Waves – Spend $50 get 1 free plugin. Spend $80 get 2 free plugins.

[Peter DeLegge]

Waves makes excellent plugins. I own more than 3 dozen of them. I try not to buy them anymore because I am not a fan of Waves marketing practices, their Waves Update Plan (WUP), and their constant sales. Any member of our community can feel free to post Waves sales. I mostly choose not to. If you miss the sale this week (it ends July 12), past history shows that another sale just as good will be on.

If you don’t have experience buying Waves’ plugins, here’s what I feel is important to understand:

– They’re constantly on sale. Don’t ever worry about missing a sale.

– Waves plugins only allow you to install them on one computer.

– You only get updates for your pllugin for 1 yr. If you want updates after that, you need to pay for Waves Update Plan (WUP).

– WUP gives you a one year license to install the plugin you bought it for on a second machine. After that year is up, you can pay for another year of WUP if you want to keep using the second machine.

– Waves makes very high quality plugins, although many are pretty old. The reason you see so many influencers talking them up is because Waves gives them money and free product for doing so. Yes, when influencers have their little discount and freebie codes — they’re making money off of that too. When people redeem those codes, it tells them which influencer drove the sale. Even a free sale has value to Waves, as they see it as lowering the costs of reaching a new potential customer over the costs of using traditional

advertising.

https://www.pluginboutique.com/manufacturers/411-Waves?a_aid=66fd59ee09bb9

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

4

[Brian]

I probably had $200 into their stuff when they briefly went subscription a couple years ago.  I kicked them off my system and ate my loss.  Even though they backed off the subscription plan rather quickly, I realized they gave me nothing that wasn’t covered by my numerous alternatives.  Always was a hassle anyway when you had old versions and had to keep them all working (without WUPing).  Waves remains on my ignore list.

2

[Peter DeLegge]

On Brian said

I probably had $200 into their stuff when they briefly went subscription a couple years ago.  I kicked them off my system and ate my loss.  Even though they backed off the subscription plan rather quickly, I realized they gave me nothing that wasn’t covered by my numerous alternatives.  Always was a hassle anyway when you had old versions and had to keep them all working (without WUPing).  Waves remains on my ignore list.

I can’t fault your logic. I give Waves credit for bringing down the price of high-quality plugins. When they started deep discounting the plugins that they were selling for $200 or more to $29 and $39, it changed pricing in the industry. The small developers followed, then finally, one that was hard to imagine coming down, Universal Audio, started selling plugins at similar prices. All things equal, I greatly prefer UAD plugins over Waves plugins. Then we can pick up SSL and other brands that were very expensive only a few years ago. It’s a lot like 8Dio and Cinesamples in the orchestral instrument sample library space, they are disruptors, game changers. But Waves plugins come with a catch — and their marketing practices are less than admirable.

We should do a thread about what we would buy if we were just starting out — knowing what we know now. My quick draft:

• UAD
• SSL
• Izotope
• Eventide
• Valhalla Reverbs
• Sottube
• FabFilter
• IK Amplitube Amp Sims
• Neural DSP Amp Sims

One series from Waves I love is the Abbey Road Series. I hope that UAD works with Abbey Road to replace them once the agreement with Waves expires.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

1

[fretman]

Also, WUP gives you plugins that get added to their various bundles. Recently they added Sync VX to Mercury which aligns various tracks and is a worthy competitor to Vocal Align Pro which costs about the same as WUP when on sale.

And, they are still updating their old plugins. Recent updates include GUI scaling for large displays. WUP gives you access to  all those.

And, you don’t have to WUP every year. Wait until the updates seem worth it and WUP at that time.

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

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