WAVES alternative plugins

[Improv]

I was an Rcomp/Rvox/REQ addict, as I know many once were when the were the only decent plugins available. But I got conquered that demon when I discovered Sony's Dynamics. Using that with MDW EQ (or even Digirack EQ3) and I now rarely use any plugins that start with R. Rchannel is still nice for quick rough mixes merely for its convenience.

The reason I think we all fell in love with the R series was because of their fine control and ability to "dial in" that perfect setting. But for vocals, I'm having a hard time finding anything better than Sony... even compared with newer compressors (which are better for other things). I seem to always be able to dial in that magic spot between the compressor and expander, a little warmth, a little low dip/high boost with the EQ... everything it needs. For styles that call for it, you can squash 10 dB and it's still quite trasparent. It just sits perfectly. Couldn't live without Sony now.

[marcan]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

Are there any better alternatives to the Super Tap 6 delay?(the Waves plug i use most).

PSP 608 has more possibilities but is less easy.

Sometimes I like to multiply the track and to move them. It's less straight forward than a plug BUT you have a better control on each delay. You can have a different fx, time, volume on each word.

Another good possibility is to create a feedback loop inside your DAW or your board. You need a least a delay and a gain in order to control your feedback. For feedback/degrade delay it's the best solution I found so far. You can introduce all the fx you want (plug or outboard) in the feedback loop.

I guess you already know these two last solutions...

[zboy2854]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

Are there any better alternatives to the Super Tap 6 delay?(the Waves plug i use most).

Eventide Band Delays plug

[madcowvt]

Originally Posted by Improv

I was an Rcomp/Rvox/REQ addict, as I know many once were when the were the only decent plugins available. But I got conquered that demon when I discovered Sony's Dynamics. Using that with MDW EQ (or even Digirack EQ3) and I now rarely use any plugins that start with R. Rchannel is still nice for quick rough mixes merely for its convenience.

The reason I think we all fell in love with the R series was because of their fine control and ability to "dial in" that perfect setting. But for vocals, I'm having a hard time finding anything better than Sony... even compared with newer compressors (which are better for other things). I seem to always be able to dial in that magic spot between the compressor and expander, a little warmth, a little low dip/high boost with the EQ... everything it needs. For styles that call for it, you can squash 10 dB and it's still quite trasparent. It just sits perfectly. Couldn't live without Sony now.

Im in the market for a new EQ and was checking out the sony stuff. How does the Oxford EQ compare to the RenEQ? As far as flavor goes.

[Improv]

Originally Posted by madcowvt

Im in the market for a new EQ and was checking out the sony stuff. How does the Oxford EQ compare to the RenEQ? As far as flavor goes.

It's not really my cup of tea. I've never compared it directly with RenEQ, and I would imagine it would hold up fairly well in comparison with regards to flexibility and sound. But it never really did that much for me. I'd prefer Digi's stock EQ3 personally

[zboy2854]

I also personally have never fallen in love with the Oxford EQ. To my ears its far more surgical than musical, I might go to it if I needed to notch something, but if I want a nice broad EQ that I can grab and hear its goodness, I definitely wouldn't choose the Oxford.

[Dan]

Have you tried it with emulation 3 or 4? It works well for me in that way. I regularly use it over Ren EQ. If I need more color, I go with the URS plugs.

[zboy2854]

Originally Posted by Dan

Have you tried it with emulation 3 or 4? It works well for me in that way. I regularly use it over Ren EQ. If I need more color, I go with the URS plugs.

No, I probably need to spend more time with it to see what it can do with the other emulations...

[andsonic]

The only Waves plugs I still use are the "q" eq ones. I also love the DSPFX EQ and leveler, but they seem to have fallen off the map. There doesn't seem to be any hi-res versions available.

Sascha (DPP & Samplitude) Suite in replace of RenComp & it's ilk. I love AMTrack & Variverb (now available in VST).

I third any references to Voxengo

[robot gigante]

Yeah, I didn't like the Oxford EQ that much either until I started to use the other emulations. 3 should have been the default ihmo.

I use MDW the most though. I never really liked any of the Waves EQ's. G Channel is also pretty good.

[chrisj]

I do a flanger, de-esser and compressors You'll have to be able to use AU (Audio Units). These are all AU. The most popular AU host is probably Logic (Express or Pro). You can even use them in GarageBand though also, Amadeus, AU Lab and other such 2-track editors. We're probably talking Logic though. Not Pro Tools (home of Waves and iLok )

The flanger only does a superclear tape-style thing at different speeds. De-esser addresses the extremely high stuff, it's not a Spitfish style ess-notcher- it deals with stuff that's frying the DAC as if it was a cutting lathe de-esser (not tested for that). Two different compressors.

I just uploaded some more sound clips for the website, have a preview of what's going to be going up there soon-

http://www.airwindows.com/m/Flanger.mp3
http://www.airwindows.com/m/DeEss.mp3
http://www.airwindows.com/m/Compressor.mp3
http://www.airwindows.com/m/Pressure.mp3

Also some other modulation plugs:

http://www.airwindows.com/m/Chorus.mp3
http://www.airwindows.com/m/ChorusEnsemble.mp3
http://www.airwindows.com/m/Vibrato.mp3

I'll be putting the clips up here later tonight- this is the store:

http://store.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store....D=6FEGJ_LIVE&&

And in conclusion- my position on things like iLok etc is the Anti-Waves

Cheers, hope somebody finds something useful...

[theblotted]

any replacement for the X-series? (X-noise, X-hum, etc.)

[zboy2854]

Originally Posted by theblotted

any replacement for the X-series? (X-noise, X-hum, etc.)

Sony Oxford Restoration plugs.

[junior]

maybe bias soap?

[GuitarRuss]

Just had a really tricky situation which showed the superiority of Spitfish over Waves De-Esser. I had a mixdown with undermixed vocals and way too much percussion (congas) muddying up 300-1500. There was no choice but to pull a lot of the lower mids and boost 1500-8000 to get the vocals to cut through. I tried multiband compression but in the end settled on NEON Linear Phase Eq for the subtracting and Angeltone for adding EQ. Wicked plugs both of them in their own way Neon is surgical and exact, Angeltone adds a lot of sweetness and is pretty cheap as a standalone EQ purchase. As well, Neon isn't as expensive if you purchase it alone. I had read in the Mastering forum about these two working well together.

Now the side effect was a lot of sibilance. I tried and tried with Waves de-Esser, but it kept grabbing the accoustic guitar too. I even went so far as to automate it right to the sylable. But in the end it was way too noticable. I remembered Collins here on GS mentioning how Spitfish was awesome and he would have paid money for Spitfish...

Got the free plugin and immediately got better results. You can just listen to the difference so you can totally fine-tune exactly what it takes out. In the end, I didn't need to automate it at all and I dialed it in perfectly so it only got the sibilance and was unnoticable. Stomped all over Waves De-Esser.

[toolskid]

I'll bung in a few (borrowing Kennys colour scheme!):



C4 Multiband - McDSP MC2000

IR-1 - Altiverb, TLSpace

IR-L - Altiverb, TLSpace

L1 Ultramaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

L2 Ultramaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

L3 Multimaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

L3 Ultramaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

Linear Phase Equalizer Firium

MaxxBass Lowender

Renaissance Bass Lowender

Renaissance Compressor - McDSP compressor bank

Renaissance Equalizer - Eqium, McDSP Filterbank, digirack eq III, MDW

Renaissance Reverb Revibe

SSL E-Channel Duende

SSL G-Master Buss Compressor Duende

SSL G-Equalizer Duende

TransX SONOX transient modulator

X-Crackle CEDAR

X-Hum CEDAR

X-Noise CEDAR

X-Click CEDAR

Z-Noise CEDAR

[Pr.tiouz]

I miss Mondomod, especially the "where is it" setting, did anybody have a replacement for this "nowhereizer"...

[toolskid]

Originally Posted by Pr.tiouz

I miss Mondomod, especially the "where is it" setting, did anybody have a replacement for this "nowhereizer"...

Ohmboyz MobileOhm is a great replacement!

Its version of 360 spinner is really excellent!

great thread, I was wondering what to put in place of waves

[Mikey MTC]

L1 Ultramaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

L2 Ultramaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

L3 Multimaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

L3 Ultramaximizer - Massey 007, SONOX Inflator

---

Renaissance Reverb Revibe

---
TransX SONOX transient modulator



I disagree with some of these. First of all, the Sonox Inflator is much more a "colorizer" than a limiter. Yes it's got a limiter section in it, but my take on it is that the limiter side of it is secondary to its main intention.

Secondly, while there's plenty of alternatives to the L1 and L2, the L3 is a phase-linear mutli-band limiter: There's no alternatives to this in the plugin world that I know of. Please correct this someone if I'm wrong. I'm not arguing about which sounds subjectively better for any given task, but purely in terms of technology the L3 is an amazing and rare thing. The L316 even more so.

Digi's ReVibe is not a fair comparison to RenVerb. ReVibe works on Accel cards only which immediately puts it into another league. A fairer comparison would be Digi's older Reverb One. But even then, Reverb One is an "everything to everyone" type of product where as RenVerb tries to play on that old 80's digital reverb thing which has both admirers and detractors. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

And lastly, while Sonox's Transient Modulator is awesome with more controls than Waves' TransX, the Waves offering does come in a multiband version which is brilliant (for example) for tickling the low and high end out of a source while leaving the middle untouched. Or maybe just getting the snare to pop out of a mix while leaving much of the rest of the mix alone. The Transient Modulator is wideband only.

[Gear Tramp]

AudioTrack - URS Channel Strip Pro

C1 Parametric Compander - Sonalksis DQ1

C4 Multiband - Sonalksis CQ1

DeEsser - Digi DeEsser III

Doubler - Digi Pitch Shift + Digi Delay II / GearBox / EchoBoy

Enigma - GearBox / SoundToys / OhmBoyz

IR-1 - Altiverb / McDsp Revolver / TL Space / SIR

L2 Ultramaximizer - Massey L2007

Linear Phase Equalizer - Algorithmix PEQ / Roger Nichols Frequal-izer

MetaFlanger - GearBox / SoundToys / OhmBoyz

MondoMod - GearBox / SoundToys / OhmBoyz

Morphoder - Prosoniq Orange Vocoder / Eliosound Vocoder

PAZ Analyzer - Digi SignalTools

Renaissance Channel - URS Channel Strip Pro

Renaissance Compressor - Massey CT4 / URS Channel Strip Pro

Renaissance DeEsser - Digi DeEsser III

Renaissance Equalizer - Sonalksis SV-517 / Eliosound AirEQ / UAD Precision EQ

Renaissance Reverb - IK Multimedia CSR

SoundShifter - Digi Time Shift

SSL E-Channel - URS Channel Strip Pro

SSL G-Master Buss Compressor - Sonalksis SV-315 / URS 1980

SSL G-Equalizer - URS Channel Strip Pro / URS S-Series

SuperTap - Digi MultiTap / GearBox / Echo Farm

TrueVerb - IK Multimedia CSR

Waves Tune - Antares Auto-Tune / Celemony Melodyne

UltraPitch - GearBox / SoundToys

V-Comp 2254 - URS 1970 / UAD 33609

V-EQ3 - URS Channel Strip Pro / UAD 1073

V-EQ4 - URS Channel Strip Pro / UAD 1081 / URS N-Series

[songman]

Originally Posted by Gear Tramp

V-Comp 2254 - URS 1970

V-EQ3 - URS Channel Strip Pro

V-EQ4 - URS Channel Strip Pro / URS N-Series

I don't think I agree with that. I have both and the V series is in a league of its own.

[Gear Tramp]

Originally Posted by songman

I don't think I agree with that. I have both and the V series is in a league of its own.

Merely suggestions. Nothing will sound exactly like the waves plugs.

thumbsup

[thermos]

Originally Posted by songman

I don't think I agree with that. I have both and the V series is in a league of its own.

Really? The Waves Neve emu better than the Uad? I didn't think so, but maybe in some cases.

[peeder]

Originally Posted by thermos

Really? The Waves Neve emu better than the Uad? I didn't think so, but maybe in some cases.

I noticed he edited out the UAD reference.

I use UAD plugs mostly...I have Waves Musicians II (the $40 midnight special) and that's it for Waves. Never heard their V-series.

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by Mikey MTC

Secondly, while there's plenty of alternatives to the L1 and L2, the L3 is a phase-linear mutli-band limiter: There's no alternatives to this in the plugin world that I know of. Please correct this someone if I'm wrong

BIAS Sqweez-3 and Sqweez-5 are multiband and linear phase dynamics processors.

http://www.bias-inc.com/products/mas...nSuite/sqweez/

3 and 5 bands respectively, of course, so in terms of sheer number of bands, the L316 wins.

[Stiff]

Bah, just get the McDSP everything bundle and be over with it

[phase90]

Metaflanger - NI Reaktor's Vintape

An ensemble from the User Library. It's free if you're a registered owner of Reaktor. Many other gems on the Reaktor UL as well. Some amazingly talented people there uploading incredible work...