My Suggestions For Waves, And Yours?

[Hewitt Huntwork]

In the interest of moving on from the grievance phase, I just contacted Waves with suggestions for what they could do to win me back as a customer. I am fully aware that these suggestions might not be feasible for them, but I'm trying to contribute to their developing sense of what they're up against. My ideas:

1) Free lifetime WUP with a 1 year purchase of Waves Ultimate subscription. Try their subscription for a year, never pay WUP on your perpetual licenses again.

2) Dynamic subscription pricing based on how many perpetual licenses you own.

What do you think? Would either of these suggestions work for you? Would anything work for you? What would it take to make you do business with Waves again? "Nothing" is a totally valid answer. Other answers also welcome.

[kidslow]

Those are creative suggestions and worth a dialogue. Wouldn't change my likelihood of subscribing.

I had already reached my Waves saturation prior to last weekend, and at this point as long as my WUP holds out I am unlikely to spend another dime with them. I'm not going to stop using what I already have anytime soon. I'm more a pragmatist than an absolutist, so if they should introduce a new plugin or change to their business model that appeals to me I am open to doing more business, but the bar has gone up in the past week for what it will take.

[plexuss]

It seems like Plugin Alliance has a good balance going on. Subscriptions, perpetual singles and entire bundle, free updates, decent transfer policy, etc. Nothing really intrusive to the customer for a large corporate plugin company. PA also offers month loyalty coupons and has deep discount sales which are also much appreciated.

So my advice to Waves is: do competitive analysis and do not implement anything that is anti-customer such as WUP as it was, exclusive subs, etc. However considering all the really bad business decisions Waves has made as of late, I am not holding my breath.

What would get them my business back:

- $29 or lower sales as they were doing
- monthly loyalty vouchers and other discounts
- no transfer fee, automated transfers
- lifetime free updates
- plugins that works on macOS 10.13 or greater (right now they are at 10.15, cutting out a lot of very viable macs for doing music)

Outside of that... not interested.

[noiseboyuk]

Nothing would make me subscribe, unless it WUPed all my products for doing it for a short period of time. Subs may work for some, but not me.

It's pretty simple really, just want to keep using what I own in perpetuity.

[vurt]

In the interest of moving on from the grievance phase, I just contacted Waves with suggestions for what they could do to win me back as a customer. I am fully aware that these suggestions might not be feasible for them, but I'm trying to contribute to their developing sense of what they're up against. My ideas:

1) Free lifetime WUP with a 1 year purchase of Waves Ultimate subscription. Try their subscription for a year, never pay WUP on your perpetual licenses again.

they just tried to make more money from users, i cant see them agreeing to less money from users going forward (for the same service)

[vurt]

although, you cant blame a person for trying i guess.
dont ask you definitely wont get.

[ghettosynth]

I don't care all that much about these kinds of conversations, but, I'll say this: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you don't get fooled again!

[Hewitt Huntwork]

I don't care all that much about these kinds of conversations, but, I'll say this: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you don't get fooled again!

I had a whole book of GHW Bush's weird quotes and that was in there.

[martinjuenke]

I'm not sure if they take threads started on April 1st seriously...

[Leo1999]

Of course you could compare everything to everything. But with regard to products it's important what you get.
You can compare pa to waves, why not.
But when you know the complete range of plugins you can get from Waves and pa, then I just don't even dare to compare, come on, pa is a joke compared to waves with regard to variety, quality and application and also simplicity and effectiveness.
What is pa's best reverb, tape sim, delay, vocoder, e-piano.. . sorry, I must have forgotten... Has pa ever released a benchmark plugin?
From the very beginning until now, pa was just trying to be a copy of waves, but it turned out to be a bad one quickly with a huge amount of mediocre plugins.
Oh I see, 1 st of April!

[revvy]

I'm more of an absolutist than a pragmatist. Won't be buying anything more Waves but will continue to use what I have, and would pay the dreaded WUP should Apple do what Apple often does.

So my suggestion is that whatever options Waves add, they also keep the options they had before this debacle.

I'll give up making music with a DAW before paying Waves a subscription.

[jamcat]

My advice for Waves is give up this software business and sell life insurance instead.

[sacer]

I am on Windows, i would pay for updates if they offer something new, but come on, i don't pay $250 for screen scaling. If they would make new GUI, that they don't look like Plugins from the 90's I would think about an update. I only once updated for NKS, that was a benefit to switch presets fast via Komplete Kontrol. If you are on Mac you have to update, to keep compatible to Apple silicon and all there new restrictions for OS updates. Most company are offering these updates free of charge, so you should choose, which supplier is offering better solutions. If you only use up to 5 Plugins from Waves, where you don't have alternative Plugins, than WUP isn't to expensive. But I think if I would have a Mac, I would be very angry about supporting newer OS and would switch to a supplier, that takes more care to offer me the latest versions and to provide me best experience with his Plugins.
When i was on Waves V8 or V9 it took years to a new major update, but later on they have every year a new major, without benefits, or doy know what has changed in V11, V12, V13 and V14 ? I have Waves V10, V11, V12 and V14, but my Plugins show also V13 and 3 to 5 versions of each major update. That is a completely mess and some Plugins don't work, because they don't know if they are V11 or V13. They need only one file for VST and one file for VST3. They should clear this mess and try to provide they buyers these Minor updates for free. People are willing to pay for updates if they get some new benefits, but supporting latest OS is no benefit, it's mandatory. They should sell their plugins more expensive, instead of trapping customers with a hidden WUP for nothing. Waves should learn to become customer friendly instead. There are so many alternatives, Waves should learn that time has changed and there are lot of competitors, offering better Plugins. Thats why i have not baught much Plugins from them in the last years. It's not intresting anymoore, if you get this mess of 50 waveshell VST 2 and VST3 files and have no idea where one of these 500 Plugins (with mono / stereo 5.1 etc) are hidden. Also why do i need 10 versions of the same plugin ? a button would make live easier. It's totaly crap and the oppoiste of a satified experience. If i buy a Waves Plugin, then I am aware that there will be no newer Version for me, because WUP is a waste of money, that i'll maybe pay 20 Years later to support Windows 20 on my quantum computer.

[ramseysounds]

My advice for Waves is give up this software business and sell life insurance instead.

Seriously, why? They make some very good products. Cliche, but I’ll say it: industry standard

[El°HYM]

Go open source and just let the hive mind do their thing.