Waves V12 is here, now with resizable GUIs

[midi_transmission]

Why can't Waves just look at Plugin Alliance, which is such a dream to license and install?
Also why can't I move a license from one computer to another? It's limited to one move per year. What is the reasoning behind that?
All I want is Renaissance compressors and their tape plugins (still sound really unique in a cool lofi way).

No I don't think it's limited. Only when you lost your computer. But you can deactivate a license on your computer and move it in the cloud and activate a new computer after that. At least this was the case in the past. Have they change something?

Plugin Alliance is really not great in my book. But I like the USB option. You can't deactivate a license. OS update or a new computer and one activation is gone. After 7(?) times you have to contact the support to reinstall.

[antic604]

Why can't Waves just look at Plugin Alliance, which is such a dream to license and install?

Is it, though? Last time I checked - 5-6 months ago - their installer couldn't really tell what is already installed, if there are any upgrades for my stuff, etc. basic things. Is it better now?

[v1o]

They're bitmaps so they'd have to redraw the graphics for literally 100's of plugins. The alternative would be to use some sort of AI powered upscaling from the likes of Nvidia. But I dont think Waves are that savvy.

[v1o]

Why can't Waves just look at Plugin Alliance, which is such a dream to license and install?

Is it, though? Last time I checked - 5-6 months ago - their installer couldn't really tell what is already installed, if there are any upgrades for my stuff, etc. basic things. Is it better now?

Yes the PA installer doesn't know what is installed and isn't. It also doesn't know what is up to date and what is out of date. It can't even activate licenses or repair/uninstall installations.

[antic604]

Yes the PA installer doesn't know what is installed and isn't. It also doesn't know what is up to date and what is out of date. It can't even activate licenses or repair/uninstall installations.

Well, then I'd say Waves' is better, because it can do all those things

Unless PA has some separate installer for people subscribing to their stuff? This I wouldn't know

[Rockatansky]

Waves V10 released June 2018. Waves V11 released October 2019. Waves V12 released October 2020. WUP lasts a year, and the new major versions are now released about a year apart. Coincidence? Bugfixes should be included in the product price by default and without charge. Skipping through the release notes, apart from bugfixes, there's hardly anything worthwhile regarding plugins. Most of the 'new' features are 'added presets' or 'added chains' or hardware drivers. Definitely nothing that I, as someone who doesn't use Waves hardware, would deem worthy of a 250€ update fee. Annually. Resizable windows is pretty cool, finally, but not 250€ cool. Catalina compatibility, which was the main selling point for the V11 update, is also pretty cool, but also not 250€ cool. Now, when do you think Waves will announce Big Sur and/or Apple Silicon compatibility? Later this year when it arrives? Or rather around October 2021?

[LoveEnigma18]

^Exactly, good point.

And that is why I was expecting Waves V12 to arrive this year and feature scalable GUIs, but it seems like a disappointing update after reading some posts here.

[AdvancedFollower]

They're bitmaps so they'd have to redraw the graphics for literally 100's of plugins. The alternative would be to use some sort of AI powered upscaling from the likes of Nvidia. But I dont think Waves are that savvy.

The designers who originally made those graphics worked at a higher resolution, so they should have saved the original, high-resolution, uncompressed bitmaps somewhere. Of course some of these plugins are literally decades old, so the source material might have been lost years ago.

[midi_transmission]

Waves V10 released June 2018. Waves V11 released October 2019. Waves V12 released October 2020. WUP lasts a year, and the new major versions are now released about a year apart. Coincidence? Bugfixes should be included in the product price by default and without charge. Skipping through the release notes, apart from bugfixes, there's hardly anything worthwhile regarding plugins. Most of the 'new' features are 'added presets' or 'added chains' or hardware drivers. Definitely nothing that I, as someone who doesn't use Waves hardware, would deem worthy of a 250€ update fee. Annually. Resizable windows is pretty cool, finally, but not 250€ cool. Catalina compatibility, which was the main selling point for the V11 update, is also pretty cool, but also not 250€ cool. Now, when do you think Waves will announce Big Sur and/or Apple Silicon compatibility? Later this year when it arrives? Or rather around October 2021?

yes,it's just crazy. it's like subscription with all the bad things and nothing from the good. at least for mac users who have to deal with these os updates. in windows you might skip them, but still one day you probably have to pay wup for something.

waves and roland should build a knowledge center 'how to create the worst plugin sales system for the customer on this planet'

and this is a pity because both have pretty good products, just destroyed by the sales people.

[XxEDxX]

I do not expect vendors to redo all bitmaps of their couple hundred plugins. Just upscaling is what all of these do and it makes the plugins at least usable again. It would be great if they'd redo their graphics engine one day and completely switch to vector graphics. But I also see this is a mammoth task and will results in new issues and crying customers.

[abi]

I can’t understand the complaints about wup. Do I like free updates? Sure. Did I have to pay for wup for any of the dozen waves plugins I own? Never, and that’s on a Mac since they introduced their wup.

[cprompt]

I guess IK plugins also don't look good when maximized.

No, the IK plugins look great when they're maximized. I just tried it and when I stretch out the GUI, it's blurry for a split second and then it redraws crisp and clear, text and graphics. They did a really good job with the resizing:

ik-resized.png

The designers who originally made those graphics worked at a higher resolution, so they should have saved the original, high-resolution, uncompressed bitmaps somewhere. Of course some of these plugins are literally decades old, so the source material might have been lost years ago.

With the older ones, I would agree, they were probably drawn at a low-ish resolution and maybe the source graphics got lost, who knows? But the later ones, well, there's no excuse there.

[DJMaytag]

So glad I've decided to move on from using Waves plugins except for a few rare instances. I'm making almost NO use of my Horizon bundle anymore, and I'm not even sure if it's worth getting WUP just to try to sell the bundle?

[LoveEnigma18]

I guess IK plugins also don't look good when maximized.

No, the IK plugins look great when they're maximized. I just tried it and when I stretch out the GUI, it's blurry for a split second and then it redraws crisp and clear, text and graphics. They did a really good job with the resizing:


ik-resized.png

Okay, thanks for the clarification. For some reasons I don't recall this behaviour with a couple of IK effects I have. I am on Windows btw (FWIW, Guitar Rig 6 Pro also has blurry graphics issue on Windows, noticeable at sizes > 120% on my 2K monitor). I will install those IK plugins again and check.

[schmerzschlag]

For some reasons I don't recall this behaviour with a couple of IK effects I have.

Neither does me. But I'm in the process of migrating to a new PC and re-install a lot of stuff these days. I very rarely use my IK stuff, but sometimes I do ... really. I very vaguely remember them as being a bit blurry, but they seem to have changed something, because they look better now. At least to me.