I stopped paying for new versions and hence stop using their plugins all together even though i had some good ones. I will take my business elsewhere. Thanks Waves for encouraging customers to stop doing business with you.👍
I think the only sort of reliable customer base they have now are the producers/engineers who swear by their plug-ins already and wouldn't want to go without them, and for whom the subscription fee is a non-issue no matter how long it goes for because it either pays for itself, or because FU money.
I used to have 🏴☠️ Waves. When I began making money I took the ethical choice of buying the plugins I used because I wanted to be safe about updates, etc. I "upgraded" from V11 to V12 and couldn't load any session that had a Waves plugin in it. It took me days to revert them and being able to open them correctly. From that point on all I did was find replacements for the Waves plugins I used. Not worth the hassle, smh...
Something similar happened to me in ‘09…except I lost every Waves setting on several projects. It was such a pain trying to repair the issue that I ended up remixing them. That’s when I learned there’s an alternative (often a better one) for almost every Waves plug-in. That’s when I also realized that I barely used 1/10th of the plug-ins in their bundle so abandoning Waves scaled back my plug-in count dramatically. And that’s also when I discovered the producer community. So lots of silver linings there.
@@jermaineinoue4919 that’s exactly me right now, exactly 4 waves plugins left to replace. For me it was the update plan needed to use my plugins on 2 PCs. (Studio and home) like come on it’s 2022. Of course I’m going to use my home time work a bit. Everyother plugin I own allows me to use them on at least 2 PCs, some even 3. I’m trying to find a good replacement for RBass and Mv2, vocal bender I think little alter boy its similar, and the SSL Master bus compressor that doesn’t brake the bank.
@@oscarpatxot659 my waves gems are CLA Mix Hub , Epic, SSL Bus ,Puigchild Peltec and CLA Mix down for some drive . I don't see the need to update them , cross that bridge when I have to lol. Sorry , late thoughts
Wave Extortion Plan indeed! They make you pay for what they call a new “version” but it’s not a new version, it’s just a new patch. No other company makes us pay for new patches/maintenance updates. An actual new version would mean new features which I’d be happy to pay for. I really wonder how much they’re hurting their company on the long run this way and when they’ll start to realise it.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I mean, once I realized what they were doing to me it was a pretty easy choice to just… find an alternative plug-in that won’t try to suck my wallet dry every year after I’ve already paid for it? Makes you wonder how many other people would make the same decision. I could see this blowing up in their face eventually and hopefully one day it will
@@hockeytalk6084 Same here, pretty much replaced them all (about 98%) with alternatives and I’ll be glad to replace those remaining 2% as well. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody saying that they like the WUP, so indeed I also really wonder who they’re catering to and how long they’ll last doing things this way.
I think the Waves Extortion Plan will be death by a thousand cuts for the company in the long run. When I first started music production I got sucked into buying loads of Waves plugins but after a few years realised they are just ripping us off. The WAP fees cannot be justified for a home studio user.
I did a video comparing a bunch of plugin companies and Waves landed on the bottom in terms of fairness. I think Waves devalued their products so much with these perpetual sales while reaching market saturation that they have no other way to make legitimate revenue. When I bought a new Mac I decided to bail on Waves completely. It was a tough decision but in the end I don't miss them. Maybe 1 or 2 plugins but I've pretty much replaced everything...
I was using their stuff for a while and eventually stopped using because it was impossible to load any project I had off WiFi without a Waves window popping up saying I had to reauthenticate my license. I decided it wasn't worth what those plugins were bringing to the table and stopped using them completely. Thanks for the video and discussing this topic!
Very balanced and honest points here. I bought Waves stuff a few years ago and got stung by exactly the issue you raise here. This seems like a very poor customer-retention business plan. It seems to have more in common with a subscription plan than with a lifetime licence. Other companies can be more expensive, but once you buy it, it’s yours. I would not buy another Waves product.
I had quite a few waves plugins form back in the day. then suddenly none of them worked and I needed to upgrade to newer version, but then I needed the "plan". so suddenly I couldn't use what I owned, and I had to rent.. its the most heinous and pissy thing I ever experience. felt like I was being held captive and suddenly every single song I mixed with waves had to be tended to.. I was pissed for a LOONG time and I cant imagine how this decision went down at the board meetings. insidious. same reasons I bailed from adobe.
I'm a windows guy, and I got hosed by the Waves Update. Waves enticed me to 'update my plugins' when I did, many of them no longer worked, and no way that I could find to downgrade.. just a bill to get everything working again. Deleted them all immediately.
This is very balanced. Lol At the beginning you showed the best parts of Waves. I was like “they sound pretty awesome compared to some shady companies. What’s wrong?”. But I get it now. Lol you were fair Cheers.
Spot on analysis. Once you "own" the plugins good luck keeping them working. Every time Windows did a big update I had to reactivate a plugin. Eventually they stopped working unless I paid for the upgrade plan. I ended up finding a new home with Plugin Alliance and Native Instruments. Far superior plugins in every way. Oh and I don't ever lose my ability to use their plugin just because Windows pushes another update with those brands. Waves can suck it lol
Native Instruments is 👌 used them for years with no issues and get big discounts on upgrade packages with Komplete. Guitar Rig is one of my go tos for a whole range of stuff for example, not just guitar.
@neonthunderbird I’ve been eyeballing the 9099, I already have the Lindell neve and the ssl 9000..might grab it on sale to try it out. PA is my favorite for plug-ins but I still use hdelay from waves. Waves makes me super paranoid about updating anything tho.
I've never bought the update plan. never had issues. OS and DAW is always up to date. You want to talk extortion? Avid, Slate, Adobe. I Still use a 2015 Macbook Pro for live recording. Don't update unless you NEED to . I don't need to. Everything works.
I recently purchased a few of their newer plug-ins (Harmony and a couple synths) outright, but didn't go for the memberships. Using Windows, and most of these plug-ins are the exact same as the Mercury bundle I purchased in 2007. Never had issues, and most are uninspiring, therefore go unused. Couldn't imagine needing support for something that hasn't changed in almost 2 decades... unless they plan on destabilizing them, in the future. This definitely seems like punishment for using Apple, because Waves is having trouble keeping up. Not a good look.
Yeah but even if you buy them "outright" you only get updates for a year for that plugin. Trust me I have bought a few myself. Every other company will give you a free update when it's bugs or GUI changes.
My LEGIT waves plugins just stopped working some days ago; I don't know why and don't know how to fix it; I tried many options, explanations, QA's, and more... nothing works! so I left with nonworking 4 plugins that I usually used in my production... what now? Just to accept the fact that they don't work more?
I pretty much stopped using Waves for my home studio when I got console 1. However I started using LV1 for live uses, and I have to say that platform is unbelievably flexible and can be great for a small footprint. So for me, I use waves live, but not into the studio anymore. I also make a living in live sound, so the updates don't bother me too much, it is a hard sell for me for my home studio though, that realistically costs me money to operate.
I built a new PC over the winter and authorized my plugins on the new system. Recently, I was having issues with my motherboard and I wanted to upgrade it anyways so I swapped it out. I then noticed my waves plugins got de-authorized. I contacted support and they told me I'd need to purchase a WUP for my existing plugins in order for them to allow me to authorize them to the new motherboard. What a scam. I had some engineer and producer friends warn me away from waves in the past and now I understand why. I'll definitely be telling others to avoid Waves from now on as well.
Exactly! 😂 You can't even access what you have already bought. The fact they can un athuorize something you already own and have rights for seems illegal but what do I know about the law.
Be it Mac or Windows: Just keep your professional workstation disconnected from the internet. No OS updates, no struggle, no nothing, just a relieable system with plugins that work forever.
Also only having 1 license sucks. The time it takes to load the waves plugins kinda sucks too. And some of the CPU usage sucks. I used to use them a lot. I was using them a while back on windows, and they are pretty stable, even without the updates, but the thing is there is now a lot more competition from other companies who are making better more useful plugins.
And that's why I stopped using waves plugins.. ive had about 10 plugins from waves and when the license period was over I said fuck waves.. so many other useful plugins that does the job and you have the plugin for ever, not worrying about when to buy a new license.
Waves better get with the sh*t before they get canceled like everything else these days... we need free updates, faster loading vsts, and more upgrades... and if not the beat community should boycott them into oblivion.. seriously tho
Software engineer here. Platforms and hardware change all the time, there are breaking changes introduced quite often. For instance we spent a day with my colleague today just for the sake of keeping a web service available today - just because underlying infrastructure changed. And that's 1 product out of a handful. Once you have so many products out there like Waves have you are in constant maintenance hell. Update comes and breaks something, people have a shitty random configuration (like me with an accent in my user name breaking sonible plugins' licensing system) and so on, and then you have to keep fixing shit. That is especially bad if the code is old and was written under tight deadlines... Of course someone needs to pay for all that wasted time. So it's not entirely immoral to ask for a pay for the updates. Then you have other options of course: discontinue old stuff (and as a cool move you can also open source them to let others fix the issues), having a minimal set of plugins and keep upgrading them (like FabFilter team does), having subscription model like PA has, etc.
I was taught Waves in my music production course. Over the years I found better replacements for pretty much every Waves plugin I used when I began producing because of this practice. I now only buy sub $100 plugins that are buy once own forever with free updates.
I've never seen a Waves plugin stop working due to not being updated... Ever, and I'm on Mac. Just have to run their plugin organizer every time you buy a plugin with a newer version, because if you don't the app will tell itself that they're ALL the new version when they're not, which will prevent the actual licenses from being recognized. It's a ridiculously simple thing to fix, but a lot of people apparently just jump to the conclusion that their plugins simply don't work anymore. Then they end up blowing more money for upgrades they don't actually need yet.
As a Windows user exactly this, updates don’t brake the software for me, but men needing the update plan for using them on my home PC as well on the studio… that did it for me. Only 4 waves plugins left to replace for good.
I'd say they have about 400 plugins that are obsolete.. they need to take 100 or 200 plugins and just bundle them together and give them out for free.. track and see how many people even downloads them.. lol I bet they would be surprised how many plugins nobody uses from them lol.. and companies like this are the reason I sleep well at night even though I have about 10 grand with of R2R plugins chilling on my HD 🤣
bought v11. 1 year later all the actual updates/bug fixes disappeared and im back to 11.0. bug fixes shouldnt be charged for. if your software is broken you're obligated to fix it.
Stopped using waves entirely when I transitioned to Apple Silicon and couldn’t care less about their stuff at this point. Cosmos is a handy free tool tho, albeit weirdly slow for no reason.
There's also the less-than-endearing habit that their "Waves Central" installer has of deciding that you're no longer running your plugins on the same computer you first installed them on and disabling everything. Thinking of upgrading your hard disk? Waves will think you have a new computer. Kiss your plugins goodbye. Update the BIOS? Waves thinks its a new computer. Both of these instances happened to me. After the first time it happened, I made sure to temporarily transfer my Waves licenses back to the cloud before making my system upgrades, then when I was done, run Waves Central again and reauthorise all my plugins. Didn't help. Next time I ran Waves Central, it decided I was using a different computer and nuked everything once again. And guess what? You're only allowed to recover your plugin licenses once every twelve months when this happens. I will never, ever buy another piece of software from them. It's just not worth the hassle.
Reduced it to only one Waves plugin, L2. No need to update that one I guess. Didn't like their Pultec versions much, Sheps Omni channel was fun, learned quite a few things from his plugin on however he highlighted settings within the plugin but that's that. Moved on, using Klanghelm, a lot. Love it
this is a problem I"m faced with right now!!....I upgraded to Ventura stupidly, and now my woes plugins won't work, even tho FL is telling me they're ok....smh...I knew better....
It is because of the reasons you mentioned I switched to console 1 and Softube Plugs with a dash of plugin alliance here and there. I bought the waves gold bundle years back and found myself hardly using them on Mac.
Like others here I used to use Waves on absolutley everything, but they just seemed to get more and more difficult to use (updates / installations / authentications . . . etc) to the point where I had to download (if I remember this right) something like 2GB of plugins just to update a single plugin, this - of course - made everything else stop working . . . I'm sure anyone who has used waves knows the rest of the story . . . 2 days later you've got 80% of your plugins back up and working, the rest you just have to abandon . . then you use other plugin brands, they bring out a new update or version, you download it, install it, 30 seconds later it's installed, authenticated and working . . . no separate plugin management centres or authenticators or download managers . . . or any of that stuff . . . anyhow, genuinely glad to have Waves off my system, I sank a fair amount of cash into Waves (maybe not as much as some people here, but at least £800+, which is a lot to me), but not having to deal with the horrible plugin admin makes walking away from the investment worth it.
Heres one for you, they have refused to allow me to register my plugins on a new iLok or computer forcing me to re-purchase Vocal Rider and CLA-2A each time I get a new device
I like their products and have a few such as vocal rider. I bought Ovox on a lark cause it was on sale. At some point I received a message saying that if I didn’t buy the plan they would not support it. It was a new product at the time and while I see a company not supporting a product FOREVER I would expect 4 years or so. This turned me off waves so I’ll never give them my money again. 😃
I collected a lot of waves plugings over the years, I liked them, and then out of no where my upgrade fees were 3 times the amount I paid for the plugins. I've stopped using them in favor of plugin alliance and anyone other than waves. Why force people to upgrade. I'm still on V9 and will be that untill I stop using them completely.
I have two MacBook Pros. I refuse to update the OS on either because I will take major losses by doing so. I just run with my old template and it still works.
CLA drums has some great transient shaping stuff but... the upgrade plan is absolute garbage and stops being supported on newer operating systems if you don't update. Terrible business plan. when I asked tech support about it they said just renew my plan. Will not be supporting waves ever again
The problem is most of us are not able to afford the cost for that huge amount of subscriptions on the market. We have to live and pay taxes. Many companies just think that everyone of their customers are doing music works for living...
Love the UA plug-ins have used them since 2008 no issues ever, have changed computers 4 times never had a problem. Several years ago I was recording a cd for a very retro 60s pop band. Thought it would be fun to use those Abbey Road plugins. Well upgrading those plugins two times, I didn’t buy the bundle, cost as much as the original price. Good bye to Waves I don’t miss them. Was at a studio a few weeks ago that was using Waves, I talked up the advantages of UA, he bought an Octo satellite the next week! Yahoo
I don't like that I don't know how they calculate the plan. The plugins I use most from them are the (gasp) auto-tune alternatives. Even with the update plan, still way cheaper than a Melodyne sub since I'm just a hobbyist who only uses it to quickly analyze what is off enough to rerecord and for real-time live correction. But when buying those, I took several other "free" plugins that I don't use that are included in my update price. If I knew I had to pay for updates later, would have just stuck with the two plugins I actually use.
I agree, that's why I felt like it was worth mentioning in this video. I actually have used real-time tuning in the past, definitely an affordable alternative to a lot of other tuning software.
At this point I only support plug ins that do one time payment. Fabfilter for example are one time payment and we got plenty of updates for free. Even M1 support was free.
I don't do the update and I have had no problems for years and have bounced my plug ins from one computer to another and updated system several times, granted I am a windows user. I guess I am one of the lucky ones I love my waves stuff. Sorry to hear other people have had issues changing systems ect.
If Ableton and Native instruments can push out updates constantly for free software then there is no excuse for charging money for updates for much lower quality products.
waves sucks. stopped using it when i upgraded my computer and didn’t even bother downloading the software. it was all way too complicated with the various licenses i had/number of license centers i needed to run everything. think i had versions 9, 10, and 11 all installed at the same time and at one point i screwed all my existing projects up because i did something wrong they need to get rid of wup and have one place for plugin management like native instruments/softube/etc also, it’s very funny how 90% of their stuff still looks like they were made in 2001
i would like to review their products, i havent had time to tbh. Maybe i will on a week where nothing new comes out. I think their loops/samples are pretty decent. Haven't experimented much with their plugins yet though.
I’ve only been using Waves plugins for around 1 year, has become my primary I’d say, and I’ve heard about this problem but never experienced it, somehow. I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time…
The worst is when you buy Waves plugins at different times of the year. That $260 cap is per each WUP purchase, not per year. You can end up spending much more annually unless you buy everything around the same time or if you let the plans lapse on some of your plugins to line up with buying the WUPs in one go annually. They know this situation happens often, and they certainly want it to. That's why they try to get you to buy plugins throughout the year with those sales. If you do that, then it puts you in a crap situation where you would be buying the WUP more than once per year and possibility going over the $260 over the course of a year. This is especially true if you have a lot of plugins with them already, but the purchase dates are from different times in the year. So, If they ever come out with a plugin that I want, I wait until around the time that would be renewing the WUP for the plugins I already have anyways so I never have to go over the $260 in a given year. If I were new at producing and music-making, and knew this info going in, I'd never buy a single Waves plugin. But alas, I have a huge amount of Waves plugins connected with so many projects. Unless I want the plugins to break on my existing projects with MacOS updates, I'm kinda stuck with WUP. It's akin to your local drug dealer giving you cheap/free stuff just to get you "hooked", knowing you might well be paying 'em much more later. If you're new to this game, stay far away from Waves.
I was about to drop a couple hundred on some waves bundles but. after hearing about the on going extortion, NOPE . ill invest my money elsewhere . y'all know of any good plug in bundles?
I hope waves sees what everyone thinks of their scam. I'm on PC so I'm not as hurt by all this but I have been forced to pay for the updates in the past and right now I can't use waves plug-ins on my laptop, only my main PC because I'm not paying for the plan again.
I do no sub plans except for a few months a year I will pay for loopcloud for some sounds. Why wld I pay a monthly fee for a tool that I can use for free?
I take issue with the statement that "99% of software companies don't charge for updates." Because a good chunk of my Plugin Alliance stuff won't run on my Mac Studio (even in Rosetta). To pay for "updates" for them means buying a newer version of the plugin, which is way more than the Waves update plan. Native Instruments hasn't even updated anything for M1 but Kontakt, and though I would gladly pay for them not to abandon plugins, they do it all the time. iZotope released a list of stuff that will work in Rosetta, and my copy of of Ozone (8) wasn't on the list, nor would it install. So I bought Ozone 9 and had troubles with it too. When their support got back to me, they basically said, "my bad... Ozone 8 does work in Rosetta with this special installer we hid from the general public." (So I wasted my money on Ozone 9. $99 upgrade.) I have actually never had to pay for WUP in the 12 years now that I have been a Waves customer. I just kept updating my bundle until I reached Mercury last year. It was cheaper than WUP and all my Waves stuff works natively. The anti-Waves videos are so click-baity but never compare apples to apples. And make a lot of genuinely false staements like "99% of software companies don't charge for updates."
@@officialvisaural I do as well, but years of projects that used DSM v2 or bx_digital v2 are all broken now. As somebody who has made music for 30 years, I can appreciate continuity. And it costs money to do so. Which is why I can't fault anybody who charges for updates. Still, your statement that "99% of software companies..." is just false.
@@Crowbar11115 heres that one guy with the useless input. "yeah it's YOUR fault that you want to use the newest hardware and have your software still work on it."
When you update it automatically gives you an upgraded licence for the new version. So that's not a good example. So yes, you have been paying for an update. Also, if you bought the mercury bundle 12 years ago then by now you would of been forced to update. And from this point on you will pay to update and your coverage only lasts 1 year. Also, "I take issue with 99% of software companies don't charge for updates". Then you only name 2 companies and 1 of those companies does not charge for all updates (native instruments). They only charge for major updates which generally happens no more than 3 times a decade lol. People usually do not complain for these updates as new features are added to the plugin, sometimes the features are so good it's like a new plugin. I think about 70% of companies charge for updates. The difference between them and waves 1) they DO translate 2) you don't have to buy a weird 'waves plan Coverage'... What even Is that? Oh it's a time frame of 1 year coverage and support. It's a strange business model and waves are the odd ones out here. They do it to fit in with the "buy 2 plugins get 100 free" sale they have on for 11months a year. With other companies it seems to me like they focus on bringing new features to a product and then charging to update. With waves you just need to update with no new features cos? What reason. They didn't wanna translate or they want you to pay to get rid of bugs. Or they change the GUI eventhough nobody asked for it. What are u updating on your end? Like what does the consumer gain. It doesn't even matter what the price of the update is TBF it's the principal. Even if I pay $1 what do I get? I use ozone 8 elements, ozone 9 and komplete bundle on M1 and have had 0 issues. I did not even download anything extra. It just translated itself. But I did have a brand new Mac so maybe that's why. I use plugins from about 15-25 different companies and none of the others had this issue. Are all of these plugins compatible? No. Most are translated. With the other plugins you mention like ozone... You can use them on M1, it's your own mistake you give as an example lmao. With waves you have to pay to use it on M1 even if you have already purchased it (unless it was less than 1 year ago then your MOT aka coverage will freely update you). If you can use waves plugins on M1 it means you have the latest version which means you spent money with waves in the last 24 months (doesn't matter if u upgrade or update) u still spent money with them lmao. Yeah... The point is with the other companies I didn't have to do this. I bought komplete n ozone 3 years ago and have not spent a extra penny or dime on it. Same with RC20, serum, soothe2 etc... The list goes on. For some reason these companies translate on roseeta but waves doesn't. Plugin alience? What about NI, soundtoys, Arturia etc...? I mean they all work fine on M1. U only mention 1 company. It's not anti waves. We are tryna tell waves "hey we love your products but this weird business model that you introduced a few years ago, is a bit... odd"? It's called feedback. Isn't that what any business wants from its consumers? TLDR: If you used waves on a windows pc but then swapped to a new M1 Mac, did you HAVE to purchase a upgrade? YES Did you HAVE to do this with any other plugins? NO. Nobody forced you to buy ozone 9. Your mistake. Most other plugins run fine in Rosetta n you know this. Oh except for plugin alience too. So 2 companies.
Vocal Rider is my one plugin that I can't replace, it saves a lot of time. Other than that I have some others I use but already own their replacement when I decide to ditch them.
This is a very relevant video! I wonder if the way around this is by subscribing to their Platinum Plus plan? It appears that the complexity you elaborated upon can be avoided by the user by employing one of the 3 Waves subscription services, as lifetime updates and personal support are both guaranteed therein. But to your point, yeah, this is a very BIG problem with Waves Audio! Thanks so much for sharing this info! 😀
Downloaded the CR8 sampler a couple months back when it was on sale for a $1 or some shit. Love the sampler plugin itself...but the Cosmos sample finder app that's integrated with it literally crashes every time you open it. This is a known problem and has been for months - still not fixed. The waves download manager app crashes too! Been buying VST's since 2013 and never had any real issues with anything other than waves plugins...
I stopped buying Waves extortion plan after I purchased the API bundle and Kramer tape plugin. It seems I needed an "update" every new year. screw that and screw them. Never again.
I stopped updating my OS X a long time ago. Stopped upgrading Logic Pro as well. Only bad thing is I can’t buy the new plug-ins from Waves because they don’t make them in older versions like V11 or 12. That’s how they get you.
Security updates and reskins DON'T translate to ANY audio processing difference. Most of the time that is all it is. I am ONLY now updating my studio rig from Win XP 64bit. Ya really. Building an entirely new PC because I simply can't use any new plugins coming out.
Waves Windows users do have a problem with version updates. If I'm on Version 10 or 11 and my clients are on version 6, or 7, their plugins won't work when I get their projects. And if I try to install those older versions, it's a big hassle.
I don’t care for the Update Plan and I find navigating installation and system requirements to be a pain. All that being said, I am a pretty big fan of a number of their plugins and use them regularly - CLA76, SSL E-Channel, RComp, Q EQs. My general approach is to only do updates when I have to and as such have only paid to update my Waves stuff once in about 5 years.
tbh, @ 2:30, I feel the need to inform you that an update to run properly is all I need..That alone will keep me as a customer. I'll even pay for a GUI update if it's good enough.
I have quite a bit of Waves products. By the time the updates stop coming, two things are certain: 1. Any bugs I might have had have been resolved, and I don't care about getting any additional presets; or 2. The plugin was a piece of crap, and will be deleted. I have NEVER done any of the Waves Update plans. To me that's just a blatant cash grab. And for the record, I never had to delete any of the plugins since I purchased them.
I keep my studio computer back in windows xp. It has worked great for years. I keep my Mac back in mavericks. As soon as I update one OS version I have hardware that becomes incompatible
Plugin companies face the problem of market saturation. Just like the car industry in the US. If everyone has one, nobody will buy a new one. They have to get creative...
I gotta agree with you 100%. I had bought the Waves Silver Bundle and Tony Maserati collection. And now they want me to pay like $60+ to upgrade to the v12 version on my new Mac OSX. I believe once you buy something, it should be yours forever! You shouldn’t have to keep paying for upgrades or updates! Especially when your just fixing or updating what should have already been there in the first place. It’s not like they are giving you a brand new plugin with a new GUI. I think all updates/upgrades should be free, especially for the amount of money they charge us for plugins and software these days. Subscription plans for software is also a ripoff. Sorry Pro Tools! (Not!).
When I first started I used a few of their plugins and quickly realized that it was mostly gimmicks and rip offs and didn't truly help my mixes nor sound. I do use any of their products anymore and are mainly BX, stock, Fabfilter and outboard gear with a stronger emphasis on outboard.
Unfortunately not many people talking about this waves problem. They should instead just go for a subscription model, that will be the same and at least being clear for the consumers
I'm with ya. I'm not a fan of the way Waves dies business. Just upgraded my computer to M1 MacBook. Half my Waves plugins are null so to use my "favs" I have to bounce back and forth between systems. Definitely won't buy anything else from Waves.
I have a few Waves plugins but I didn't always go for the updates when I was supposed to. I'm not one for buying plugins much. I have a few that I use and I'm happy with them. These are the stock ones that come with Cubase. Once the Waves ones that I bought stopped working, I said screw it. If something that I bought isn't going to continue to work, why buy more from that company? I have free ones that work great and have continues to work through the various incarnations of Cubase that I've used.
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I stopped paying for new versions and hence stop using their plugins all together even though i had some good ones. I will take my business elsewhere. Thanks Waves for encouraging customers to stop doing business with you.👍
I think the only sort of reliable customer base they have now are the producers/engineers who swear by their plug-ins already and wouldn't want to go without them, and for whom the subscription fee is a non-issue no matter how long it goes for because it either pays for itself, or because FU money.
I used to have 🏴☠️ Waves. When I began making money I took the ethical choice of buying the plugins I used because I wanted to be safe about updates, etc. I "upgraded" from V11 to V12 and couldn't load any session that had a Waves plugin in it. It took me days to revert them and being able to open them correctly. From that point on all I did was find replacements for the Waves plugins I used. Not worth the hassle, smh...
Something similar happened to me in ‘09…except I lost every Waves setting on several projects. It was such a pain trying to repair the issue that I ended up remixing them. That’s when I learned there’s an alternative (often a better one) for almost every Waves plug-in. That’s when I also realized that I barely used 1/10th of the plug-ins in their bundle so abandoning Waves scaled back my plug-in count dramatically. And that’s also when I discovered the producer community. So lots of silver linings there.
There are 4 waves plugins I really love . I'm finding ways to not use the rest. Ableton stock and a few others doing it for me
@@jermaineinoue4919 that’s exactly me right now, exactly 4 waves plugins left to replace. For me it was the update plan needed to use my plugins on 2 PCs. (Studio and home) like come on it’s 2022. Of course I’m going to use my home time work a bit. Everyother plugin I own allows me to use them on at least 2 PCs, some even 3. I’m trying to find a good replacement for RBass and Mv2, vocal bender I think little alter boy its similar, and the SSL Master bus compressor that doesn’t brake the bank.
@@oscarpatxot659 BX has a similar plugin that's free.
@@oscarpatxot659 my waves gems are CLA Mix Hub , Epic, SSL Bus ,Puigchild Peltec and CLA Mix down for some drive . I don't see the need to update them , cross that bridge when I have to lol.
Sorry , late thoughts
Wave Extortion Plan indeed! They make you pay for what they call a new “version” but it’s not a new version, it’s just a new patch. No other company makes us pay for new patches/maintenance updates. An actual new version would mean new features which I’d be happy to pay for. I really wonder how much they’re hurting their company on the long run this way and when they’ll start to realise it.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I mean, once I realized what they were doing to me it was a pretty easy choice to just… find an alternative plug-in that won’t try to suck my wallet dry every year after I’ve already paid for it? Makes you wonder how many other people would make the same decision. I could see this blowing up in their face eventually and hopefully one day it will
@@hockeytalk6084 Same here, pretty much replaced them all (about 98%) with alternatives and I’ll be glad to replace those remaining 2% as well. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody saying that they like the WUP, so indeed I also really wonder who they’re catering to and how long they’ll last doing things this way.
I think the Waves Extortion Plan will be death by a thousand cuts for the company in the long run. When I first started music production I got sucked into buying loads of Waves plugins but after a few years realised they are just ripping us off. The WAP fees cannot be justified for a home studio user.
I did a video comparing a bunch of plugin companies and Waves landed on the bottom in terms of fairness. I think Waves devalued their products so much with these perpetual sales while reaching market saturation that they have no other way to make legitimate revenue. When I bought a new Mac I decided to bail on Waves completely. It was a tough decision but in the end I don't miss them. Maybe 1 or 2 plugins but I've pretty much replaced everything...
I was using their stuff for a while and eventually stopped using because it was impossible to load any project I had off WiFi without a Waves window popping up saying I had to reauthenticate my license. I decided it wasn't worth what those plugins were bringing to the table and stopped using them completely. Thanks for the video and discussing this topic!
Very balanced and honest points here. I bought Waves stuff a few years ago and got stung by exactly the issue you raise here. This seems like a very poor customer-retention business plan. It seems to have more in common with a subscription plan than with a lifetime licence. Other companies can be more expensive, but once you buy it, it’s yours. I would not buy another Waves product.
I had quite a few waves plugins form back in the day. then suddenly none of them worked and I needed to upgrade to newer version, but then I needed the "plan". so suddenly I couldn't use what I owned, and I had to rent.. its the most heinous and pissy thing I ever experience. felt like I was being held captive and suddenly every single song I mixed with waves had to be tended to.. I was pissed for a LOONG time and I cant imagine how this decision went down at the board meetings. insidious. same reasons I bailed from adobe.
Just for the iStock picture in the background alone you deserve a Grammy 😂❤❤❤
I'm a windows guy, and I got hosed by the Waves Update. Waves enticed me to 'update my plugins' when I did, many of them no longer worked, and no way that I could find to downgrade.. just a bill to get everything working again. Deleted them all immediately.
This is very balanced. Lol
At the beginning you showed the best parts of Waves. I was like “they sound pretty awesome compared to some shady companies. What’s wrong?”.
But I get it now. Lol you were fair
Cheers.
Spot on analysis. Once you "own" the plugins good luck keeping them working. Every time Windows did a big update I had to reactivate a plugin. Eventually they stopped working unless I paid for the upgrade plan. I ended up finding a new home with Plugin Alliance and Native Instruments. Far superior plugins in every way. Oh and I don't ever lose my ability to use their plugin just because Windows pushes another update with those brands. Waves can suck it lol
Native Instruments is 👌 used them for years with no issues and get big discounts on upgrade packages with Komplete. Guitar Rig is one of my go tos for a whole range of stuff for example, not just guitar.
Plugin alliance is the shit 👌
@@kilomandarin9950 guitar rig is dope, NI has some solid effects …I used Raum all the time…love that thing.
@neonthunderbird I’ve been eyeballing the 9099, I already have the Lindell neve and the ssl 9000..might grab it on sale to try it out. PA is my favorite for plug-ins but I still use hdelay from waves. Waves makes me super paranoid about updating anything tho.
@neonthunderbirdok bet I'm going to check it out for sure, same too you man!
Waves audio stole from my family.
I've never bought the update plan. never had issues. OS and DAW is always up to date. You want to talk extortion? Avid, Slate, Adobe. I Still use a 2015 Macbook Pro for live recording. Don't update unless you NEED to . I don't need to. Everything works.
Spot on!
Don't buy waves products!
Stay clear of that company!
I have decided to never use a Waves plugin again ...
I gave up on waves many years ago
I recently purchased a few of their newer plug-ins (Harmony and a couple synths) outright, but didn't go for the memberships. Using Windows, and most of these plug-ins are the exact same as the Mercury bundle I purchased in 2007. Never had issues, and most are uninspiring, therefore go unused.
Couldn't imagine needing support for something that hasn't changed in almost 2 decades... unless they plan on destabilizing them, in the future. This definitely seems like punishment for using Apple, because Waves is having trouble keeping up. Not a good look.
Yeah but even if you buy them "outright" you only get updates for a year for that plugin. Trust me I have bought a few myself. Every other company will give you a free update when it's bugs or GUI changes.
Wish I had the Mercury bundle. Way out of my budget though.
My LEGIT waves plugins just stopped working some days ago; I don't know why and don't know how to fix it; I tried many options, explanations, QA's, and more... nothing works! so I left with nonworking 4 plugins that I usually used in my production... what now? Just to accept the fact that they don't work more?
I pretty much stopped using Waves for my home studio when I got console 1. However I started using LV1 for live uses, and I have to say that platform is unbelievably flexible and can be great for a small footprint. So for me, I use waves live, but not into the studio anymore. I also make a living in live sound, so the updates don't bother me too much, it is a hard sell for me for my home studio though, that realistically costs me money to operate.
They wonder why people “permanently borrow” their products
I built a new PC over the winter and authorized my plugins on the new system. Recently, I was having issues with my motherboard and I wanted to upgrade it anyways so I swapped it out. I then noticed my waves plugins got de-authorized. I contacted support and they told me I'd need to purchase a WUP for my existing plugins in order for them to allow me to authorize them to the new motherboard. What a scam. I had some engineer and producer friends warn me away from waves in the past and now I understand why. I'll definitely be telling others to avoid Waves from now on as well.
Exactly! 😂
You can't even access what you have already bought. The fact they can un athuorize something you already own and have rights for seems illegal but what do I know about the law.
@@kahyui2486 yeah, the WUP was over twice the cost of what I paid for the plugins in the first place lmao
I left Waves four years ago and have not looked back since.
Be it Mac or Windows: Just keep your professional workstation disconnected from the internet. No OS updates, no struggle, no nothing, just a relieable system with plugins that work forever.
amen. I'm still connected to the internet but my updates across all programs and systems are turned the heck off
Also only having 1 license sucks. The time it takes to load the waves plugins kinda sucks too. And some of the CPU usage sucks. I used to use them a lot. I was using them a while back on windows, and they are pretty stable, even without the updates, but the thing is there is now a lot more competition from other companies who are making better more useful plugins.
Especially since more and more home studios have a laptop for remote use AND a more powerful home computer.
And that's why I stopped using waves plugins.. ive had about 10 plugins from waves and when the license period was over I said fuck waves.. so many other useful plugins that does the job and you have the plugin for ever, not worrying about when to buy a new license.
Waves better get with the sh*t before they get canceled like everything else these days... we need free updates, faster loading vsts, and more upgrades... and if not the beat community should boycott them into oblivion.. seriously tho
It’s not even really a boycott for me, I seriously don’t think their stuff is that great. It’s usable but there’s better out there.
I'm not sure if you're pro cancelculture or not
Software engineer here. Platforms and hardware change all the time, there are breaking changes introduced quite often. For instance we spent a day with my colleague today just for the sake of keeping a web service available today - just because underlying infrastructure changed. And that's 1 product out of a handful. Once you have so many products out there like Waves have you are in constant maintenance hell. Update comes and breaks something, people have a shitty random configuration (like me with an accent in my user name breaking sonible plugins' licensing system) and so on, and then you have to keep fixing shit. That is especially bad if the code is old and was written under tight deadlines...
Of course someone needs to pay for all that wasted time. So it's not entirely immoral to ask for a pay for the updates.
Then you have other options of course: discontinue old stuff (and as a cool move you can also open source them to let others fix the issues), having a minimal set of plugins and keep upgrading them (like FabFilter team does), having subscription model like PA has, etc.
I was taught Waves in my music production course. Over the years I found better replacements for pretty much every Waves plugin I used when I began producing because of this practice. I now only buy sub $100 plugins that are buy once own forever with free updates.
I've never seen a Waves plugin stop working due to not being updated... Ever, and I'm on Mac. Just have to run their plugin organizer every time you buy a plugin with a newer version, because if you don't the app will tell itself that they're ALL the new version when they're not, which will prevent the actual licenses from being recognized. It's a ridiculously simple thing to fix, but a lot of people apparently just jump to the conclusion that their plugins simply don't work anymore. Then they end up blowing more money for upgrades they don't actually need yet.
As a Windows user exactly this, updates don’t brake the software for me, but men needing the update plan for using them on my home PC as well on the studio… that did it for me. Only 4 waves plugins left to replace for good.
I'd say they have about 400 plugins that are obsolete.. they need to take 100 or 200 plugins and just bundle them together and give them out for free.. track and see how many people even downloads them.. lol I bet they would be surprised how many plugins nobody uses from them lol.. and companies like this are the reason I sleep well at night even though I have about 10 grand with of R2R plugins chilling on my HD 🤣
a nice statement though, yeah waves always gets pirated because of you know that... but they hope waves decided to make a good choice.
bought v11. 1 year later all the actual updates/bug fixes disappeared and im back to 11.0. bug fixes shouldnt be charged for. if your software is broken you're obligated to fix it.
True
Stopped using waves entirely when I transitioned to Apple Silicon and couldn’t care less about their stuff at this point. Cosmos is a handy free tool tho, albeit weirdly slow for no reason.
There's also the less-than-endearing habit that their "Waves Central" installer has of deciding that you're no longer running your plugins on the same computer you first installed them on and disabling everything. Thinking of upgrading your hard disk? Waves will think you have a new computer. Kiss your plugins goodbye. Update the BIOS? Waves thinks its a new computer. Both of these instances happened to me. After the first time it happened, I made sure to temporarily transfer my Waves licenses back to the cloud before making my system upgrades, then when I was done, run Waves Central again and reauthorise all my plugins. Didn't help. Next time I ran Waves Central, it decided I was using a different computer and nuked everything once again. And guess what? You're only allowed to recover your plugin licenses once every twelve months when this happens. I will never, ever buy another piece of software from them. It's just not worth the hassle.
Reduced it to only one Waves plugin, L2. No need to update that one I guess. Didn't like their Pultec versions much, Sheps Omni channel was fun, learned quite a few things from his plugin on however he highlighted settings within the plugin but that's that. Moved on, using Klanghelm, a lot. Love it
Sure hopes the waves people read these comments, totally agree with the sentiment!
this is a problem I"m faced with right now!!....I upgraded to Ventura stupidly, and now my woes plugins won't work, even tho FL is telling me they're ok....smh...I knew better....
It is because of the reasons you mentioned I switched to console 1 and Softube Plugs with a dash of plugin alliance here and there. I bought the waves gold bundle years back and found myself hardly using them on Mac.
Like others here I used to use Waves on absolutley everything, but they just seemed to get more and more difficult to use (updates / installations / authentications . . . etc) to the point where I had to download (if I remember this right) something like 2GB of plugins just to update a single plugin, this - of course - made everything else stop working . . . I'm sure anyone who has used waves knows the rest of the story . . . 2 days later you've got 80% of your plugins back up and working, the rest you just have to abandon . . then you use other plugin brands, they bring out a new update or version, you download it, install it, 30 seconds later it's installed, authenticated and working . . . no separate plugin management centres or authenticators or download managers . . . or any of that stuff . . . anyhow, genuinely glad to have Waves off my system, I sank a fair amount of cash into Waves (maybe not as much as some people here, but at least £800+, which is a lot to me), but not having to deal with the horrible plugin admin makes walking away from the investment worth it.
Well might as well comment and say I feel screwed over by waves for this exact reason. Fix your style waves.
Heres one for you, they have refused to allow me to register my plugins on a new iLok or computer forcing me to re-purchase Vocal Rider and CLA-2A each time I get a new device
I like their products and have a few such as vocal rider. I bought Ovox on a lark cause it was on sale. At some point I received a message saying that if I didn’t buy the plan they would not support it. It was a new product at the time and while I see a company not supporting a product FOREVER I would expect 4 years or so. This turned me off waves so I’ll never give them my money again. 😃
subscribed . great channel
I collected a lot of waves plugings over the years, I liked them, and then out of no where my upgrade fees were 3 times the amount I paid for the plugins. I've stopped using them in favor of plugin alliance and anyone other than waves. Why force people to upgrade. I'm still on V9 and will be that untill I stop using them completely.
I have two MacBook Pros. I refuse to update the OS on either because I will take major losses by doing so.
I just run with my old template and it still works.
I don’t update I keep my system to where everything works
CLA drums has some great transient shaping stuff but... the upgrade plan is absolute garbage and stops being supported on newer operating systems if you don't update.
Terrible business plan. when I asked tech support about it they said just renew my plan.
Will not be supporting waves ever again
Thank you plug in officer for your service.
i apprecaite the honesty from mr weaver, i laugh. and that's rare :D
The problem is most of us are not able to afford the cost for that huge amount of subscriptions on the market. We have to live and pay taxes. Many companies just think that everyone of their customers are doing music works for living...
I remeber a time, when WAVES was the gold Standart in plugins. And Star Trek was good ;-)
;-)
I have the entire bundle and I use the CLA76, GTR Rack, Rvox, Hverb, Hcomp, and SSL Channel Strip. That's it lol
The SSL console sucks compared to the BX ones
Love the UA plug-ins have used them since 2008 no issues ever, have changed computers 4 times never had a problem. Several years ago I was recording a cd for a very retro 60s pop band. Thought it would be fun to use those Abbey Road plugins. Well upgrading those plugins two times, I didn’t buy the bundle, cost as much as the original price. Good bye to Waves I don’t miss them. Was at a studio a few weeks ago that was using Waves, I talked up the advantages of UA, he bought an Octo satellite the next week! Yahoo
I don't like that I don't know how they calculate the plan. The plugins I use most from them are the (gasp) auto-tune alternatives. Even with the update plan, still way cheaper than a Melodyne sub since I'm just a hobbyist who only uses it to quickly analyze what is off enough to rerecord and for real-time live correction. But when buying those, I took several other "free" plugins that I don't use that are included in my update price. If I knew I had to pay for updates later, would have just stuck with the two plugins I actually use.
I agree, that's why I felt like it was worth mentioning in this video. I actually have used real-time tuning in the past, definitely an affordable alternative to a lot of other tuning software.
At this point I only support plug ins that do one time payment. Fabfilter for example are one time payment and we got plenty of updates for free. Even M1 support was free.
Extortion Plan 🤣. Love the rename.
It’s crazy circling back to this. Waves really messed up.
Love your console
I don't do the update and I have had no problems for years and have bounced my plug ins from one computer to another and updated system several times, granted I am a windows user. I guess I am one of the lucky ones I love my waves stuff. Sorry to hear other people have had issues changing systems ect.
I bought a few plugins on sales over time but I will probably not even install and activate those because of their update plans.
If Ableton and Native instruments can push out updates constantly for free software then there is no excuse for charging money for updates for much lower quality products.
waves sucks. stopped using it when i upgraded my computer and didn’t even bother downloading the software.
it was all way too complicated with the various licenses i had/number of license centers i needed to run everything. think i had versions 9, 10, and 11 all installed at the same time and at one point i screwed all my existing projects up because i did something wrong
they need to get rid of wup and have one place for plugin management like native instruments/softube/etc
also, it’s very funny how 90% of their stuff still looks like they were made in 2001
hey man i love the product police bit, i was wondering what your thoughts were on cymatics
i would like to review their products, i havent had time to tbh. Maybe i will on a week where nothing new comes out. I think their loops/samples are pretty decent. Haven't experimented much with their plugins yet though.
I’ve only been using Waves plugins for around 1 year, has become my primary I’d say, and I’ve heard about this problem but never experienced it, somehow. I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time…
The worst is when you buy Waves plugins at different times of the year. That $260 cap is per each WUP purchase, not per year. You can end up spending much more annually unless you buy everything around the same time or if you let the plans lapse on some of your plugins to line up with buying the WUPs in one go annually. They know this situation happens often, and they certainly want it to. That's why they try to get you to buy plugins throughout the year with those sales. If you do that, then it puts you in a crap situation where you would be buying the WUP more than once per year and possibility going over the $260 over the course of a year. This is especially true if you have a lot of plugins with them already, but the purchase dates are from different times in the year. So, If they ever come out with a plugin that I want, I wait until around the time that would be renewing the WUP for the plugins I already have anyways so I never have to go over the $260 in a given year. If I were new at producing and music-making, and knew this info going in, I'd never buy a single Waves plugin. But alas, I have a huge amount of Waves plugins connected with so many projects. Unless I want the plugins to break on my existing projects with MacOS updates, I'm kinda stuck with WUP. It's akin to your local drug dealer giving you cheap/free stuff just to get you "hooked", knowing you might well be paying 'em much more later. If you're new to this game, stay far away from Waves.
I was about to drop a couple hundred on some waves bundles but. after hearing about the on going extortion, NOPE . ill invest my money elsewhere . y'all know of any good plug in bundles?
Right on!
That will be a resounding NO to that mess..
I hope waves sees what everyone thinks of their scam. I'm on PC so I'm not as hurt by all this but I have been forced to pay for the updates in the past and right now I can't use waves plug-ins on my laptop, only my main PC because I'm not paying for the plan again.
I do no sub plans except for a few months a year I will pay for loopcloud for some sounds. Why wld I pay a monthly fee for a tool that I can use for free?
I've been avoiding Waves for years but Cosmos looks pretty cool. Holding off for now.
I take issue with the statement that "99% of software companies don't charge for updates." Because a good chunk of my Plugin Alliance stuff won't run on my Mac Studio (even in Rosetta). To pay for "updates" for them means buying a newer version of the plugin, which is way more than the Waves update plan. Native Instruments hasn't even updated anything for M1 but Kontakt, and though I would gladly pay for them not to abandon plugins, they do it all the time. iZotope released a list of stuff that will work in Rosetta, and my copy of of Ozone (8) wasn't on the list, nor would it install. So I bought Ozone 9 and had troubles with it too. When their support got back to me, they basically said, "my bad... Ozone 8 does work in Rosetta with this special installer we hid from the general public." (So I wasted my money on Ozone 9. $99 upgrade.)
I have actually never had to pay for WUP in the 12 years now that I have been a Waves customer. I just kept updating my bundle until I reached Mercury last year. It was cheaper than WUP and all my Waves stuff works natively.
The anti-Waves videos are so click-baity but never compare apples to apples. And make a lot of genuinely false staements like "99% of software companies don't charge for updates."
Software companies definitely charge for updates - but i have a lot of PA stuff that works natively on my M1 Pro MBP.
@@officialvisaural I do as well, but years of projects that used DSM v2 or bx_digital v2 are all broken now. As somebody who has made music for 30 years, I can appreciate continuity. And it costs money to do so. Which is why I can't fault anybody who charges for updates. Still, your statement that "99% of software companies..." is just false.
YOU opted for Mac. That's on you, man. You already knew Apple does constant OS nonsense. Don't complain because you made an avoidable choice.
@@Crowbar11115 heres that one guy with the useless input. "yeah it's YOUR fault that you want to use the newest hardware and have your software still work on it."
When you update it automatically gives you an upgraded licence for the new version. So that's not a good example. So yes, you have been paying for an update. Also, if you bought the mercury bundle 12 years ago then by now you would of been forced to update. And from this point on you will pay to update and your coverage only lasts 1 year.
Also, "I take issue with 99% of software companies don't charge for updates".
Then you only name 2 companies and 1 of those companies does not charge for all updates (native instruments). They only charge for major updates which generally happens no more than 3 times a decade lol. People usually do not complain for these updates as new features are added to the plugin, sometimes the features are so good it's like a new plugin. I think about 70% of companies charge for updates. The difference between them and waves
1) they DO translate
2) you don't have to buy a weird 'waves plan Coverage'... What even Is that? Oh it's a time frame of 1 year coverage and support. It's a strange business model and waves are the odd ones out here. They do it to fit in with the "buy 2 plugins get 100 free" sale they have on for 11months a year. With other companies it seems to me like they focus on bringing new features to a product and then charging to update. With waves you just need to update with no new features cos? What reason. They didn't wanna translate or they want you to pay to get rid of bugs. Or they change the GUI eventhough nobody asked for it. What are u updating on your end? Like what does the consumer gain. It doesn't even matter what the price of the update is TBF it's the principal. Even if I pay $1 what do I get?
I use ozone 8 elements, ozone 9 and komplete bundle on M1 and have had 0 issues. I did not even download anything extra. It just translated itself. But I did have a brand new Mac so maybe that's why.
I use plugins from about 15-25 different companies and none of the others had this issue. Are all of these plugins compatible? No. Most are translated.
With the other plugins you mention like ozone... You can use them on M1, it's your own mistake you give as an example lmao. With waves you have to pay to use it on M1 even if you have already purchased it (unless it was less than 1 year ago then your MOT aka coverage will freely update you).
If you can use waves plugins on M1 it means you have the latest version which means you spent money with waves in the last 24 months (doesn't matter if u upgrade or update) u still spent money with them lmao. Yeah... The point is with the other companies I didn't have to do this.
I bought komplete n ozone 3 years ago and have not spent a extra penny or dime on it. Same with RC20, serum, soothe2 etc... The list goes on. For some reason these companies translate on roseeta but waves doesn't.
Plugin alience? What about NI, soundtoys, Arturia etc...? I mean they all work fine on M1. U only mention 1 company.
It's not anti waves. We are tryna tell waves "hey we love your products but this weird business model that you introduced a few years ago, is a bit... odd"?
It's called feedback. Isn't that what any business wants from its consumers?
TLDR:
If you used waves on a windows pc but then swapped to a new M1 Mac, did you HAVE to purchase a upgrade? YES
Did you HAVE to do this with any other plugins? NO. Nobody forced you to buy ozone 9. Your mistake. Most other plugins run fine in Rosetta n you know this. Oh except for plugin alience too. So 2 companies.
I’ve subscribed to your channel.
Vocal Rider is my one plugin that I can't replace, it saves a lot of time. Other than that I have some others I use but already own their replacement when I decide to ditch them.
There’s other vocal riders out there. Hornet makes a free one (that can write automation)
@@ts4gv Good to know, I'm going to check it out.
This is a very relevant video! I wonder if the way around this is by subscribing to their Platinum Plus plan? It appears that the complexity you elaborated upon can be avoided by the user by employing one of the 3 Waves subscription services, as lifetime updates and personal support are both guaranteed therein. But to your point, yeah, this is a very BIG problem with Waves Audio! Thanks so much for sharing this info! 😀
Downloaded the CR8 sampler a couple months back when it was on sale for a $1 or some shit. Love the sampler plugin itself...but the Cosmos sample finder app that's integrated with it literally crashes every time you open it. This is a known problem and has been for months - still not fixed. The waves download manager app crashes too! Been buying VST's since 2013 and never had any real issues with anything other than waves plugins...
Cosmos was stuck in a loop for me, but it had something to do with too many folders. I'm using it lightly now.
Two words… Thank you..
I agree Weaver, especially when it comes to free updates form other companies, I’d pay extra for lifetime update and upgrades.
I’ve spent hundreds of dollars with waves. I stopped using any waves plugins in 2022 and beyond. For the reasons in your video.
I wanted to but waves audio plug ins, actually getting ready to tonight. Information is key. Im good on waves
I stopped buying Waves extortion plan after I purchased the API bundle and Kramer tape plugin. It seems I needed an "update" every new year. screw that and screw them. Never again.
I stopped updating my OS X a long time ago. Stopped upgrading Logic Pro as well. Only bad thing is I can’t buy the new plug-ins from Waves because they don’t make them in older versions like V11 or 12. That’s how they get you.
have been using V9 forever. never update anything. sounds fine. enjoy your MAC.
Security updates and reskins DON'T translate to ANY audio processing difference. Most of the time that is all it is. I am ONLY now updating my studio rig from Win XP 64bit. Ya really. Building an entirely new PC because I simply can't use any new plugins coming out.
Waves Windows users do have a problem with version updates. If I'm on Version 10 or 11 and my clients are on version 6, or 7, their plugins won't work when I get their projects. And if I try to install those older versions, it's a big hassle.
I don’t care for the Update Plan and I find navigating installation and system requirements to be a pain.
All that being said, I am a pretty big fan of a number of their plugins and use them regularly - CLA76, SSL E-Channel, RComp, Q EQs.
My general approach is to only do updates when I have to and as such have only paid to update my Waves stuff once in about 5 years.
How did you do that? Can you still use the plugins without the update?
@@mrr3547 So long as your OS still supports the version of the plugins you have installed / authorized you’ll be good to go.
remember back when, Waves where charging 10k for their bungles.. look at the bottom feeders now...
tbh, @ 2:30, I feel the need to inform you that an update to run properly is all I need..That alone will keep me as a customer. I'll even pay for a GUI update if it's good enough.
I have quite a bit of Waves products. By the time the updates stop coming, two things are certain:
1. Any bugs I might have had have been resolved, and I don't care about getting any additional presets; or
2. The plugin was a piece of crap, and will be deleted.
I have NEVER done any of the Waves Update plans. To me that's just a blatant cash grab.
And for the record, I never had to delete any of the plugins since I purchased them.
THIS , shelled out a bunch of money as a broke college student for these plug ins just to be hit with a “bill to pay for already bought plug ins 💀”
I keep my studio computer back in windows xp. It has worked great for years. I keep my Mac back in mavericks. As soon as I update one OS version I have hardware that becomes incompatible
I spent like 300 to update a handful to work on M1
Plugin companies face the problem of market saturation. Just like the car industry in the US. If everyone has one, nobody will buy a new one. They have to get creative...
I gotta agree with you 100%. I had bought the Waves Silver Bundle and Tony Maserati collection. And now they want me to pay like $60+ to upgrade to the v12 version on my new Mac OSX. I believe once you buy something, it should be yours forever! You shouldn’t have to keep paying for upgrades or updates! Especially when your just fixing or updating what should have already been there in the first place. It’s not like they are giving you a brand new plugin with a new GUI. I think all updates/upgrades should be free, especially for the amount of money they charge us for plugins and software these days. Subscription plans for software is also a ripoff. Sorry Pro Tools! (Not!).
When I first started I used a few of their plugins and quickly realized that it was mostly gimmicks and rip offs and didn't truly help my mixes nor sound. I do use any of their products anymore and are mainly BX, stock, Fabfilter and outboard gear with a stronger emphasis on outboard.
Unfortunately not many people talking about this waves problem.
They should instead just go for a subscription model, that will be the same and at least being clear for the consumers
I'm with ya. I'm not a fan of the way Waves dies business. Just upgraded my computer to M1 MacBook. Half my Waves plugins are null so to use my "favs" I have to bounce back and forth between systems. Definitely won't buy anything else from Waves.
I have a few Waves plugins but I didn't always go for the updates when I was supposed to. I'm not one for buying plugins much. I have a few that I use and I'm happy with them. These are the stock ones that come with Cubase. Once the Waves ones that I bought stopped working, I said screw it. If something that I bought isn't going to continue to work, why buy more from that company? I have free ones that work great and have continues to work through the various incarnations of Cubase that I've used.