I guess I'm late to the party, but I wanted to chime in in defense of Waves. I use the Chris Lord Alge vocal compression suite on almost everything, and my secret weapon is Waves TrueVerb "Estate Bathroom" which is the best reverb I've heard when used carefully. If anyone wants to hear this chain in action, check out the last 3 songs I uploaded on my youtube channel. The overall mix may suck, but I really think I got the vocals sounding the way I want them. Here's one that uses CLA Vocals "Rock Man" as well as a hint of TrueVerb Estate Bathroom to bring out that airy yet growly component. Trust me, in real life I sound thin and weak, but Waves really gives me that extra little push over the cliff.



EDIT: This may be a better example because it's an acapella tune...

All the waves Instruments are on sale now for 29 each or 129 for all of them. Are there any standouts?

I’m particularly fond of the electric pianos.

The drive section on the CLA Mix hub is killer.
Great sound too, you either love it or not I guess

I might grab the wavetable synth, I love those kinds of things.

Flow Motion is a fun one too

If it’s what I’m thinking, Waves currently uses multiple Shells presently as opposed to one universal shell for all plugins. It could possibly have something to do with 32 and 64 bit versions as well as older V9 and V10 plugins, at a guess.

Although, watch out for older, incompatible versions running side by side each other. That would cause issues, like buggy behaviour, or causing your DAW to crash. If you run into trouble just delete it all and reinstall.

I would add the linear phase multiband compressor. Currently like $25-ish at audiodeluxe which is crazy, really...

We can read a lot of hate against multiband compression during mastering but I have to disagree. If you know when and how to use multiband compression, this plugin is a gem. With its adaptive threshold feature and easy to learn workflow, it's still one of the better offerings regardless of its age and price. It can open up a mix wonderfully and also solve problems when needed. Ok, I would love to see per band sidechain options and a bigger/resizable GUI but still, it's great imho.

My thoughts are a Fairchild costs $30,000. If a $29 Puigchild gets them 75% of the goods, then it's more than worth it. It gives people that don't have access to expensive gear somewhat of the experience you'd get with the real deal. It's educational.

So, my $29 SSL G comp is F-ing awesome and gets me in the ballpark and now I know what to do with it if I had a real one like an Audioscape. The same goes with everything else they make if you look at it as buying a bit of experience and knowledge.

And the clincher … you can have all the UAD plugs you want and still suck at mixing/mastering. A talented person can smoke most people even with Waves plugins, just like Hendrix on a janky Squier.

i think nobody buys a 30k fairchild only for sound. there might be some money investing ideas come with it

No...NO!!

Stop making sense!!!

***sticks fingers in ears

Or maybe they are just massaging their own egos by having something flashy to show off to people.

Multiband compression is only bad if Yu don’t know what you’re doing with it, or are just using it for the sake of it without any real strategy. At the very least though, it can help to manage the bottom end and mids separately.

I often like to use the C6 because of the sidechain and the 2 dynamic eq, though I don’t typically use the sidechain on the stereo bus.

The F6 I’m starting to find handy for tracks that can Ben notoriously tricky to work with, like lead vocals and bass. I don’t get ahead of myself, however, I just use it like a typical eq to begin with. As the mix progresses I at least have options in place to easily implement any dynamic eq changes should it need it.

I think F6 and C6 are both excellent and useful plugins. Even just as a basic "fab-filter-esque" EQ the F6 comes in handy while being inexpensive. Dynamic is almost a bonus.

Just used C6 to compress the subs below 50 hz in a heavy bass/drum track, it really helped a lot. De-essed the cymbals on top with a floating band. Added a little upward compression on the very highest end too just for a little excitement / movement. It's a great plugin. I left the mids alone (bypass.)

I see we will need to buy the Waves Upgrade Plan to use our plugins with Catalina. Does the WUP ever go on sale (say on Black Friday) or is it always the same price?

Jeez you think it's like a cool car? 99.9% of the people on this planet would have no idea what a Fairchild is.......

Possibly one of the dumbest posts ever......buying gear for investment isn't a whole lot smarter unless you know how to repair it......

I skimmed through this email I got today about that, couldn’t be bothered enough to care ATM.

“Leave me alone, Waves! I’m busy with other cool toys.”

Weirdly enough, Waves Supertap is still one of the best multitap delays I've run into when I need control over the tap positions and pannings for a mono input signal. Everything else is either too limited, buggy (ReaDelay), has a gui designed for huge 3000 x 2000 resolution screens or is aimed at rhythmic trance / edm stuff.

I swear if someone gives me a decent modern VST base template, I'll go and write my own free no-nonsense multitap delay that doesn't suck like almost all the existing ones.

I'd say at least 80% of Waves stuff are my gotos. Great sound, small tidy interfaces, recall 10 years down the line guaranteed, no bugs, no glitches, everything always works 100%, they never crash the system.

I try to keep everything Waves-centered and only use other plugins when I absolutely must (Fabfilter, Soundtoys stuff).

All the compressors:
CLA 2A/3A/76
API2500
Puig670
dbx160
L1/L2
Rcomp/Rvox
SmackAttack
C4/C6/Vitamin

MaxxBass/Rbass
SSL/Scheps OC
Puigtec
HDelay
J37/Kramer tape
AR Vinyl/Studio3
Renaissance everything
NLS channel
Aphex Exciter

GTR Amp
S1
VocalRider


All are awesome. There might be better equivalent plugins out there and I try them out but honestly I never find the difference big enough to warrant a switch. I know Waves stuff very well, know exactly what to expect and how to achieve the sound I want with them and that's all that I care about.

I use the Scheps Omni Channel on nearly every track. It sounds great and has nearly every basic need all in one. I've uninstalled a lot of plugins that I've picked up over the years now because when I A/B them to the Omni, the SOC wins over and over and over. That was the best 30 bucks I've ever spent!

That really is a spectacular plugin. It's incredible how good every single module seems to sound in it.

If I was giving advice to a novice starting out, that for some reason was shopping for plugins, I think buying Scheps Omni Channel would really almost do it. Talk about a budget mixing setup!

You could use your DAW's stock delay, reverb, limiter, whatever. Do all your mixing across the board with Omni Channel. For $30 it would be a serious upgrade to the power of a stock DAW.

I mixed a track a while back using only omni and I was stunned at how good it sounded. It's really that good. Since then, I use it when I need a quick fix without reaching for a handful of separate plugins.

Most of the time I use a million other plugins just because I want to and I already own them. It's a life of luxury, keeps it interesting. Not, however, really necessary.

Agreed 100%!

Tons of Waves plugins are worth buying. Too many to name. The one thing Waves hasn't done is compete with companies like Izotope's Ozone or Soundtheory's Gullfoss. They've lagged behind in AI plugins that analyze the audio and offer suggested settings. Their plugs are still very much as good as the engineer using them. I will say that for the price, their plugs can't be beat. UA's plugs are much more expensive and rely on UA DSP to run.

The one thing I want to read about in Wave’s next announcement..

“Scheps Omni, now with buckets!!”

+1. Very well said.

/Magnus

I haven't seen that on Black Friday, but this does occur from time to time. I got 50% off the WUP in 2018. It's important to note that if your plan is still active for some plug-ins you might need to pay extra for that as that moves them further into the future. You can also let them expire of course.

Looking forward to the Black Friday sale - I'm going to get a smaller bundle for a few utility pieces and maybe a few color pieces as well

looking at Vocal rider, but it's not part of any interesing (or affordable bundles)
considering the buy 2 and get 1 free.
Thought about H-delay, but I have Echoboy...
Thought about L-2, but I have FabFilter Pro L2 (who's the real L-2? )
...so still thinking...

seems to their problem is they make too many damn plugins..quality over quantity...
how many plugins does FF make...around 15 -ish
Soundtoys...also around 15-ish
How many does Cytomic Make...a handful, but the Glue is ESSENTIAL to me in every mix....if I wanted to choose a waves compressor, I would have no idea which one, lol

edit: was thinking about Waves Tune but just got Autotune Access and this blind listening showed me that I absolutely most definitely prefer the sound of Autotune (by a big margin for the "transparent tuning" comparison and by a huge margin for the "creative tuning" example)

(results posted immediately below the listening examples)
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/pro...-do-you-prefer

SO true. I upgraded two plugins (Rhapsody and Electric 88) from V9 to V11, and it has been a bit of a nightmare.

i.e I 1st installed the new licenses then the new software.

Issues Galore :

1. Multiple instances showing up in my DAW.

2. Loading what my DAW indicated was the version 11 of RHapsody, only to find it still had some link to the older version cos bugs I knew from version 9 which has been fixed in version 11, still showed up.

3. I then uninstalled all version 11, and version 9. To install version 11 1st and then version 9 later (of the version 9 plugins I wanted to keep using) only to find that Rhapsody V11 was crashing - very strange cos I have never ever had a Waves plugin crash my DAW - never ever before now...

4. THen I reinstalled V11 without 1st uninstalling it, only to find that some V11 plugins now showed up twice....

IMHO, the whole Waves upgrade process is a total mess... it simply does not work as intended, cos the new installer down not have a proper grasp of the old V9 installs and is therefore not able to manage the transition to V11 smoothly..

The good thing though is that there is no need IMHO to uninstall licences to get the software to work as intended.

My next steps will be

1. Completely uninstall V11 and V9 software. Then install the V9's 1st and then the V11 - the key being from my experience with administering software, best to install them in the order in which they were released, in situations like this where there clearly is some relationship between the versions (as seen by my DAW - strange - unexpected yet so true, from real experience and a few frustrating hours)

I'll post back to give feedback on how this went. hopefully in another hour or two.

It is so tempting to want to pick up Waves plugins when they are on the cheap @ $29 or less than $40.

Very tempting.

For sure they have a wonderful ecosystem, pretty reliable, excellent documentation and a consistent user interface for common tasks like accessing documentation, managing presets, A/B and undo....

But seriously how many more EQ's do you want, or compressors or limiter or reverbs. It's all Emperor's new toys.....

I think Waves represents the Toyota or Volkswagen of audio - pretty comprehensive range of options, but nothing too outlandishly expensive or boutique.

So after purchasing a few Waves plugins, then augment with some boutique tools from Soundtoys, Fabfilter, Acustica Audio, Tokyo Dawn Records, and others, etc, etc, for alternatives.

Beyond a certain level of acquisition, simply stop buying plugins and place an embargo - or a limit - no more than $X of new investments in plugins per year, and stick to it - where X may be =, or greater than, ZERO.

I've had to separate each of the creative steps, SOUND DESIGN, COMPOSING, TRACKING, MIXING, MASTERING, and be clear on what plugins or tools I need for each of these.

Being clear on which of these steps are one's focus, helps to control gear acquisition syndrome. If I claim that I need huge investments in all of these tools, something must be wrong, as we cannot be experts at all of these things.

So we should only invest significantly in tools, for those steps, where we are predominantly involved. e.g. If Mastering is NOT my core function, I should not need more than 2 or 3 different capable limiters.

This way we stop the temptation of buying something we may use, and limit acquisitions, to plugins that will get used regularly.

waves has been around as a company and making plugins much longer than fab filter, soundtoys & cytomic.