# What is WAVES up to?



## gsilbers (Oct 7, 2017)

They have been almost giving away their plugins and keep saying original price around $178 but you can now have it at $29. For YEARS. 

Is the WUP the end game? they know for some OS upgrade we will all have to pay up a lot more to make them compatible? 

I dont see a lot of talk about this and yet i find it odd they're prices are so low compared to other developers.


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## sostenuto (Oct 7, 2017)

gsilbers said:


> They have been almost giving away their plugins and keep saying original price around $178 but you can now have it at $29. For YEARS.
> 
> Is the WUP the end game? they know for some OS upgrade we will all have to pay up a lot more to make them compatible?
> 
> I dont see a lot of talk about this and yet i find it odd they're prices are so low compared to other developers.



Share your _uncertainties .... _Reputable company and few libs purchased are cool.
Surely there is 'end game' and WUP must be involved.

Very recently made major 'head-change' and signed up for Composer Cloud. Put aside irrational bias, and just looked at personal needs versus cost & alternatives. Quite pleased so far.
If Waves final WUP option is 'reasonable', guess it could be decent option ??


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## gsilbers (Oct 7, 2017)

sostenuto said:


> Share your _uncertainties .... _Reputable company and few libs purchased are cool.
> Surely there is 'end game' and WUP must be involved.
> 
> Very recently made major 'head-change' and signed up for Composer Cloud. Put aside irrational bias, and just looked at personal needs versus cost & alternatives. Quite pleased so far.
> If Waves final WUP option is 'reasonable', guess it could be decent option ??



i guess its a different ways for big developers ot keep a revenue stream. i mean, updating the plugins every time there is a OS change must be a pita. i do hate how adobe has it. its not easy at all to quit the adobe cloud thing. very sneaky and they dont want you to buy the software out right. that company is on my top 10 of shady. 

as for waves. i think there is a limit on what you pay for wup. i think its $300 but if everyone who bought waves has to pay around that price for all their plugins they bought at $30. it adds up. lets say its 30k poeple bought more than 15 plugins at $30. so the wup is about $300 then waves gets like $9 million. so im guessing their end game is for people to reach maximun wup.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Oct 7, 2017)

I think they have so many plugins that they're able to sell them for dirt cheap and still survive. I think Slate is really taking over their customers so I'm not sure what they're planning now. 

Personally I haven't found any of their newest plugins to be anything I want so I don't even look into them anymore.


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## kitekrazy (Oct 7, 2017)

There's just a lot more competition.


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## sostenuto (Oct 7, 2017)

kitekrazy said:


> There's just a lot more competition.



For sure !! Plugin Alliance gets me often with darn decent stuff at similar 'promo' costs. 
Supply / Demand Curve _still working _ .....


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## rrichard63 (Oct 7, 2017)

Waves is facing increasing competition from smaller developers -- including some one-person shops putting out really good plugins at reasonable prices. Several years ago, Waves could more or less dictate the pricing structure in this marketplace. Now they can't.

In addition, they have recovered the development cost of many of their older products. Lowering prices is the obvious way to sell more copies once many customers already have the ones they want.

Some other developers are adopting related pricing strategies (except for the WUP part), for example Plugin Alliance and Eventide. And some are aggressively promoting a subscription model, for example Slate.

Subscription models (WUP is a partial example) solve the cash flow problem for developers but create problems for many customers. But -- similar to the situation with download and authorization managers discussed in several Kontakt/Native Access threads -- there might not be much customers can do.


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## wst3 (Oct 7, 2017)

I'm a fan of any product that helps me get work done more quickly, extra points for a better result... or is it the other way around?

I do not mind subscription plans, if they are done fairly. So far the only one I've taken advantage of is Sonar - and the reason I think it is reasonable is that I can drop out and keep the product at the level where I dropped out. Composer cloud, if I understand correctly, actually removes access to the libraries if you exit the plan. Same goes for Slate.

WUP? My use of Waves goes back to Native Power Packs I & II, which required parallel port dongles, so I'm accustomed to their support model. I think - overall - it is fair. I don't need WUP until there is an update that I want. Then I am on the hook, max cost is $300 except for a couple times a year when it is reduced to $225.

I like UAD, Plugin-Alliance, Waves, PSP, Voxengo, SoundToys, and Zynaptiq - which is still far too many plugins really, but they each offer certain features that I like, so for now I'm sticking with them. I used to think it would be cool to own all of those, but these days I'm kind of grateful that I can't afford that!

Talk about a tangent!

Waves - I try really hard not to judge other folks business plans - I'm not in their shoes, can't hope to understand. I think Waves and UAD probably top the list in terms of R&D investments. I think Waves has probably recouped most of their investment, UAD is probably still recouping. Further, if you are a serious music/audio pro you probably already own at least some of their plugins. Add too that the increase in competition and you have a much smaller pool of prospects.

Interestingly, I've yet to run across anyone that invested in Waves back in the 1990s that has anything negative to say about the current pricing model. I've long since recouped my investment, and just recently took advantage of the anniversary sale to upgrade from Gold to Diamond. It was slightly less expensive than grabbing the handful of plugins I wanted to add separately, even at sale pricing. Someone did their homework!

So I think they are trying to stay relevant, and competitive.

Relevant - they are providing "one button" solutions, which is what a beginner really wants. If I ruled the world I'd probably make them even more complex, but that's me.
Competitive - can't argue that the constant sales cycle makes it pretty easy to get some very good tools for not a lot of money.

TL;DR
I hope the strategy works!


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## premjj (Oct 7, 2017)

That's the problem with figuring out an effective pricing model without affecting the customer's perception about the quality of your products.

Keep it high and it stands to gain from the premium positioning. But then very few people can afford it.

Drop the price really low and the customer suspects the product's true cost/quality.

If I did not have first hand experience, or a few good reviews, about how a product performs, chances are I will judge it basis how premium the pricing is.


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## jacobthestupendous (Oct 10, 2017)

They had Diamond on sale for $249 through their website at the Anniversary sale (and it was cheaper through some other channels). WUP must be part of the their future plans, because that's insane.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Oct 10, 2017)

I have a whole bunch of great Waves plug-ins that I use on every project. I purchased most of them for the ridiculous discount price of 29 bucks. If you look at it that way, I already got ridiculously much out of it.

I never had to update the plug-ins once in the last 3 years. Eventually when it's time to WUP at some point down the road, it's capped to 300 bucks for several more years of tons of high quality plug-in use. To me, that's more than fair. Some people dish out that kind of money for a single compressor and a reverb.


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## gsilbers (Oct 10, 2017)

jacobthestupendous said:


> They had Diamond on sale for $249 through their website at the Anniversary sale (and it was cheaper through some other channels). WUP must be part of the their future plans, because that's insane.



oh man i missed that one. i have most of them but it would be useful to have them also in the slave pc. that crazy cheap.


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## gsilbers (Oct 10, 2017)

premjj said:


> That's the problem with figuring out an effective pricing model without affecting the customer's perception about the quality of your products.
> 
> Keep it high and it stands to gain from the premium positioning. But then very few people can afford it.
> 
> ...



yes, i think that is backfiring. some engineers i talk to that are not too much into all the newest and coolest or follow forums , mentioned that they like more uad and that it sound better to them and that waves now its sucking. well, not that strong of words. 

i think this started when they hired a new main person/ceo. that they did this crazy discounts. 

i don't think its a competition thing to the bottom because that would mean they would try other things similar to UAD and waves has a lot more clout than slate. and waves could of done the subscription thing as well. they have their own licenser and means to easily do it. 

imo, i think they are banking in everyone buying it for cheap, using it in all their projects and having customers be so knee deep with their plugins that in the future they will have to do the wup if they want to use any old project or future ones with the plugins. and thats besides all the future OS upgrades at $300. with cheaper plugins upfront they forgo the subscription thing and bank on the WUP at $300. more cheap plugins means an easier $300 in the future from each and everyone of us. 

don't get me wrong, i still see it as a very good price even after paying $300 WUP for almost of of them.
but its just kind of weird how nowadays all pricing models are skewed and nothing is really free. (free=u are the product)

at $29 per plugins with so many pluginn and then the wup, I'm guessing they will get a chunk of change and they already figured the math will work for them.


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## premjj (Oct 11, 2017)

I sense version 10 round the corner.

By offering their plugins at almost up to 90% discounts through multiple and extended sales, as in the last few months, I think they are building up a high user base, kinda like a captive audience which they have a better chance of influencing when the next version is released.

Smart tactics considering the low attention span today's customer has because of the information overload coupled with them being spoilt for choices.

And I guess these sales also pull in the fence sitters which otherwise would not have taken the plunge. For e.g. buying the Diamond Bundle at $249 vs buying it at $2,999 !!

(@gsilbers : I missed seeing that one too. Don't think they sent a mailer on that one)


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## storyteller (Oct 11, 2017)

premjj said:


> I sense version 10 round the corner.


This... if I were guessing. Also, their 25th Anniversary UI updates on a handful of their original plugins hint at a possible UI overhaul on the plugins that now look a bit dated. But I'm not too worried about it. I don't think the current plugin standard is going anywhere anytime soon. And, even so, $300 is a great deal if that does come about. It just seems to be a win-win for everyone involved on both sides of their big sales. I like win-wins.


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## gsilbers (Oct 11, 2017)

storyteller said:


> This... if I were guessing. Also, their 25th Anniversary UI updates on a handful of their original plugins hint at a possible UI overhaul on the plugins that now look a bit dated. But I'm not too worried about it. I don't think the current plugin standard is going anywhere anytime soon. And, even so, $300 is a great deal if that does come about. It just seems to be a win-win for everyone involved on both sides of their big sales. I like win-wins.



yeah i saw some of those GUI updates, they look interesting. if they added some new enhancements it would be cool. or mixing up the plugins like the old R-compressor have harmonic distortion paramter and so on. 

im sure its not cheap doing all of these but i guess its like netflix which is about more users paying recurrent smaller amounts than big cable bill.


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## kimarnesen (Jun 8, 2018)

How long is this "sale" going on?


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## robgb (Jun 8, 2018)

I've been getting outrageous deals for the last few months. But yesterday I got a "rent to own" email from them. All of this makes me wonder if they're hurting.

By the way, my favorite plugin of theirs, their Pulteq plugins, are $49 and stubbornly refuse to drop to $29.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 8, 2018)

sounds like a company sale coming up.

and i mean...

the company.


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## cmillar (Jun 9, 2018)

I've recently been snapping up some of the amazing Waves plugins, and I hope they're here for my lifetime!

The magic of their plugins have changed my mixing and recording... I had bought a few of the plugs years ago for a project with a vocalist, and got great results.

Then, I resorted to stock plugs, other 3rd party plugs, but never bought the Waves plugs due to never having enough monetary resources to take the plunge on their best stuff. I was satisfied with how the other plugs I had were sounding, so I settled to that.

But...no more settling for '2nd best' anymore'.

It's nice to be able to sound like the 'big boys' while working with small budgets. 

An amazing time for recording and mixing for the small producer.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Jun 9, 2018)

I bought Waves Gold and I think there are a lot of terrific plugins in there. But over time, when I audition a track with an EQ or a Compressor or a Reverb or a Limiter, or anything else, for one reason or another, I always end up going with something from another company. I do use some of my other Waves plugins, but not my Gold ones.

So I've decided to try to sell Gold. That's when I found out that the "list" price of $799 does take on a reality when you want to sell because the transfer fee is 5% of that, or $40. It's probably going to go for $125 or less, which means $85 or less for yours truly. 

Along with WUP, it's something to think about. Also, I don't see a ton of improvements in old Waves plugins, whereas, for example, MeldaProduction plugins are always being updated and you get all the updates free-for-life.


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## paulmatthew (Jun 9, 2018)

keep in mind there are a lot of Waves plugins that are , well, pretty old at this point . They're probably trying to get what they can while they can .


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## pderbidge (Jun 11, 2018)

Looks like Waves just announced V10 today. I purchased a bunch of waves recently but don't have the funds for WUP for now so I guess I'll stick to V9 for a while. I suppose "this" is what they've been up to

https://www.waves.com/announcing-waves-v10


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## premjj (Jun 11, 2018)

premjj said:


> *I sense version 10 round the corner*.
> 
> By offering their plugins at almost up to 90% discounts through multiple and extended sales, as in the last few months, I think they are building up a high user base, kinda like a captive audience which they have a better chance of influencing when the next version is released.
> 
> ...



Looks like I may not have been too far off the mark. Waves just sent me the mail announcing version 10!!


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## kimarnesen (Jun 11, 2018)

pderbidge said:


> Looks like Waves just announced V10 today. I purchased a bunch of waves recently but don't have the funds for WUP for now so I guess I'll stick to V9 for a while. I suppose "this" is what they've been up to
> 
> https://www.waves.com/announcing-waves-v10



I think you can update to v10 without paying for a new WUP? I know I did


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## paulmatthew (Jun 11, 2018)

kimarnesen said:


> I think you can update to v10 without paying for a new WUP? I know I did


Only if your plugins are current within their one year period . The only updates worth paying for would be updated GUIs on older plugins or added features .I haven't seen much of that yet, just for a few .


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## Henu (Jun 11, 2018)

Yep, I upgraded what I could for free and left the rest at v9. It's just not worth it for basically just getting a bigger number on an UI screen.


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## pderbidge (Jun 11, 2018)

kimarnesen said:


> I think you can update to v10 without paying for a new WUP? I know I did


Good to know. I'll have to go through my list and see which ones are older than a year.


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## gsilbers (Jun 11, 2018)

its finally here. this is where those 29.99 deals pays off for them. if you update all of your plugins (all in one computer), and by now we all have a bunch of plugins that passed the wup timeframe its $225 for all plugins. 
Which is still not bad for us. but lets say 100,000 users need to update the wup at $225 its 25 million bucks.


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## JEPA (Jun 12, 2018)

I don't use waves.


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## pderbidge (Jun 12, 2018)

Henu said:


> Yep, I upgraded what I could for free and left the rest at v9. It's just not worth it for basically just getting a bigger number on an UI screen.


I just did that as well. I agree it's not worth it for the stuff that required WUP to upgrade, especially since the V9's still work fine. If they stop working and I find I'm using them a lot then I'll consider upgrading but I still have some x86 plugs that work flawlessly in Reaper so there's no reason to think these won't last a while.
The only strange glitch I found with updating the plugins I could update without WUP is that now I have twice as many Waves plugs because the V9's still show along with the V10's, other than that they work so not a huge deal. I'll have to reach out to Waves to see what's going on with that.


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## paulmatthew (Jun 12, 2018)

pderbidge said:


> I just did that as well. I agree it's not worth it for the stuff that required WUP to upgrade, especially since the V9's still work fine. If they stop working and I find I'm using them a lot then I'll consider upgrading but I still have some x86 plugs that work flawlessly in Reaper so there's no reason to think these won't last a while.
> The only strange glitch I found with updating the plugins I could update without WUP is that now I have twice as many Waves plugs because the V9's still show along with the V10's, other than that they work so not a huge deal. I'll have to reach out to Waves to see what's going on with that.


Because you didn't click yes or no when you installed and activated to remove waves 9 versions


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## Henu (Jun 12, 2018)

I haven't installed the new versions yet, so I wonder what will happen if I choose to (likely) remove the V9 versions when upgrading them to V10? Technically, one would think that they are the same plugin still despite of the version number.

Will Cubase just pick up the V10 plugins without any problems, or does it start screaming about "missing plugin" and I'm royally borked with my previous projects which had those deleted V9 plugins?


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## PaulieDC (Jun 12, 2018)

kitekrazy said:


> There's just a lot more competition.


Bingo. 4 years ago getting a Waves special for $99 seemed amazing. They can't pull that off now. Great for us!


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## lumcas (Jun 12, 2018)

Henu said:


> I haven't installed the new versions yet, so I wonder what will happen if I choose to (likely) remove the V9 versions when upgrading them to V10? Technically, one would think that they are the same plugin still despite of the version number.
> 
> Will Cubase just pick up the V10 plugins without any problems, or does it start screaming about "missing plugin" and I'm royally borked with my previous projects which had those deleted V9 plugins?



Can't tell about Cubase but my 8+ years old sessions in Pro Tools work without a glitch. I assume that it should work.


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## paulmatthew (Jun 12, 2018)

Henu said:


> I haven't installed the new versions yet, so I wonder what will happen if I choose to (likely) remove the V9 versions when upgrading them to V10? Technically, one would think that they are the same plugin still despite of the version number.
> 
> Will Cubase just pick up the V10 plugins without any problems, or does it start screaming about "missing plugin" and I'm royally borked with my previous projects which had those deleted V9 plugins?


I chose to remove the v9 plugins and all showed up in Ableton and loaded just fine. Cubase might be another story. I'd probably suggest keeping both for now and you can always uninstall or reinstall version 9 again if need be using the legacy version downloader in waves central.


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## pderbidge (Jun 12, 2018)

paulmatthew said:


> Because you didn't click yes or no when you installed and activated to remove waves 9 versions


Hmmm Not sure I saw this option. I have some V9 plugins that I can't update without paying for WUP due to them being more than a year old so if the only option was to remove all V9 plugins then I wouldn't want to do that anyways.


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## paulmatthew (Jun 12, 2018)

pderbidge said:


> Hmmm Not sure I saw this option. I have some V9 plugins that I can't update without paying for WUP due to them being more than a year old so if the only option was to remove all V9 plugins then I wouldn't want to do that anyways.


You don't have to remove them. you can run both versions 9 and 10 .


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## pderbidge (Jun 12, 2018)

paulmatthew said:


> You don't have to remove them. you can run both versions 9 and 10 .


Correct, which is what I am doing for now. Only downside is you can't tell which one is V10 vs V9 til you open it and look at the version info, However, I can just create a user favorites plugin folder in Reaper and dump all V10s in there and V9s in another and that will no longer be an issue so no biggie.


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## Henu (Jun 12, 2018)

Thanks folks- I'm in the middle of an album mix, but will do the updating after it's wrapped!


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## paulmatthew (Jun 12, 2018)

Their facebook page is blowing up right now with nothing but angry customers right now regarding the update to Waves 10 and rightly so. Between their setup process to the whole WUP thing , they're pretty ridiculous as a company. If you want people to pay for this WUP , then update the damn plugins. New GUIs , new features , whatever, just do some actual updates. All they do is update the install process to a new version and try to scare people into paying more money. It's almost scam-like , really. Thankfully I haven't invested a ton into their plugins, although I do have a decent stock of them , but honestly , there are only a few select ones that I really use frequently. I could probably do without them but they are nice to have. Their customers seem to get more confused with every new system update . I think it's time for Waves to reevaluate their business model and how they do things, and now they've just added a subscription service to the mix.They are losing customers left and right over this type of thing and seems to be getting worse for them by the minute. I don't think I will be buying any more Waves plugins after this point. Just my 2 cents.


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## elpedro (Jun 12, 2018)

Plus1 on the above


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## creativeforge (Jun 13, 2018)

When I buy equipment, I like to be able to use it without having to re-buy it, although sometimes upgrades are worth it. But THIS is a plugin "manager." Nice. But I'm going to consider other offerings from now on. I'm a hobbyist.


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## Synetos (Jun 13, 2018)

I have owned Mercury for over 10 years. I also have a Horizon licence for my live band rig. Actually, I own just about everything Waves sells, but I also own all of MeldaProductions and a host of others. I paid a small fortune for Waves Mercury back in the day. Now, everything is stupid cheap. Of course it can be frustrating if I think about it, but how is that any different than any other purchase? I got to use them that whole time, and I still do. 

Plugins are not like physical assets, they are a tool with a useful life. They require maintenance. I bought them when my DAW was Window XP and they were 32bit. Now I can run them on Windows 10 in 64bit. WUP is how that was made possible. I sure as hell dont want to buy Mercury over for evey single OS upgrade. So I pay the fee to "maintain" the useful life though all the changes in technology. 

Plugins are not the same as a rack of outboard gear. They are like Windows OS. I keep paying to upgrade to the next version. A ton of work went into taking Windows 95 to Windows 10. My license fee was the cost to support that initiative. I want Microsoft to be profitable so they keep supporting Windows and making it better. I think people need to think more like that, and not waste time worrying about WUP fees. If you dont like the products, dont buy them. If you do, then just do it, help the company stay alive, or stay on your old version. 

I must say that I run my studio on Digigrid (IOS/IOX) interfaces. I absolutely love them. The Soundgrid Studio driver is AWESOME! They are definitely doing something right with that product line.

I will stay with Waves as long as they are around. I dont like the pricing model, but I have bigger fish to fry than to worry about WUP being a ripoff. What would suck is if they go out of business after having sunk a small fortune into owning all their stuff. That is where hardware wins. Buy it once and use it until it dies. However, I would be paying more than the cost of WUP in electricity to run all those racks and racks of outboard gear that would be required to have all the tools found in Waves Mercury.


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## robgb (Jun 13, 2018)

Look. If you sell plugins, just sell the damn plugins and stop with all this Plugin Manager bullshit. Anytime I want to update or buy a new Waves plugin I have to make sure my plugin manager is up to date, then I have to use their install system and from what I can tell there's no way to simply download the plugin and install it myself. As a result, when I updated a recent plugin, an older plugin completely disappeared. I had to reinstall it, again through the Plugin Manager, before I could get it to show up again. Dealing with that kind of nonsense—which I assume is for the sake of thwarting piracy—is ridiculous. For one thing, every single Waves plugin has been pirated, so what are you accomplishing except making it difficult for those of us who actually bought your software?

I'd add that when I download a demo from Waves, there's no clear way to get rid of it once I've decided it isn't for me. Jesus.


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## storyteller (Jun 13, 2018)

robgb said:


> Look. If you sell plugins, just sell the damn plugins and stop with all this Plugin Manager bullshit. Anytime I want to update or buy a new Waves plugin I have to make sure my plugin manager is up to date, then I have to use their install system and from what I can tell there's no way to simply download the plugin and install it myself. As a result, when I updated a recent plugin, an older plugin completely disappeared. I had to reinstall it, again through the Plugin Manager, before I could get it to show up again. Dealing with that kind of nonsense—which I assume is for the sake of thwarting piracy—is ridiculous. For one thing, every single Waves plugin has been pirated, so what are you accomplishing except making it difficult for those of us who actually bought your software?
> 
> I'd add that when I download a demo from Waves, there's no clear way to get rid of it once I've decided it isn't for me. Jesus.


Waveshell is a wrapper. It is used to streamline development and allow them to release tons of new plugins as quickly and cheaply as possible. It also future proofs them from new standards taking hold leaving them to rewrite plugins from scratch and allows them to port them to things like Digigrid with ease. While it may thwart piracy, it certainly isn't the intention of using a wrapper from a development perspective. So it makes sense that when a new plugin is created, (at least in v9) it would mean the wrapper would have to be updated. Maybe this changes in v10 (hopefully). 

Not trying to defend their choice of deployment, but it should be said why it is happening to those that might read this thread. There isn't an ulterior motive going on. In fact, even v10 and v9 play nicely with past plugins out of WUP and new plugins still under WUP. Again, no ulterior motive there either. It is just evolution of their product. Overall, Waveshell may be more clunky, but realistically, there isn't another plugin developer with _*both*_ the quantity and quality of plugins Waves pumps out on a regular basis. And truthfully, WUP beats the heck out of other developer's approaches since it really is only a "when desired" purchase rather than a "now required" purchase. I'm a happy waves user.


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## robgb (Jun 13, 2018)

storyteller said:


> Waveshell is a wrapper.


I don't have a problem with Waveshell. What I have a problem with is the Waves Central app. Just let me download the damn plugins and I'll install them. I don't need another app to help me do that. One that has to be updated every so often and causes more problems than it solves. And I'm pretty sure it's there to help prevent piracy, which, of course, it doesn't do.

By the way, does anyone know how to UNinstall a Wave plugin? I have a couple of demos I'd like to get rid of.


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## gsilbers (Jun 13, 2018)

paulmatthew said:


> Their facebook page is blowing up right now with nothing but angry customers right now regarding the update to Waves 10 and rightly so. Between their setup process to the whole WUP thing , they're pretty ridiculous as a company. If you want people to pay for this WUP , then update the damn plugins. New GUIs , new features , whatever, just do some actual updates. All they do is update the install process to a new version and try to scare people into paying more money. It's almost scam-like , really. Thankfully I haven't invested a ton into their plugins, although I do have a decent stock of them , but honestly , there are only a few select ones that I really use frequently. I could probably do without them but they are nice to have. Their customers seem to get more confused with every new system update . I think it's time for Waves to reevaluate their business model and how they do things, and now they've just added a subscription service to the mix.They are losing customers left and right over this type of thing and seems to be getting worse for them by the minute. I don't think I will be buying any more Waves plugins after this point. Just my 2 cents.




true. i dont see a reason to update to v10. not sure anyone would have a reason to do so. There are no new OS or DAW updates that need v10 at the moment. There are no new GUIs or waves plugins exclusive to v10 or anything that would get poeple to update. 

So not sure what was the plan. maybe they know something we don't about future OS or DAW development coming this yeaR? OR they have a bunch of plugins updates coming soon that need v10 and want to have the waveshell work well beforehand? 
They really havent developed that many plugins latley compared to the competition. the omni channel seems to be the latest one but most of the signature series was just mixing together different existing plugins code to the artists desires and a new simple gui like CLA series. 

So they have been selling tons of cheapo 29.99 plugins for several years now for this v10 payoff. which is everyone forks over 225 for the wup then its a multi million dollar intake. which is fine for them, but they had to be doing something else, right all along? i cannot see waves only working on a waveshell for 5 years now and a few plugins here and there. they have to have been working on a larger project?


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## pderbidge (Jun 13, 2018)

paulmatthew said:


> Their facebook page is blowing up right now with nothing but angry customers right now regarding the update to Waves 10 and rightly so. Between their setup process to the whole WUP thing , they're pretty ridiculous as a company. If you want people to pay for this WUP , then update the damn plugins. New GUIs , new features , whatever, just do some actual updates. All they do is update the install process to a new version and try to scare people into paying more money. It's almost scam-like , really. Thankfully I haven't invested a ton into their plugins, although I do have a decent stock of them , but honestly , there are only a few select ones that I really use frequently. I could probably do without them but they are nice to have. Their customers seem to get more confused with every new system update . I think it's time for Waves to reevaluate their business model and how they do things, and now they've just added a subscription service to the mix.They are losing customers left and right over this type of thing and seems to be getting worse for them by the minute. I don't think I will be buying any more Waves plugins after this point. Just my 2 cents.



I agree that Waves seems to be purposefully ambiguous about WUP which causes confusion and people to get upset when they spend money on WUP and find out they didn't have to, especially when the update brought no appreciable value to the plugin. In actuality once you understand WUP and how it works it's not that bad but it's Waves inability to articulate this that is the problem. If they truly are purposefully being ambiguous to gain new sales from the ignorant, then shame on them for these kinds of business practices will eventually come back to haunt them. I will only use WUP when either my most used plugins stop working due to DAW or OS upgrade that necessitates it and even then I may feel I have other tools that do the job just as well and not upgrade. Til then I'll keep enjoying my Waves Plugins as they are nice plugins.

The problem is that people get the impression that they "have" to do the WUP program or their plugins won't work anymore which is not the case. So my only issue with WUP is not the program itself but rather the way it is communicated.

For those that understand that you actually can update your less than year old plugins for free still run into another problem with the plugin manager where if you're not careful and you click the wrong thing you could end up deleting your older plugins that you wanted to keep while trying to update the ones you are allowed to update for free. Even if you update correctly there seems to be an issue with them not always showing up in the DAW and having to do it all again until you get it right or end up calling support to figure it out. In Waves defense their support is fairly responsive and quick to resolve all these issues. 

My issues is more with Waves plugin manager than WUP. It is obvious that the plugin manager exists to fight piracy but more often than not it ends up being a nuisance to paying customers and scares away future purchases due to disgruntled users so in the end is the money spent on R&D for these measures really saving them from lost sales due to piracy? I would argue no but that's another debate for another time.


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## paulmatthew (Jun 13, 2018)

I'm not putting Waves on blast here. It's just clear that they've confused a large portion of their customers yet again with this version 10 update. All I was really saying is that they complicate things so much for their users that frustrations run high with them . Waveshell, waves version 9, waves version 10, wavescentral , WUP....... That's a lot for a customer to siphon through to figure out what they need, if they need it and what the heck everything is . There has to be a simpler way for Waves to do this .


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## kitekrazy (Jun 14, 2018)

I remember when Waves use to have a "forced" WUP and there was a 40 page thread at NNS of people not buying their stuff anymore. I don't think they have erased their bad image yet after the numerous affordable plugins. I'm still not a fan of their single use license. Most of my purchases have been duplicates. 

Izotope, Melda, and IK have much more flexible licensing. IK updated all of my TR 4 individual plugins for free. Melda has lifetime updates.


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## gsilbers (Jun 14, 2018)

paulmatthew said:


> I'm not putting Waves on blast here. It's just clear that they've confused a large portion of their customers yet again with this version 10 update. All I was really saying is that they complicate things so much for their users that frustrations run high with them . Waveshell, waves version 9, waves version 10, wavescentral , WUP....... That's a lot for a customer to siphon through to figure out what they need, if they need it and what the heck everything is . There has to be a simpler way for Waves to do this .




And to point to out that there is really no need to really upgrade to v10. 

Somehow al the posts in different forums seems to be about people thinking there is some sort of need to upgrade when there is not.


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## paulmatthew (Jun 14, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> And to point to out that there is really no need to really upgrade to v10.
> 
> Somehow al the posts in different forums seems to be about people thinking there is some sort of need to upgrade when there is not.


That's kind of how Waves pushes this out there though. I think it's why a lot of their customer base feels the way they do right now, thinking they need to update.


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## jacobthestupendous (Jun 14, 2018)

Does anyone else automatically read "Waveshell" as "waves hell"? I can't be the only one...


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## pderbidge (Jun 14, 2018)

kitekrazy said:


> I remember when Waves use to have a "forced" WUP and there was a 40 page thread at NNS of people not buying their stuff anymore. I don't think they have erased their bad image yet after the numerous affordable plugins. I'm still not a fan of their single use license. Most of my purchases have been duplicates.
> 
> Izotope, Melda, and IK have much more flexible licensing. IK updated all of my TR 4 individual plugins for free. Melda has lifetime updates.


I agree on the single use license thing but it sounds like using a USB stick for the license is a workaround for that. It's a shame they refuse to communicate their policy better because in all reality it's not that bad and for $30 per plugin (on sale) they are an incredible value. I think the fault lies within their marketing department. I think they seem too concerned that if people actually "understand" their update policies and how it works then they won't get as many people signing up for WUP. I noticed that they had a fairly decent blurb on their front page today about WUP but they still neglected to mention that you don't need it if you have a plugin less than a year old. It's all in the marketing spin. They could easily tout the free update to those with plugins bought less than a year ago as a positive and made customers feel like Waves was throwing them a bone but instead they miss the opportunity to do so by scaring people into WUP. I have always found that the more transparent a company is with a customer the better the long term relationship. It would also help waves to better understand what their customer do and don't want so they can improve, but I digress. I still love the plugins I have from them and will continue to use them.

I love Melda's stuff and when they have their big sales where you can get a plugin at $50 with lifetime free updates it does make more sense to start moving over to these kinds of deals from the competition.


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## JEPA (Jun 15, 2018)

is Waves applying business predatory practices ? everlasting $29 for plugins that cost presumably $399?




*Waves WLM Plus Loudness Meter*
On Sale Now

costed $399.00| now $29.00

I am after this plugin, but i could see other developers suffering from this practices. We fall like flies when such offers appear...


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## kitekrazy (Jun 15, 2018)

JEPA said:


> is Waves applying business predatory practices ? *everlasting $29 for plugins that cost presumably $399?*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don't think so. It probably was that price at some time. Some of the sample libraries we own were over $1000 when first released. Look at the stuff announced on APD, you see the same tactic.


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## gsilbers (Jun 15, 2018)

kitekrazy said:


> I don't think so. It probably was that price at some time. Some of the sample libraries we own were over $1000 when first released. Look at the stuff announced on APD, you see the same tactic.



kinda true. but it was fairly recent that the price went way way down.
and all their plugins say price of $330030303030390394u30834u043890439349
now for only 29.99.
so im with jepa on this one. not only harms small developers but also it hurts waves as I've keep seeing comments in facebook groups stating that UAD and other plugins are way better than waves... and its basically because the price is so cheap that in any business and marketing strategy, cheap spells out bad quality. regardless of the actual product. marketing 101. so it might be good for some time but later any are plugin will be expected to cost 30 bucks when in reality its closer to 100 once you add all the development time.


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## gsilbers (Jun 15, 2018)

waves is freaking annoying.. the waves central "NEEDS" to update and all it does it downloads the latest v10 installers so you are FORCED to install v10..

I just disconnect wifi, login into the old app and instal v9 products. geez... these guys.

not sure if im forced into buying the wup if I had installed v10 but still. but still.. I just hate the imaginary forced updates


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## kitekrazy (Jun 15, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> kinda true. but it was fairly recent that the price went way way down.
> and all their plugins say price of $330030303030390394u30834u043890439349
> now for only 29.99.
> so im with jepa on this one. not only harms small developers but also it hurts waves as I've keep seeing comments in facebook groups stating that UAD and other plugins are way better than waves... and its basically because the price is so cheap that in any business and marketing strategy, *cheap spells out bad quality.* regardless of the actual product. marketing 101. so it might be good for some time but later any are plugin will be expected to cost 30 bucks when in reality its closer to 100 once you add all the development time.



I'd hate to believe that theory. Lets consider when EWHO Gold can be had for under $300 and Platinum for under $500. Bad quality. I'm sure when people pay a large amount for something they will say it's better. I'm sure if I paid for a UAD plugin I would say they are the best ever. 
I could make an endless list that proves "cheap spells out bad quality" is nonsense. See Gibson's troubles. Bad quality doesn't have a price tag.

That's a very flawed logic. Once development costs are covered prices can be lowered. I know it's easy to bash Waves but they do have some quality products.


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## Sunny Fable (Jun 15, 2018)

I only had to update once with WUP for 15$ to get from Element to Element 2.0, then I got a voucher of equal value to use to buy something else. No problem for me.

Waves Central, on the other hand, is a mess. Some installs took a long time to update plugins.


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## mgpqa1 (Jun 15, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> waves is freaking annoying.. the waves central "NEEDS" to update and all it does it downloads the latest v10 installers so you are FORCED to install v10..
> 
> I just disconnect wifi, login into the old app and instal v9 products. geez... these guys.
> 
> not sure if im forced into buying the wup if I had installed v10 but still. but still.. I just hate the imaginary forced updates


This just happened to me the other day. I was on v9 and planning to stay there, but next thing I knew my Waves Central was at v10... I must've absent-mindedly clicked the word "update" somewhere thinking only the Waves Central software itself was being updated.

Big mistake.

My v9 licenses were still sitting in my license cloud, yet to be activated. Because my Waves Central installation was now at v10, it couldn't see/detect/activate/install my v9 lincenses in the cloud until they were updated to v10.


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## scoble08 (Jun 16, 2018)

mgpqa1 said:


> This just happened to me the other day. I was on v9 and planning to stay there, but next thing I knew my Waves Central was at v10... I must've absent-mindedly clicked the word "update" somewhere thinking only the Waves Central software itself was being updated.
> 
> Big mistake.
> 
> My v9 licenses were still sitting in my license cloud, yet to be activated. Because my Waves Central installation was now at v10, it couldn't see/detect/activate/install my v9 lincenses in the cloud until they were updated to v10.


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## scoble08 (Jun 16, 2018)

I’m also dead in the water since the “update!”
This vid below may help some. Didn’t help me but maybe will help someone.
I’m using Studio One 4, Win 10 x64.

Gonna request Waves support provide me with a way to completely remove all Waves products from my System! Reg entries, everything.
Never had a problem in all the many years I’ve used their products until this fiasco!


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## gsilbers (Jun 17, 2018)

kitekrazy said:


> I'd hate to believe that theory. Lets consider when EWHO Gold can be had for under $300 and Platinum for under $500. Bad quality. I'm sure when people pay a large amount for something they will say it's better. I'm sure if I paid for a UAD plugin I would say they are the best ever.
> I could make an endless list that proves "cheap spells out bad quality" is nonsense. See Gibson's troubles. Bad quality doesn't have a price tag.
> 
> That's a very flawed logic. Once development costs are covered prices can be lowered. I know it's easy to bash Waves but they do have some quality products.




i think i might skipped a few steps. in business and marketing they teach us whats called psicological pricing. so luxury brands do this of jacking up the price so we percieve the prodcut better. Also the .99 cents instead of 1.00 and a few other "tricks"
here is an example with wines. I only remember cuz of her last name 


Since i studied business and marketing i do see this sort of things everywhere.

now, cheap is not necesarly bad. and btw - I do think waves plugins are very good. and have compared them to UAD and plugins alliance and all of them are outstanding tools. so my comments are more about marketing only.

so cheap is a bad side effect of affordable. which has to do with bang for your buck. so its a fine line when a company does affordable products and reducing price tags when pricing their prodcuts. go too far and the competition has a feast by just saying how cheap and bad those products are. OR consumers just think its "cheap" when comparing. and they see a few posts here and there about them being not as good as UAD and there we go... waves is percieved as cheap and lower quality when in fact its a perception of the individual user.

in your examples, yes east west is very good, they probably paid off their investment on their hollywood series so they can reduce the price, but suddenly spitfire came out on the oposite end by pricing their similar prodcut much higher and all of the suddenly everyone is all the place saying how good spitfire is and their quality etc. i know Play is relevant to this discussion but I have both, and both are equally good imo in terms of tools to get you do quality orchestral work. but there we have some sour posts by doughs EW about spitfire and how everyone just drool over their stuff just cuz its spitfire name brand etc etc. but at the end is how consumers percive the prodcut. there is a luxury feel on SF while EW didnt promote too much that. EW went onto reducing the price more and more to get more sales while SP only does it in xmas. Ive gone to cello studios and omg , ew could of done soooo much better to promote their hollywood series as luxury orchestra. they also have thomas bergesen ,everyone loves that guy, yet they relied on lower pricing as a marekting strategy so of course spitfire is percieved as much better... when in fact.. again, both are good and the quality is how the user percieves it. 

Also for your gibson example, the brand was always strong and luxury high end... their problem also has to do with bad invesntments on other business. but in terms of marketing, they came out with the epiphone line and when i go to guitar center i feel i see no difference between a real gibsons and a epiphone or enough to justify the extra grand or two. and also, well, guitar music went down since the last decade or so.
But gibsons pricing strategy was always about luxury so they priced their les paul very high. and shot themselves in the foot with epiphones being almost as good and well.. getting into odd businesses in japan etc.


so waves is dangling in the affordable vs cheap. and several posts in facebok groups where poeple comment about uad ssl and plugin alliance is way better than waves ssl... im open minded so i downloaded the demo for all of them, compared same settings.. by dialing in and also by ear and realize the compressors where the same. i did my double blind test comparing them without knowing which is which and i coudnt tell any of them to be "better". some minor differences but not enough to say waves sucks or uad is better. but there i keep seeing poeple saying waves is not as good. poeple keep seeing the low price and assume its cheaper instead of affordable. again, all perception.

As someone who has a business degree, i can forsee waves shoooting theimselves in the foot if they don't come up with something new that would get users to buy their prodcuts. And at the same time bringing down the competition and amount of developers as more and more new companies would rather not pay up for large development to start up a company, software and marketing to later see how everyone expects a plugin to cost 29.99 when it wont make up for the investment. and at the same time no one buying waves as everyone already has their prodcuts or compete with subscirpiton based developers like slate who is also reducing prices mre and more... so ita a race to the bottom i dont see anyone winning on the long run. cool for now though.


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## gsilbers (Jun 17, 2018)

scoble08 said:


> Gonna request Waves support provide me with a way to completely remove all Waves products from my System! Reg entries, everything.
> Never had a problem in all the many years I’ve used their products until this fiasco!




maybe that was their plan all along... complicated installation so you need support... which mean paying for the wup 
Evil


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## storyteller (Jun 17, 2018)

I agree very much with what was said above by @gsilbers. But I also think Waves is in a unique position among the other players in the market. They were one of the "first companies in" during the rise of digital recording. Algorithms are algorithms (regardless of age) and they mastered that aspect of their business. So now, many years later... after high prices and weathering the storm of competitors, they stand as the defacto standard among mixing engineers. Sure there are other non-Waves plugins that would be considered "standard" in the mixing toolbox, but almost everyone in the audio world uses something Waves has created (for good reason!) unless there is a philosophical opposition to the company. Again, it wouldn't be a decision about quality. Waves plugins are known to be top-tier among those in the audio world for just reason.

So this allows Waves to slide prices down into "no-brainer" and "impulse buy" territory while (radically) increasing market share. We all have them. We all have bought the ones at $29 that were not financially justifiable at $199 (or higher!). So the train continues. More people buy them. Even budding artists use them now as opposed to 10 years ago when they were once considered financially inaccessible to non-professionals. This means waves plugins will be on songs for ages to come. At some point, you will probably have to WUP or maybe realize you want a second license. But those are optional. And additional licenses at $29 a pop are very reasonable. Most competitors offer multiple installations per purchase (so that is also a difference).

Anyway... While I do think their marketing approach will have to shift at some point, I think everyone should enjoy the ride while we are on it. They are doing something right with their marketing otherwise these discussions wouldn't be happening. Humanity has become so conditioned by underlying agenda and motives that sometimes - when good things happen - it becomes a hard concept to accept. Anyway... those are just my thoughts on it.


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## gsilbers (Jun 18, 2018)

storyteller said:


> I agree very much with what was said above by @gsilbers. But I also think Waves is in a unique position among the other players in the market. They were one of the "first companies in" during the rise of digital recording. Algorithms are algorithms (regardless of age) and they mastered that aspect of their business. So now, many years later... after high prices and weathering the storm of competitors, they stand as the defacto standard among mixing engineers. Sure there are other non-Waves plugins that would be considered "standard" in the mixing toolbox, but almost everyone in the audio world uses something Waves has created (for good reason!) unless there is a philosophical opposition to the company. Again, it wouldn't be a decision about quality. Waves plugins are known to be top-tier among those in the audio world for just reason.
> 
> So this allows Waves to slide prices down into "no-brainer" and "impulse buy" territory while (radically) increasing market share. We all have them. We all have bought the ones at $29 that were not financially justifiable at $199 (or higher!). So the train continues. More people buy them. Even budding artists use them now as opposed to 10 years ago when they were once considered financially inaccessible to non-professionals. This means waves plugins will be on songs for ages to come. At some point, you will probably have to WUP or maybe realize you want a second license. But those are optional. And additional licenses at $29 a pop are very reasonable. Most competitors offer multiple installations per purchase (so that is also a difference).
> 
> Anyway... While I do think their marketing approach will have to shift at some point, I think everyone should enjoy the ride while we are on it. They are doing something right with their marketing otherwise these discussions wouldn't be happening. Humanity has become so conditioned by underlying agenda and motives that sometimes - when good things happen - it becomes a hard concept to accept. Anyway... those are just my thoughts on it.




i think you are on point. Although it goes into a more philosophical territory, similar to retail apocalypse, automation of jobs and cheap prodcuts from china. there are two sides to each and long run consequences. some poeple loosing jobs, others buying stuff for cheap and so on. 
And of course nowadays so many composers would lower their rates for any work or even do it for free. 
and all int he same boat go under at the same time. just because the oversupply of composers and the long term consequences of noone really have a need to pay for music.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 18, 2018)

after reinstalling all my plugins on my new PC - my Waves 9/10 experience was less than delightful (no wup).

i won't be buying anymore Waves plugins.


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## bap_la_so_1 (Jun 22, 2018)

The biggest problem with Waves for me is their messed up Waves Central
They should look up to Plugin Alliance's...


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## gtrwll (Jun 22, 2018)

No problems here so far, I installed a demo of CLA-2A the other day, and it clearly states that the ones installed from Waves Central are V10 and if I choose to update the older plugins (which I chose not to) I'd need to have a valid license (WUP) to run V10.

I also checked the price for WUP and it was quite steep for Gold ($90 or so) but for my other individual plugins from 5 to 15 dollars. I somehow expected more.


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## jcrosby (Jun 23, 2018)

storyteller said:


> So this allows Waves to slide prices down into "no-brainer" and "impulse buy" territory while (radically) increasing market share. We all have them. We all have bought the ones at $29 that were not financially justifiable at $199 (or higher!). So the train continues. More people buy them. Even budding artists use them now as opposed to 10 years ago when they were once considered financially inaccessible to non-professionals. This means waves plugins will be on songs for ages to come. At some point, you will probably have to WUP or maybe realize you want a second license.



I completely disagree. This is a tactic of desperation. Software competition has never been higher and Waves is desperate to stay relevant while companies like UAD, Softube, Acustica, Plugin Alliance etc disrupt their userbase; (while th
ey shaft the same users they pretend to be _interested_ in staying relevant to.)

This isn't the first time they've done some weird, (if not shiesty) isht like this either. If anything this is a way to become even less relevant by failing to accept that forcing update fees on loyal users is going to alienate a decent portion of them.


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## storyteller (Jun 23, 2018)

jcrosby said:


> I completely disagree. This is a tactic of desperation. Software competition has never been higher and Waves is desperate to stay relevant while companies like UAD, Softube, Acustica, Plugin Alliance etc disrupt their userbase; (while th
> ey shaft the same users they pretend to be _interested_ in staying relevant to.)
> 
> This isn't the first time they've done some weird, (if not shiesty) isht like this either. If anything this is a way to become even less relevant by failing to accept that forcing update fees on loyal users is going to alienate a decent portion of them.


Possibly. It is really difficult to say and you do always offer a solid perspective (which I’ve always respected). I’m not sure how they are shafting users aside from the v8 (I think?) debacle though? I might have missed some of the waves drama though. But they’ve seemed to learn from that one. It is my opinion that they likely don’t focus on communication regarding WUP to potentially increase revenue from confused patrons. That’s not very forthcoming or classy, but their website does make it clear regarding WUP not being mandatory, so it isn’t like the information isn’t available. But speaking of revenue, I tend to think when we are talking about the volume of revenue they see vs the small number of professionals in the industry that it becomes more a game of saturation to keep the money coming in rather than desperation. Maybe that’s where we might be differing on perspectives here. UAD is both hardware locked and maintains a high barrier of entry. Great stuff for sure, but I’d bet their software revenue is very small in comparison. I’d also wager softube, acoustica, and plugin alliance are in the same significantly lower revenue boat. Even PA has moved to $29 sales and softube to $49 sales even though they are more rare to see.


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