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#766043 05/21/23 07:17 AM
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Does anyone here use the Waves brand plugs?

If so, which ones and what do you specifically like about them?

Looks like they have a wide selection of plugs with each one being fairly selective in what it does.

Just curious about this line. The demos sound good but I know that is set up under their control.

Thanks for your thoughts


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Tread carefully:

This is only a tiny sample

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/56652-waves-rant-sorry/&tab=comments#comment-429064

" Someday business schools will use Waves as a case study on how destroy your company by disrespecting your customers. "


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I have a bunch of their plug-ins, and they're great.

That said, as the previous poster indicated, their customer service leaves a whole lot to be desired. Lots of hidden upcharges, almost impossible to transfer your licenses if you get a new computer, etc.

So far I haven't encountered any nightmare scenarios myself, but I've talked to enough people who have to be aware they exist. But as I said, they are great plug-ins as far as the functionality and doing what they say they'll do. Quite a few of them are "go-to" plugins for me.

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Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
Does anyone here use the Waves brand plugs?

If so, which ones and what do you specifically like about them?

Their SSL G-Masterbus compressor lives on my master bus.

No serious compression, just a 2/1 ratio and a high threshold, 2db of compression at most, never more and almost inaudible.
But it does something with the low-end that I like.

And even when it's called a 'Masterbus compressor', I use it here and there for vocals.

No idea how it compares to more expensive versions of the same compressor, but I got it (almost) for free and like what it does.

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I own a couple of the Waves plugins. The one I use the most is Vocal Rider. Which works just like someone riding the fader up and down on the vocal track. I also have the Bass Rider but don't use it at all. The Vocal Rider can be had for under $30 on sale. If I remember right I had to pay for a upgrade to a newer OS at one point which I am sure you will find plenty of negative comments from waves users.


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Tom Adams got me into them years ago. The ones I use most often:

CLA Drums
CLA Unplugged
CLA Vocals
Bass Rider
Linear Phase Multi-band compressor
Torque
Magma Tubes

And I own about a dozen more smile

Bud


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Well, I picked up a few to play with


You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
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I own almost everything they have and love them.

The "Abbey Road" series is outstanding.

Insofar as customer service, they have always been very accessible and helpful to me and I would rate them as high on customer service.

Everything they make is sweet. I love this little puppy.


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I think you will like them Herb.
I have a lot of them. My most used ones are:
CLA drums
CLA vocal
vocal rider
bass rider


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The manager asks, "do you mind waiting a bit?"
I said no.
"Good", he said. "Take these drinks to table 3"

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MarioD #766196 05/22/23 01:34 PM
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Originally Posted By: MarioD
I think you will like them Herb.
I have a lot of them. My most used ones are:
CLA drums
CLA vocal
vocal rider
bass rider


3 out of the 4... the top 3

also CLA guitars and 76

We'll see how this goes. Popped a few into the latest project I'm working on and I'll examine them closely in the mixdown.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 05/22/23 01:34 PM.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Waves plugs don,t work in real band! I know i tried rob!

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The plug-ins are great. Waves licensing — uh… not so great. I got off their WUP Clown Car a number of years ago and haven't looked back.

They do not offer anything I can't find elsewhere. I don't miss them.


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Their products are good, and I use a number of them.

But... their sales tactics leave a lot to be desired.

Waves is well know for having running non-stop "sales", with "lowest price ever" meaning it's the same "lowest price ever" that it was last time.

They also constantly push their upgrade plans. This is mostly an issue for Mac users, since Windows often has excellent backwards compatibility between versions. Mac users, not so much. So you either buy into the upgrade plan, or re-purchase the products when an upgrade breaks the old plugins.

A couple of months back Waves announced without warning they were switching to a subscription-only model.

Glossing over many, many details, this did not go well.

Waves eventually backpedaled, but many users thought the way that Waves chose to do this showed a willingness to throw many long-time users under the bus simply to maximize profits.

That said, they have many excellent plugins. For example, they just announced a neural network based de-reverberation.


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Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?

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keltie #767719 06/05/23 02:04 PM
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Originally Posted By: keltie
Waves plugs don,t work in real band! I know i tried rob!

Correct - Waves uses a "shell" plugin, which is one single DLL file that masquerades itself as multiple different plugins, and quite a few programs don't support that. Band-in-a-Box does, however RealBand and PowerTracks do not.

As for Waves plugins themself, I quite like the Renaissance Compressor, though I typically use it for expansion rather than compression.


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