🆓 Waves Gives Away Free Plugin for Black Friday

[LinkedMusicians]

Secure your copy:

FREE New Plugin

This Black Friday

This Black Friday, Nov 28, we are releasing a (VERY exciting) brand new plugin and we are giving away a limited number of licenses for free!

https://www.waves.com/black-friday-2025/free-plugin-signup

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
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3

[anxiousmofo]

The color says “distortion” but I’m trying to understand how a one knob distortion could be very exciting.

Tangled roots perplex her ways.

1

[Peter Woods]

On anxiousmofo said

The color says “distortion” but I’m trying to understand how a one knob distortion could be very exciting.

Tangled roots perplex her ways.

Stock promotion copy.

It’s exciting for Waves because they can market to everyone who registers for this and upsell, cross-sell, and then send us all new WUP reminders every year and make money. I’m guessing most people have noticed that I don’t bother posting Waves sales here, as they’re constantly running a sale — pretty much the same sale almost 52 weeks of the year. Our members are free to post those deals, but in all candor, I tend not to post deals from brands I find engage in less than good practices, and I would certainly put Waves in the category of engaging in certain marketing and promotional practices I — and the FTC and various country laws that are rarely enforced with small businesses — find to be less than ethical practices.  Waves’ promotions and plugins should come with a warning label explaining WUP. But I’m always game to post a Waves freebie — where people don’t have to spend money to see a WUP email down the road.

As plugin prices have greatly come down across the board, there really are very few Waves plugins that I would recommend to anyone, with the only ones being the Abbey Road line, if you’re a huge fan of that sound, like me.  Just a reminder to anyone reading this unfamilar with Waves, the company charges a fee — called Waves Update Plan — to keep your plugin up to date after the first year, and when you buy a Waves plugin, it can only be used on one computer. When you purchase WUP for that plugin, you get to use it on a second machine for 1 yr, then you have to pay an additional annual fee to use it in subsequent years. It’s kind of like a less straightforward way of doing a subscription fee.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

[LinkedMusicians]

The free plugin has been revealed. It’s Magma StressBox, a dynamics tool that “shapes musical tension and feel in real time – from intimate to explosive, in just one knob.” It apparently includes compression, enhances transients, and more.  Here’s a photo of the plugin:

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

4

[fretman]

Windows user here. I couldn’t register for this using Chrome or Brave. I had to move over to Edge.

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

1

[patrickwichrowski]

On fretman said

Windows user here. I couldn’t register for this using Chrome or Brave. I had to move over to Edge.

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

I use Brave and had to turn off some shields 😉

https://linktr.ee/patrickwichrowski/

https://patrickwichrowski.bandcamp.com/

[joegyork]

That looks a bit dull but then I am always more interested in instruments than effects

[Satya]

On joegyork said

That looks a bit dull but then I am always more interested in instruments than effects

waves dont make much intruments

[Xandre]

Cue for Magma StressboXXX with extra knobs to tweak, for only $199 to be released in parallel with the free version in 3.2.1….

1

[LinkedMusicians]

After looking at my collection of 50 or so Waves plugins — with probably more than three dozen that they’re trying to get me to spend money to bring to the latest versions with their fantastic WUP — I can easily say, except for the Abbey Road series plugins, I’m done with spending money on Waves. If any of my Waves plugins stop working (with the aforementioned exception of my Abbey Road plugins), I’ll just buy a similar plugin from another developer with better business practices.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

11

[jude77]

I quit Waves during the subscription fiasco and since then I can’t say I really missed them.

3

[LinkedMusicians]

On Xandre said

Cue for Magma StressboXXX with extra knobs to tweak, for only $199 to be released in parallel with the free version in 3.2.1….

We all know the drill. You’re absolutely right. It definitely is going to happen. Waves are very predictable. With developers like UAD, Black Rooster, Kiive, the numerous devs you find over at Plugin Alliance and United Plugins, and a bunch of other great, high quality indie devs that I can’t immediately recall the names of at the moment, there are way too many choices to put up with WUP, and single computer licenses from Waves. But I’ll still take a freebie, even knowing that it’s just a cut down version of something else they’re going to release very soon.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

1

[Brian]

On jude77 said

I quit Waves during the subscription fiasco and since then I can’t say I really missed them.

Same here.  I added their freebies to my account for a while in case I ever went back, but I don’t bother anymore.

1

[LinkedMusicians]

On Brian said

On jude77 said

I quit Waves during the subscription fiasco and since then I can’t say I really missed them.

Same here.  I added their freebies to my account for a while in case I ever went back, but I don’t bother anymore.

We have to give Waves credit for bringing down effects plugin prices. Without their always on $29 and $39 plugin sales, we wouldn’t have seen the rest of the market come down. Three years ago, if I told you that in the future you’d be able to buy native UAD plugins for less than $9 each in a bundle of 10, you would have likely thought that was far-fetched. But the best part about that is, we don’t have to buy Waves anymore. There are a ton of great alternatives. Although, I still haven’t replaced the Abbey Road stuff — I’m eager to do so.

I’m wondering — and anyone who feels strongly one way or other, please weigh in — is anyone disappointed that I don’t bother to post almost any Waves sales? I look at it this way, if you want to buy a Waves plugin, they’re always on sale for around the same prices. It seems a waste of time to bother posting the same sale adnauseum (pun intended), which is Waves promotional strategy.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

2

[fretman]

I like Waves, but the only reason to post a sale here is when they introduce something new (especially if it becomes part of their Mercury bundle).

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

2

[jude77]

On fretman said

I like Waves, but the only reason to post a sale here is when they introduce something new (especially if it becomes part of their Mercury bundle).

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

That’s pretty much the way I see it.

[Author]

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