Waves - still current?

[JeffSanders]

Does Waves regularly update their older plugs (like the Rennaissance plugs) to keep up with newer technology?

For instance, vst EQ's and compressors have come a long way even in the past two years. Has Waves done anything recently to enhance these plugs? (ie. upsampling, better algos etc.)

[JeffSanders]

Hmmm...so are these the same algos from 6 years ago or have they been updated?

ie. Is it still worth it to buy their Renn plugs or have they since been eclipsed by smaller developers like Voxengo, PSP and Sonalksis?

[elambo]

Yes, they have been eclipsed by other plugins, including some of those you mentioned. Waves -- I could take it or leave it and I typically leave it. If I hadn't bought their bundle many years ago when they were the best option I wouldn't own any of their plugs.

[radiospace]

Is there a better de-esser than the Rennaissance De-esser, though?

[Sirocco]

most of my musicians bundle sounds straight of the stone age

[jdjustice]

I like the Renn EQ and comp but for the money, the Sonalksis SV-517 EQ and SV-315 comp really sound better to me.

I bought the Renn bundle recently while it was on sale without the benefit of a demo and while I don't regret it I think the best part of the purchase was the inclusion of the IR-L convolution reverb; while I use Altiverb generally and am very happy with it I have found the IR-L to be useful on more than one occasion and the impulses continue to be updated with new ones added every month (like the Altiverb ones). If you need greater control over the reverb parameters you can upgrade the IR-L to the IR-1 for under $300 from most retailers.

I own a lot of plugins including most of the Waves stuff and the Waves plugins that I use daily are the SSL bundle and the L2, although I have the Sony Oxford Limiter and that is a chief competitor to the L2... it sounds great and gets used a lot, in fact all the Sony plugins are great IMHO.

J.D.

[azwun25]

Originally Posted by radiospace

Is there a better de-esser than the Rennaissance De-esser, though?

Fish Fillets Spitfish...and its free!!!

[OHA]

Just because a algoritm was written 5 or 6 years ago doesn't mean it's bad..

In hardware it seems like "the older the better". I don't get all this dfegad on waves..

I think the ren EQ/Comp/de-essers are fabolus..

I have "better" reverbs but i love my trueverb (that one is old..) and renverb to, not to talk about the L1 (witch is the hottest thing to hate around here..)

Waves is great, even if wup sucks..

[Sirocco]

Originally Posted by OHA

Just because a algoritm was written 5 or 6 years ago doesn't mean it's bad..

In hardware it seems like "the older the better". I don't get all this dfegad on waves..

I think the ren EQ/Comp/de-essers are fabolus..

I have "better" reverbs but i love my trueverb (that one is old..) and renverb to, not to talk about the L1 (witch is the hottest thing to hate around here..)

Waves is great, even if wup sucks..

i find myself using waves all the time - on the less prominent material in the mix - id never use it on upfron vocals or other sounds that have the spotlight (this is not including the ssl plugs-but rather the stuff in diamond) - but plugs such as monomod, and other "utility" plugs-get use from me daily.

and the L1 doesnt get the most hate around here - the L3 does

[OHA]

Originally Posted by Sirocco

and the L1 doesnt get the most hate around here - the L3 does [/B]

[GJ Orange]

Waves have continually updated since 6 yrs ago I think. They use less cpu and sound different.

[defjamm]

Originally Posted by OHA

Just because a algoritm was written 5 or 6 years ago doesn't mean it's bad..

In hardware it seems like "the older the better". I don't get all this dfegad on waves..

I think the ren EQ/Comp/de-essers are fabolus..

I have "better" reverbs but i love my trueverb (that one is old..) and renverb to, not to talk about the L1 (witch is the hottest thing to hate around here..)

Waves is great, even if wup sucks..

your comparison doesn't apply to digital software. you must understand, that in the past cpu-power was very low compared to now. this means developers did everything to reduce cpu-load on their plug-ins -> use algos that aren't complex -> reducing quality. this topic is a little complex so i won't go into detail.

they are tools and you can use them but if analog is your reference, and you want something similar with software, you'll need huge cpu power to model it very closely(all aspects of it, distortion etc). and we aren't there yet. it gets closer every year but there is still enough room for improvement.

this doesn't mean you can't use them. maybe they give you the sound that you need for your production, because they have a certain sound and behavior. the trend for the last years was emulation of analog hardware and regarding this most software fails.

and waves is well known for optimizing their tools for low cpu(but with standard code) + they don't update their older tools(they sell new ones instead). some smaller developers aren't like that. they give you way more for your money and add quality updates for free.

[OHA]

Originally Posted by defjamm

your comparison doesn't apply to digital software. you must understand, that in the past cpu-power was very low compared to now. this means developers did everything to reduce cpu-load on their plug-ins -> use algos that aren't complex -> reducing quality. this topic is a little complex so i won't go into detail.

I guess that's why everyone wants an old Lexicon 480L or AMS RMX16??

Originally Posted by defjamm

they are tools and you can use them but if analog is your reference, and you want something similar with software, you'll need huge cpu power to model it very closely(all aspects of it, distortion etc). and we aren't there yet. it gets closer every year but there is still enough room for improvement.

My reference is GOOD SOUND.. There are good analog/bad analog, good digital/bad digital, good/bad enginers. I'm shure there's still room for improvement, but to make the concloution New+DSP hungry=good is to simple. Have you noticed that in some cases old plugins in new version use much more dsp? Like Digidesigns Reverb One, D-Verb etc. Noticed any difference in sound? nope.. I've seen and tried lots of plugs with huge dsp-usage that didn't sound that good. This also have something to do with the programmers skills.

Originally Posted by defjamm

and waves is well known for optimizing their tools for low cpu(but with standard code) + they don't update their older tools

I don't know what older tools you are talking about.. AFAIK Waves is one of the oldest developer of plugins, and about everyone of their old products is still supported.

[defjamm]

Originally Posted by OHA

I guess that's why everyone wants an old Lexicon 480L or AMS RMX16??

you're talking about specialized digital hardware-boxes designed by people specialzed on reverb, i'm talking about native software. neither of the waves reverbs sounds like the 480L, and the reason are the guy/s and the algos behind lexicon.

i don't know how much do you know about filters in digital? if you use a standard implementation there will be problems regarding the shape which you can solve. one way is oversampling, which takes cpu. i meant stuff like that. or distortion? you'll get easily aliasing. oversampling is used to reduce it to an inaudible level, but this takes also oversampling...and so on. i mean stuff like that.

Originally Posted by OHA

My reference is GOOD SOUND.. There are good analog/bad analog, good digital/bad digital, good/bad enginers. I'm shure there's still room for improvement, but to make the concloution New+DSP hungry=good is to simple. Have you noticed that in some cases old plugins in new version use much more dsp? Like Digidesigns Reverb One, D-Verb etc. Noticed any difference in sound? nope.. I've seen and tried lots of plugs with huge dsp-usage that didn't sound that good. This also have something to do with the programmers skills.

like i said i don't want to go into detail, because it's rather complicated and i'm no programmer(but know a little bit). huge cpu-consumptions doesn't automatically mean the plug-in will be good, that's right. but the closest models need much cpu, that's why the new neve uad-1 comp is so cpu-hungry.

Originally Posted by OHA

I don't know what older tools you are talking about.. AFAIK Waves is one of the oldest developer of plugins, and about everyone of their old products is still supported.

you misunderstood me. they don't update their older plug-ins over years, and when then only in simply ways, that's what i meant. their older plug-ins are still 32bit internally. they have an eq called ren eq, which is supposed to emulate analog eqs right? do you have samplitude? try the samplitude track eq versus the ren one, same settings(same frequency, q, gain) and do a phase inverted test. you'll be surprised(they null to about -80 to -100db). what does this tell us? waves is using simple dsp for this eq, the emulation is at a low level.

their newer ssl stuff is better, they took more stuff into account(some sort of noise for example with the analog button). but even in this new set they compromised some things for cpu(you'll see it when you look at the filter curves, to much to explain now. through the shape you'll see which implementation for the filters was used).

don't get me wrong. i like their plug-ins because they are easy to use, i hate complicated guis and their are great. the tools are usable, but often not what they are supposed to be. and you can get the same or better for less nowadays in most fields.

edit: but doesn't mean u can't use them. the most important thing imho is still the quality of the recorded stuff. imho this makes a much greater impact then the quality of the software.

[OHA]

You're probably right about all the technical stuff, to me it comes down to sound. To day I was mixing some music for TV and chose to use a Focusrite D3 (old algs..) over my 33609/SSLquad HW comps because it suited the material better.. Other times it's different..