quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad I think they exaggerate the CPU saving component. Yes the plugins are great and I dont think anyone would disagree but that fucking dongle.

Waves uses a dongle, too, you know. I guess their dongle isn't $1,500, though. (the UAD-2 Quad is $1,500 retail).

Dongle aside, most of the time, Waves only plays catch up with UAD. Whether or not they do just as good a job is debatable. Their plugins were awful until they started releasing emulations of the same hardware that U-Audio had emulated years before.

And let's not forget the Waves LA-2A emulation. U-Audio literally invented that hardware a few decades ago.

Edit:
What I'm saying is that U Audio are innovators and Waves are copiers. Kinda like Google vs Microsoft or Apple vs Microsoft.

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Last edited by alanzo on Jan-08-2011 at 18:41

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Have to disagree. most major studios will have waves before UAD. UAD's niche is the almost pro amateur which is probably the best market with the most people willing to spend money on something that seems tangible ie UAD and that fucking dongle but waves has some great plugins. I mean the C4 which has been updated but that plugin is something that any engineer of value will use at some point somewhere. It has still yet to be surpassed. Even just the old plugins like the Renaissance plugins do what they are supposed to do . UAD is all fine and dandy but the dongle just cripples the amount of plugins you can run and that is fucking lame for people that actually pay.

Absoluteley true - to be honest I can't think of a major studio I've been in that has UAD plugins but I can name half a dozen I've been to that have large waves bundles.

My whole feeling about UAD and Powercore were that apart from maybe when processing power was not up to task many years ago, the hardware component has been nothing but copy protection.

The powercore Virus was a prime example of this. I know for a fact the virus could have been easily run as a VST or AU in terms of resources, but Access didn't want to go the way of waldorf (i.e. bust through a staggering drop in hardware sales from cracked software versions that sounded nearly identical). They have never made a SW version of the virus for this reason, and won't until hardware sales drop off to the point it no longer makes sense.


The ilok thing (altogether) makes me insane and as per derail, I've seen a lot of pro engineers go out and get the crack version of the bundle because of dongle bullshit like their failing or weird license issues/malfunctions.

We had a nightmare at the studio once because the dongle stopped working mid way through the biggest film project that year. We were having to run back and forward between the two tracking/mix rooms and bouncing/printing with the FX in each room, all because all the plugin manufactures have their own procedure for replacing licences. Fucking nightmare. The only way to safeguard against this crap is that Ilok do this management thing where you can manage all the licenses but it's a monthly or annual fee which is a pisstake considering you have to use their dongle in the first place just for the shit to work.

I do agree that UA were the first to really carve a niche in terms of great hardware emulation, but that's kind of like saying they were the first copiers, so who really cares if other companies also started doing it?

quote:

Originally posted by alanzo Waves uses a dongle, too, you know. I guess their dongle isn't $1,500, though. (the UAD-2 Quad is $1,500 retail). Dongle aside, most of the time, Waves only plays catch up with UAD. Whether or not they do just as good a job is debatable. Their plugins were awful until they started releasing emulations of the same hardware that U-Audio had emulated years before. And let's not forget the Waves LA-2A emulation. U-Audio literally invented that hardware a few decades ago. Edit: What I'm saying is that U Audio are innovators and Waves are copiers. Kinda like Google vs Microsoft or Apple vs Microsoft.

slow down cowboy. First off, waves pretty much started the vst revolution, well I suppose they were dx back then. They developed plugins for professional studios that already had the hardware so it wasn't something they thought about. The goal was transparency.

Secondly, does it really matter who copies who ? waves have done some vintage things which sound great but I mean they have plugins that are a decade old that every engineer still uses. I mean the C4 pretty much changed the face of music. That plugin alone. IN a good way ?lol well debatable but they were innovators way before the UAD. When it comes down to it, waves has more essential tools than UAD just hasn't bothered with. I think Waves neglected hardware emulation because they assumed the studios using their wares already had the real thing. I think the move to copy UAD is kind of a result of piracy and basically just trying to survive anyway they can.

The whole vintage recreation is really the realm of the semi pro to small project studio. You will find waves used way more often than UAD in almost every studio. Just the linear EQ is used by every mastering engineer.

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Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Jan-08-2011 at 22:29

OK, I'm gonna chime into this discussion. I think (without any evidence of course) that there are 2 main reasons why waves dropped the prices so low;
a) I think they threw out A LOT of money to get famous producers like CLA, JJP, etc to do plugins with. All of these plugins (as with most of waves stuff) are top notch, so they were probably "forced" to spend extra time polishing them to make them almost exact like the hardware if they wanted someone like JJP to throw his name on it. I'm almost certain these newer plugins cost them a fortune to make and get endorsed by these producers. Who knows why they did it... Maybe they thought there was a need for these kind of signature plugins, maybe the suspected UAD or someone else would take them from them if they didn't do it now.... Just speculations.

and b) I think these plugins don't sell too well. Again, this is just pure speculation on my part, but I haven't seen a lot of people around forums saying they have one of these collections. So maybe they were forced to unbundle them and made them cheaper in order to cover the costs of developing them. I don't know, but I guess it's plausible.

Another possible reason might be that today there are a lot of great (and way cheaper) plugins around, commercial and free that rival some of the waves stuff. And I constantly see people recommending cheaper alternatives to waves. Piracy might also be a factor. I've seen countless wave owners complaining how expensive waves is compared to other plugs.

Also, a big fucking lol at to the guy defending UAD. Are you mad because you spent 1000 bucks on a card which can only run like 20/30 plugins? Right now I'm looking at the instance chart and I see you can only run 8 SSL channel strips on UAD2 Solo. A Card which costs $400. I can run more instances of that shit on a $400 built PC.
This entire powered plugins market is one big bullshit. First they screw you with the overpriced hardware, and then with the overpriced plugins. For $1500 you can get a PC that can run 5x the amount of native plugins as that card.

Most of waves plugins are old as shit (i.e C1, C4, doubler etc...) and hardly take up any CPU at all yet even today they can stand right next to the big boys. And let's not forget the L1.


Lastly, I would like to give you this great video which I found just recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz5ATqmIgH4
I started to look really differently at these signature series once I saw this vid. And keep in mind those are all default presets on all plugs.

I think people get caught up in new and better but most mastering engineers are using the same plugins they were using 5 years ago. Renaissance linear EQ is pretty much the first of its kind and is still the most used EQ plugin for mastering. Already mentioned the C4, I mean they have plugins for everything that covers everything. UAD is quite specific in that it is more sort of bootique plugins. I'm not dissing UAD, i just think people should stop trashing waves as they are fantastic plugins. They are not that expensive and that whole price shock is just people who don't actually investigate buying just 1 plugin.

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quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad I think people get caught up in new and better but most mastering engineers are using the same plugins they were using 5 years ago.

I sometimes see people saying that Waves plugins are "outdated" and I don't understand it. They're just really solid plugins, they do exactly what I want them to do, using minimal CPU.

Just because something has been around a while, doesn't make it "outdated". I wouldn't mind trying out a Lexicon 300L or 480L in my studio, even if they're not exactly recent reverb units.

In terms of people pirating stuff, I hope that most of us do have something inside of us which says "this is really good, I've derived a lot of benefit from it, I'm going to send some money to the maker of it and encourage them to keep making products like this". At some point it feels so much better to actually support the industry.

UAD is a complete joke. Like Richie, I'd also be interested in seeing CUDA used, but I don't think selling old graphics cards at those prices is reasonable. As he said, everyone used to think that the Lexicon couldn't be emulated, but the fact that it was proves that anything can be. Computers are just more efficient than dedicated hardware. Get used to it, its the future.

Raphie, you can get on your high horse about piracy, but I think you're massively over reacting. No one cares how their favourite track was made. If you were listening to a track in a club and someone told you it was made with pirated software, would you stop dancing?? Personally, I don't care if a beautiful painting is painted with a stolen brush, I'll still look at it and enjoy it and respect the art that went into it. It sounds to me like what you respect is someone's ability to invest their money into software, which gets no respect from me personally.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes OK, I'm gonna chime into this discussion. I think (without any evidence of course) that there are 2 main reasons why waves dropped the prices so low; a) I think they threw out A LOT of money to get famous producers like CLA, JJP, etc to do plugins with. All of these plugins (as with most of waves stuff) are top notch, so they were probably "forced" to spend extra time polishing them to make them almost exact like the hardware if they wanted someone like JJP to throw his name on it. I'm almost certain these newer plugins cost them a fortune to make and get endorsed by these producers. Who knows why they did it... Maybe they thought there was a need for these kind of signature plugins, maybe the suspected UAD or someone else would take them from them if they didn't do it now.... Just speculations. and b) I think these plugins don't sell too well. Again, this is just pure speculation on my part, but I haven't seen a lot of people around forums saying they have one of these collections. So maybe they were forced to unbundle them and made them cheaper in order to cover the costs of developing them. I don't know, but I guess it's plausible.

Yes, I think Waves has a really bad business strategy. Why would they build plugins with famous producer's names on them? Pro engineers won't have a bar of it because they aren't flexible enough, and just look unprofessional. But they simultaneously priced themselves out of the semipro market with those plugins. So who were they targetting??

If they'd made them cut down versions of their real plugins, and put the famous producer's names on them, it may have made sense, but the prices were crazy.

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Kit, you must have misread my post it's not about your audience, but about yourself and where you stand in life. and the also funny that the people that bitch the hardest on Waves (or other H2O/AIR releases) are also the people that use the hacked product. Bit of a double morale isn't it?

- also bitch on the product because you find it expensive, for the "crap" it delivers
- also use a hacked version and justify that in your head
- also don't settle for "better" or shareware alternatives

Sorry but those people don't earn my respect. they're spineless leeches.

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Last edited by Raphie on Jan-09-2011 at 13:48

i used cracks in school. Mostly sample libraries. Nobody suffered. Sorry , what i meant to say was I used crack in school and quite a few people suffered. Not something you should ever do but if you want to have a go , definitely something I would do before the age of 25. I did it more for the image. Talented composer or crack addict or both ? My street stock while on the rock was at an all time high. I just wish I didn't have to blow most of my teachers but that is all part of the crack experience but once I got the hang of it, it really prepared me for the real world to be frank.

I would say the only reason I use cracks is for stuff I want to use right now and I couldn't be bothered to wait 2 weeks. MoSt stores are doing downloads now which is great. I think most studios are that way. EVentually it ends up on the bill but sometimes you just need a bangin sitar on that keltic atmosphere you've delicately crafted and you got to have it yesterday. Come on Ravi, bang that shit. Mumbai this shit like you gots jungle book fever.

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Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Jan-09-2011 at 14:04

posting in yet another UAD bashing thread

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pretty sure this is a wave bashing party.

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quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips Yes, I think Waves has a really bad business strategy. Why would they build plugins with famous producer's names on them? Pro engineers won't have a bar of it because they aren't flexible enough, and just look unprofessional. But they simultaneously priced themselves out of the semipro market with those plugins. So who were they targetting?? If they'd made them cut down versions of their real plugins, and put the famous producer's names on them, it may have made sense, but the prices were crazy.

I was just thinking about two potentially great ideas for Waves;

a) Why not use these famous producers for helping in the design of a new plugin based on their favorite gear. So, for example now that they modelled the pultech; Since it's one of JJP's favorite gear he could sit down with waves and tell them what he likes about it, what he'd want added/changed/modified etc... All while he'd be using that plugin in his production throughout a year or so and weekly sitting back down with waves and tell them what to improve or add. Think about this; this is obviously a guy who knows his shit, so giving him essentially a free hand at making his dream gear could possibly make a new "classic" piece of gear if done right.
So, instead of him endorsing a fairchild and a pultec of which there are emulations from competing companies, he'd endorse his own designed plugins which no one else but waves makes.

b) Another idea (actually one of my hopes) is that Waves some time in the near future make a soft synth. I have no idea why they haven't done s yet. They could very well build the perfect synth, because they already have all the effects covered so it's basically all pretty much down to writing code for the oscillators and the filter (I'm generalizing here) which they can even license from someone like Fxpansion or something if they don't feel like doing it themselves.
Now imagine a synth with effects like the 1176 as the compressor, a maxxbas module, a doubler, IR reverb, L3-16 limiter, ren eq,... Hell, you could take a simple saw wave and I bet it would sound impressive going through their effects.
Going further into this, they could make separate synths for individual sounds. I.e. A bass synth could very well be something like Trillian but built around the CLA Bass module and additional waves effects for example.


So, yeah. Waves should hire me