS version as time moves on that the version that you purchased does not support. I think that is roughly how it goes. Contact Waves and ask them. The technical support I have found is good and they respond typically within 24 hours, a little longer at times. Give them as much information as you can like DAW version, OS, of new machine, your plug in versions, purchase date what plug ins etc.

Their methods are a little more complex authorization wise, if WUP ran out, than some other software sellers and the WUP is a bit of a sting in the $$ dept. at times. However they make some good software and it is up to you if you think some of their product are better than others, no one else can make that decision. I have a few that I like, rely on and I know would be sorely missed.

I think there is some oddity that means you may have to wait for 1 year to reinstall for certain situations, but I cannot remember what that is right now.

Yes sometimes the plug ins themselves are sold for a low price so you have to factor the WUP or your own upgrades into the price really.

[darkinners]

Since you said you are on PC, you should be safe from the WUP shenanigan.
You can deactivate your current license or even store your licenses in USB stick.

Usually it's the MAC user are affected by WUP and have to pay ransom to Waves in order continue have those plugins working with lastest MacOS update.

[noiseboyuk]

It's often cheaper during their big sales to upgrade to a bundle than it is to WUP your stuff, sometimes significantly so (and you then get a year's WUP on the lot when you do). Just keep an eye out near the time when you actually need a new version. I've been nearly a decade before actually needing to upgrade.

[MirkoVanHauten]

You have nothing to fear. I have waves plugins from many versions back without any WUP bought, switched PC multiple times and all work fine. Yes, you need to deactivate your licenses when you re-install your Windows. There might be a chance that a major OS switch introduces bugs which of course will not get fixed with old waves plugins versions. That's when you usually need to buy WUP and get the newest updates.

[zerocrossing]

It's often cheaper during their big sales to upgrade to a bundle than it is to WUP your stuff, sometimes significantly so (and you then get a year's WUP on the lot when you do). Just keep an eye out near the time when you actually need a new version. I've been nearly a decade before actually needing to upgrade.

Yeah, their “update” plan just seems to be a scam to extract more money out of people later, so they can make initial prices low. I’ve honestly never noticed any additions or improvements for these updates. I don’t really dig their business model.

[sjm]

Think of it as a Mac tax. If you're on PC, it's not an issue, because you get backwards compatibility for free. Rather than expecting everyone (i.e. PC users) to subsidise the cost of porting from one incompatible Mac architecture to the next, only Mac users pay the extra development cost that Waves incur for supporting Mac.

You can download and authorise older versions of the plugins on PC; I recently had to reinstall everything after a hard drive failure, and my WUP expired many years ago. Was not a problem.

[BJ]

Thanks for the replies. Since I’m using a PC looks like everything will be fine for now. I’ll upgrade to a new PC probably a year from now or so.

For future reference though.. how do I deactivate the plugins on my current PC before I upgrade? I tried looking in Waves central but can’t find it.

[jamcat]

It’s not unusual to pay for major version upgrades. It’s also not unusual for only the latest version to get updates.

Having an active WUP means you get upgrades at no additional cost.

Modartt does something very similar with Pianoteq. You get free upgrades for a year after purchase. After that you have to buy the upgrade. I don’t see anyone complaining about that.

In the event that you need to upgrade your Waves plugins for compatibility, just pay the WUP one time, which is just like paying for an upgrade. It’s maybe $20 for a plugin. I just paid $29 to upgrade Pianoteq.

WUP is not a big deal unless you own a lot of plugins, but even then it’s capped at $240 for all of them.

My only complaint about WUP is that Waves gives a measly 2 authorizations and takes one of them away when your WUP expires.

[jinotsuh]

Thanks for the replies. Since I’m using a PC looks like everything will be fine for now. I’ll upgrade to a new PC probably a year from now or so.

For future reference though.. how do I deactivate the plugins on my current PC before I upgrade? I tried looking in Waves central but can’t find it.

Just use Waves Central to send all your licenses back to the cloud.

Or having all your licenses on a USB stick/Flash Drive, whatever you want to call it makes everything a lot easier.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

My only complaint about WUP is that Waves gives a measly 2 authorizations and takes one of them away when your WUP expires.

This is my beef with WUP also. If you have a desktop and a laptop, you need to keep your WUP up to date to use your plugins on both, or buy two copies of the plugins.

[roman.i]

I've used the "back to the cloud" feature, between multiple PC and then Macs. Everything worked as expected.