Waves...smh

[jamcat]

And this Google spreadsheet I have seen floating in the interwebs is ludicrous cope mostly. No way are some of those alternatives there viable.

I agree with that. Like all things, it quickly devolved into just another vehicle for people to promote their favourite niche plugins and developers, no matter how inappropriate they may be for the actual task in question.

When I looked at it the other night after part had been locked, I saw just the opposite of niche plugins or developers listed. I saw a lot of mainstream developers and what appeared to be perhaps an astroturf attempt by their marketing departments to stuff the list. I found it to be unusable. Perhaps that was just what I chose to see, but where we are in agreement is that the listings were not apparently viable nor appropriate replacements in many (most?) cases.

When I said "niche" what I really meant was they were all the same KVR Cult plugins and developers that get mentioned ad nauseam in every thread on KVR, with the same lack of regard for the actual task in question.

[trackbout]

I actually think the whole mess was a net positive. It's drawn a bright red line for every audio dev on earth. The perpetual license option is sacred ground.

I agree, if Waves can't pull it off others should think twice. Not going to lie though, the sub and acquisition craze has tempered my interest in buying software.

It's funny, look at SSL's reaction, they had 2 out of 30 plugins or whatever that were sub only and they're like, "Hey guys! Look at us! No more sub only plugins!". Everybody was watching Waves, and def got a little shook.

I could see a brand new developer trying a sub only model, and maybe it will even work for them, but I would be shocked to see another major developer with thousands of existing perpetual license customers go anywhere near a sub only model.

[kidslow]

When I said "niche" what I really meant was they were all the same KVR Cult plugins and developers that get mentioned ad nauseam in every thread on KVR, with the same lack of regard for the actual task in question.

We are in 100% agreement then

I never thought of regular banter on KVR being ripe for astroturfing, but of course it is. Hire a social media "manager" to say good things about your products through sock puppets in every thread they can on KVR. Not that any company would ever do that.

[jamcat]

Like all things, it quickly devolved into just another vehicle for people to promote their favourite niche plugins and developers, no matter how inappropriate they may be for the actual task in question.

When I looked at it the other night after part had been locked, I saw just the opposite of niche plugins or developers listed. I saw a lot of mainstream developers and what appeared to be perhaps an astroturf attempt by their marketing departments to stuff the list. I found it to be unusable. Perhaps that was just what I chose to see, but where we are in agreement is that the listings were not apparently viable nor appropriate replacements in many (most?) cases.

Here's a perfect example, right at the top of the list:

Abbey Road REDD Consoles
Shattered Glass Code Red and Analog Obsession are the first listed, because they're free and this is KVR after all. OK, at least they look like an EMI REDD console, but there is no doubt that the developers have never even been in the same room as an EMI REDD console.

Fuse Audio VCS-1 and SKnote TCH are also listed, even though both are generic all-purpose channel strips. Definitely what i would call 'niche' brands, and wholly inappropriate in this instance.

What's missing though, is Arturia PRE V76, Universal Audio V76 and Neold V76U73, all three of which are actual, authentic models of the same Telefunken preamp circuit used by EMI in the REDD.37 console.

[Aloysius]

Arturia plugins take forever to load for me, so not an alternative.

[Compyfox]

...

I could see a brand new developer trying a sub only model, and maybe it will even work for them, but I would be shocked to see another major developer with thousands of existing perpetual license customers go anywhere near a sub only model.

Anybody remembers "Axis Plug-ins"?

I do... And I'm also glad I did not pay for "InspectorXL" for a third time -- through subscription only. I also remember the promises of "xyz plugins per year", which... never really happened either.

When I looked at it the other night after part had been locked, I saw just the opposite of niche plugins or developers listed. I saw a lot of mainstream developers and what appeared to be perhaps an astroturf attempt by their marketing departments to stuff the list. I found it to be unusable. Perhaps that was just what I chose to see, but where we are in agreement is that the listings were not apparently viable nor appropriate replacements in many (most?) cases.

Yeah, I've criticized that with previous posts.

See possible actual replacements with this list from Page 4.


Oh and, I mentioned "Shattered Glass Audio" in the first place. The dev is specialized in tube circuity. The Siemens V76 was the basis for the REDD.37's preamps... The specialty was the filter behavior. Take a deep dive into the KVR Archives, I remember having put both to the test with deep analysis, and came to the conclusion that the Waves version was just a wasteful UI. Also... "CodeRED" exists in two versions.. Free and a more feature rich "commercial variant" with logical upgrades.

Analog Obsession is... er... yeah. That's a personal summary.





Either way... Waves still hides posts on Social Media. On the "statement post" even. And a lot of the hidden replies are not even remotely derogatory or insulting. Clearly shows that they're committed to us as "users".

Also, more and more people think the same as I do... "take the loss, upgrade everyone for free (to V14, with WUP going into V15, especially for the Mac M1 AAX users), start from scratch"... this is their only chance to even remotely regain trust in a lot of users again. IMHO and all that.

I even go one step further... if we have to pay WUP again after all, then cap it to 49USD now. Especially considering that a lot of us only have a handful of tools, and the recent sales resulted in mad bank. Before the system was nuked, I had 5 plugins that needed WUP to v14. The "paid upgrades" were just maintenance patches, not even new UI's or resizeable ones, so I didn't go for them...

I'd have had to pay around 80 quid (+VAT) to get them "up-to-date". And with the "Subscription only" shenanigans, all of the plugins I have registered with my account, would have only been in the "Ultimate" Bundle. Amazing...



So once more...

...keep screaming, everyone. Don't back down. This is our chance to finally ask for drastic improvements with Waves Audio. And continue to speak with your wallet.

[martiu]

what is WUP?

You can't tell me you've never paid for a wuppin

i am not a waves plugin owner

[jamcat]

Oh and, I mentioned "Shattered Glass Audio" in the first place. The dev is specialized in tube circuity. The Siemens V76 was the basis for the REDD.37's preamps... The specialty was the filter behavior. Take a deep dive into the KVR Archives, I remember having put both to the test with deep analysis, and came to the conclusion that the Waves version was just a wasteful UI. Also... "CodeRED" exists in two versions.. Free and a more feature rich "commercial variant" with logical upgrades.

Analog Obsession is... er... yeah. That's a personal summary.

So you're saying that Shattered Glass Audio Code Red is in fact a good model?
Unfortunately, it's not M1 native, so it's a no-go for me anyways.

[Compyfox]

The "Shattered Glass" variant definitely has more going on than the Waves one (especially saturation wise). The OG MSRP of 399USD was far from being adjusted, just because it had the brand "Abbey Road" on the Waves plugin UI.

Will Shattered Glass Audio ever go M1... maybe... it's a small dev team. And as long as "Rosetta 2" still works, it's an alternative. Although it is your prerogative to not go that route. Same for Cubase users that have long since dropped VST2 plugins.

Your choice, your tool-set.

[billcarroll]

what is WUP?

You can't tell me you've never paid for a wuppin

i am not a waves plugin owner

WUP - the Waves Update Plan is your complete care plan for the following Waves products, including all software updates and VIP technical support

They almost never update plugins except to keep them working on new OS and hardware, so you are paying maintenance essentially.

[VitaminD]

what is WUP?

You can't tell me you've never paid for a wuppin

i am not a waves plugin owner

The entirety of the Waves plugin lineup was (is?) under a whole version numbering system. You buy a plugin but you aren't eligible for updates for the entirety of that plugin's existence. Instead, you got a years worth of Waves Update Plan. If the plugin was updated within that timeframe of your WUP window, you got the updates to it.

This was generally (if not entirely) done under whole versions of the Waves plugin lineup. For example they're on version 14 right now. So if you bought during 13, your WUP time ran out, and Waves released version 14 well sorry you need to pay for an updated WUP to get version 14. Otherwise, you were stuck with the version 13 level of your software.

It gets kind of messy if you don't keep up with it. For example, I have various plugins in Version 9, 10, 12, and 14. I could update the WUP on the version 9, 10, and 12 plugins to get them in line with the current version of 14, but that costs money.

That's how Waves was largely making their money -- sell the plugin for dirt cheap (or give it away for free) then collect WUP fees long term to keep the plugins up to date.

Not a huge thing if you're on Windows but for some reason on Mac the OS changes annually it seems and that hoses these plugins from functioning there.

And, maybe it has changed recently, but Waves had separate installers for each version. So it was a bit kludgey to reinstall if you had plugins spread all over various versions. Since they don't give you individual installers but force you either to use the online downloader thingy or get a huge multi GB offline installer.

[kidslow]

Not a huge thing if you're on Windows but for some reason on Mac the OS changes annually it seems and that hoses these plugins from functioning there.

It's funny to see how often this myth gets perpetuated. Never by Mac users either.

The only major recent hosing on a Mac by Waves took place when Apple changed hardware for their processors, so not just an "annual OS change" but a complete hardware architecture change. One is only hosed if they want to run in a more CPU efficient native way on the new hardware, didn't pay the wupping maintenance, and had a plugin prior to v13. And even then a workaround exists which is to run in a less efficient emulation mode, unless you have a very old Waves version.

I didn't like paying WUP to get M1 native upgrades from Waves, but I did. Not because anything was hosed but to improve efficiency. In the end it saved me a lot of angst about their latest shenanigans. I believe I will have 5-10 years before I would ever need to WUP again and I'm on a Mac (not that I would after this). Company will probably no longer exist in its current form by then.

[VitaminD]

Not a huge thing if you're on Windows but for some reason on Mac the OS changes annually it seems and that hoses these plugins from functioning there.

It's funny to see how often this myth gets perpetuated. Never by Mac users either.

Well, I've only seen Mac users complaining about this in the forums. Never Windows. So that's all I have to work with.

Did you see anything else wrong with my post about WUP? Because it wasn't a Mac vs PC post, I was simply helping to explain WUP to someone that asked.

[ghettosynth]

I wonder if the Web Devs at Waves are going to be working over the upcoming weekend? Maybe we should all pitch in to send them some pizzas or something?

[jezjez]

Yeah WUP wasn't really much of an issue on PC but I had to move to a Mac due to work which makes it almost mandatory.
I wasn't too happy with their policies either, there's a bug with Waves plugins (v12 maybe?) that messes with some NI instruments. v13 was released while I was in WUP but I missed the email and because I didn't click the 'update to v13' button or whatever before my WUP ran out they said nope, you're stuck on v12.