Waves Launches Creative Access - Poll

[elxsound]

The StudioVerse thing lowers the entry hurdle for young bedroom beat makers substantially. I expect there's a big market. We'll see. I don't know...

Do young beatmakers know or care about Waves' plugins? I also honestly don't know the answer to that question, but I don't think I've seen many Waves products being hyped in youtube vids in the past few years (granted, I mostly watch hardware synth-related vids these days). I could be way off, but the plugins offered in the $15/month plan don't strike me as being new and hip enough to attract many newer/younger users, and I'm not even sure that the $25/month plan will appeal to bedroom producers, given the huge range of other options on the market today, not to mention the high quality of DAW-bundled plugins.

Maybe Waves is just banking on pro studios paying their $25/month to stay current with their core plugins that they've used for the past 20 years, but looking at other forums, I think many of them are ready to cut their losses.

I think they do know about Waves. Some of the recent freebies were from Youtube influencers who are more likely to attract the younger audience.

I think Waves is definitely banking on anyone that was already paying $240 a year in WUP. This won't be a significant change for them.

Anyone else they pick up will be a bonus.

I predict lots of bonus free trial months here and there, because as you can expect with aggressive marketing, they'll make money off those that forget to cancel before the free trial is up.

[cryophonik]

I think Waves is definitely banking on anyone that was already paying $240 a year in WUP. This won't be a significant change for them.

Yeah, they probably are banking on that, but if this poll and all the complaint threads here and elsewhere are any indication, they'd better have a good contingency plan.

On a related topic, I wonder how many people would actually come crawling back to Waves if they were to eventually offer WUP again or something else to regain their existing customers. Personally, I'd be highly unlikely (reluctant at best) to give them any more of my money. I've got dozens of plugins/bundles and have been a customer for many years, but I don't see them ever offering me anything that would convince me to stay with them or ever trust them again.

[elxsound]

I think Waves is definitely banking on anyone that was already paying $240 a year in WUP. This won't be a significant change for them.

Yeah, they probably are banking on that, but if this poll and all the complaint threads here and elsewhere are any indication, they'd better have a good contingency plan.

On a related topic, I wonder how many people would actually come crawling back to Waves if they were to eventually offer WUP again or something else to regain their existing customers. Personally, I'd be highly unlikely (reluctant at best) to give them any more of my money. I've got dozens of plugins/bundles and have been a customer for many years, but I don't see them ever offering me anything that would convince me to stay with them or ever trust them again.

I think there’d be some, but not many. I can’t understand that feeling since I removed all Waves from my system last month, after it wouldn’t work on Ventura without renewing WUP.

I definitely would have been upset if I had sunk more money instead of deciding to move on.

[plexuss]

I came here for lunch. Where's the lunch?

[Scotty]

The absolute worst kicker in all of this is that if you do subscribe you lose your perpetual licenses. The second worst kicker is that waves was selling individual plugins right up until their servers went down and I was getting WUP reminders as oftwo weeks ago. Talk about bad faith. I am usually a defender of companies if they have earned my trust and like to acknowledge the good stuff. I see no upside. Waves wtf?

[Gavincoolguy]

This is something you do when growth has fully stalled and you need to double dip your current customer base as you unwind the company. It's the classic boomer strategy and always signals decline. The only new customers this will attract is people fully outside of the waves ecosystem, probably young. They will pay for a month and crunch a project and you might get another month out of them if they come back to it. Otherwise young people will abuse any goodwill aspect of your model until your og hate you because of all the mitigations. I doubt this is a net win unless of course, you can't compete anymore.

[revvy]

Last thing we needed was yet another Waves thread. Won’t be voting in the poll.

But as others have said, the lunch that the thread promises might have made me forgive Waves but is sadly missing.

See you all in the main threads and over on Waves forum, seems like the responses over there are a far better measure of views rather than a KVR poll.

[Godawful666]

i probably own 50 of their plugs and maybe use 2 on a mix, typically. nothing I can't live without. and I certainly won't be giving them my business anymore.

at least I have a windows machine, so I should be fine for a few more years, at least.

[serge]

I came here for lunch. Where's the lunch?

Ugh, gotta love the autocorrect! Fixed!

[egelmett]

Why the hell would Waves stop selling individual plugins, and not simply bolt on the subscription service for those inclined??!!

This makes me seriously think about eliminating my use of Waves plugs...I remember the warnings of others regarding Waves' business practices, in the past. Here's just a new installment in "How Waves Screws You."

When my WUP expires, I will have to make a choice. My idea of purchasing SSL EV2...well, can't do that...but I don't think I'll be picking up the subscription for several months, if at all.

This really sucks of Waves. I set my daughter up with a few Waves plugins to help her do some remote recording and since I have the same plugs, she could simply send the project to me to continue. She only owns two plugins...so now she has to pay $25/mon because she uses a plug only in the Ultimate plan - previously purchased??!! FU Waves!

[nusound mind]

Existing waves customer, not interested in using the waves plugins I already have, nevermind subscription.

Couple of the Ren series occasionally, that's about it.

[jamcat]

I was going to think more fondly of Waves if they were going to start doing lunches for creatives.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Waves Lunches with creative access sounds ok. Depending on what's for lunch.

The topic headline no longer mentions “Waves Lunches.” Did they cancel that too?

[AdvancedFollower]

I used maybe 5 Waves plugins semi-regularly. Not going to suddenly start paying $25/month to keep using them when alternatives can be found.

[Daimonicon]

I used maybe 5 Waves plugins semi-regularly. Not going to suddenly start paying $25/month to keep using them when alternatives can be found.

You can still use them until they fail. How long? Nobody knows. At least a couple of years.

[Aloysius]

So far I've learned that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.