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Some do, just received this 🙂:

This thread is tl;dr. But if I understand correctly what's happened here, Subway has cancelled the $5 foot long. Bottom shelf sandwich anyway.

You serious!!?

MEGA-20-OFF plugin alliance 20 usd voucher no minimum spend - voucher reset use it again https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products.html

I’m not holding my breath for Waves to reverse course. Even if they do, I’m not sure I can trust them to give them any more of my money. Fool me once. I’m moving forward with UA, PA, IK and especially the smaller devs. Speaking of smaller devs, who are your faves? And which plugins in particular are your go-to’s? Very much would like to know. For me; Melda: Love their pitch shifter and MCompare Valhalla: All of their plugs are amazing. But I keep reaching for their delays Audio Damage: Awesome developer. Love Filterstation, EOS 2 and Kombinat Tri D16: It’s like Pokémon... “Gotta catch ‘em all!” They’re that good!

I don't know if someone shared this... List - Waves Alternative Plugins (currently live with people collaborating just now) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1--yRZdWro_d28LmYNvaWsVct7CR6Y_KAULFU8wZ4SEI/edit#gid=0

I issued with no update

PA attacks...

I remember saying that I wouldn't bother starting to use their free sampler, or studio rack in projects because they would move the goalposts and do something shady.. and well here we are.. glad I expected them to suck and they did not disappoint..

What a stupid AF company. I’m trying to laugh but I think I’ll just crap in the corner.

This is the reply from PA to WAVES 😄👌

I always choose Sub-Zero

What if this is just a really early April fools joke?

Well, for one who disliked WUP for many years, this is as low as they could blow.

Just checked the Sweetwater website. This afternoon they still carried Waves plugins. Now they're all empty pages. I despise them (Waves) now. I personally hope they lose so much business that they go belly up. This has to be one of the most underhanded business decisions I've ever seen a company do. It actually makes me question whether I want to continue making music like this. I'm just a hobbyist. I can't afford $300.00 a year for a damned subscription for anything! I know some of you will say that there are alternatives. Yes, there certainly are plenty of alternatives but I put HUNDREDS of dollars into what I have from them over the years and to realize that they may become useless soon. When that happens I'm done. I've had enough. It's not worth the frustration anymore. If they can do this, who knows what's next? I quit the whole damned thing! 😠

I would hate to work in customer service at Waves right now.

https://www.change.org/p/waves-goodbye

I just got an email from Purafied Audio: "WAVE goodbye to plugin subscriptions".

FWIW that statement by Gilad Keren has been there for years - it wasn't put there because of the current fiasco

Now WHY on earth would we do that??

I would appreciate if they WUP'd all the existing licenses. I have so many different versions that installing them is a mess (which is Waves' fault).

Waves... "Hold my beer.. you think this is as low as we could go?! You should see the next shady idea we've got planned. Our slogan at Waves is "We hate customers, upsetting Waves of them at a time, wherever we can""

That is NOT helpful, sir. That's me trying to run away from this. I will fail.

For me, I'm not sure I really care. I have a bunch of Waves plugins (a bunch I got for free), honestly, I hardly use any of them. For the people who are big fans of Waves and get a lot of use out of their plugins, this may be a good option. I think subscription models work great if you are really embedded in the world of a particular developer. Myself, I'm all over the place, plugins from different developers, if they all switched to a subscription, I'd be hosed.

bx_masterdesk True Peak obtained for free. No more worries about untrue peaks.

Well, it seems that I am done with Waves. Their stuff isn't that great that I need to pay for it over and over again. I have a few of their plugins, but I have noticed that I have used them less over the last 2 years. In some respects, this whole thing I call "life" is just a subscription in that on some level, I can't take it with me. We all say that, but do we really know? Some subscriptions in life I will continue to keep paying for like breathing, eating and enjoying the sunshine. But other things like a Waves subscription plan? I will let that one go.

I just sent them an email asking for this, nicely. Next up: I'll buy the winning lottery ticket :)

Wow - that forum read is a party! Everyone venting directly on Waves’ own forum. A lot of mad customers!

Popcorn time. User reaction to the announcement over at the Waves forum... https://forum.waves.com/t/introducing-waves-creative-access/6850

I didn't update some plugins to 14 becuase they updated to 14 but didn't add HiDpi (the only reason I would of updated) now I can't. there are no excuses for this.

I updated Waves Central, and my plugins still show up, but it's different

not a cat in h*lls chance I'm updating anything until the desk settles I don't trust Waves in anyway shape or form at this point.

Can't wait for the ad with CLA promoting the hell out of it.

It's a lot more efficient to set up fx like reverbs as sends, especially if you have a slow computer like me 😂 Including fx in this channel strip would encourage people to do all their fx as inserts instead, and then they'd complain at how inefficient the plugin is. 😄

Well I got one thing right. They got rid of WUP. WUPs time was up. I've bought over $550 worth of Waves abandonware it seems. But if I'm honest, I hardly use any of it. So I guess I'm just glad I didn't WUP or upgrade to Mercury. I think with the amount of backlash they're facing, they might pull a Bitwig and reverse course. But maybe it's all just part of the plan to drum up more sales? Take away perpetual sales temporarily to sell a few subs, then give in to customer demand and bring back perpetual sales later.

Hopefully IK never goes that route but they are also in the hardware business. If Waves reverts back I doubt there will be enough forgiveness. Nothing like giving the end user a large middle finger. Another reason for them not to revert back is stuffed shirts wont give up their pride. We often overlook the plugins in our DAWs. What is also overlooked is now there will be an increase of piracy. Hackers like challenges. Small developers are where it's at. See Boz, TGR, Melda, and of course Fab Filter.

To varying degrees, you've captured the general feeling one gets from reading a number of forums and the posts regarding this cluster. I'd put money on Waves changing course on selling perpetual licenses and WUP within 30 days, but I don't believe it's going to save this company. The problem, as I see it, is the pooch is as screwed as one can imagine. This was such a galactically stupid way of handling it from one end to the other. I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I'd put $100 down on Soundwide owning Waves within twelve months. As an aside, if I were pro-tools-expert.com, I'm not sure I'd be that excited about having the scoop so very well prepared today.

How to ruin an audio plugin business Waves Execs see all the profits companies like Adobe are making with subscriptions. They want a piece of that pie. Without any consumer surveys or feedback, they decide to do away with perpetual licenses(and WUP) and go all in on a subscription-only business Inform 3rd party vendors know they won't be needed anymore Send an email to current customers stating they need to register their plugins by a short deadline. No need to give them a good amount of time to adjust. Keep the email vague as possible without much detail, but make sure it sounds really important. Just say some BS like, "Due to an upcoming change in our authorization & registration systems. Sunday, March 26, 2023 will be the last day to register dealer-purchased product serial codes that have not yet been registered." If they have any questions, just put our contact info Inform the support staff that something BIG is going to happen soon, but keep them in the dark. If customers inquire about what's going on... just have the support team reply with vague replies Make sure the main website has "ZERO" information about the deadline to register and the new authorization system. Actually, make sure they can't find info anywhere on the website including: search, store and FAQ It's business as usual... Keep selling plugins on Waves.com (Try get as many people(aka "suckers") to purchase plugins before the deadline) The day has come. Announce new Waves Creative Access on main website and all social media. No more WUP, no more perpetual licenses. Basically, Waves gives customers the middle finger Uproar ensues. Consumer outrage falls on deaf ears. Waves lose majority of customer base. All the while, Waves competitors like Universal Audio, Plugin Alliance, Melda and IK Multimedia are enjoying the show with popcorn 🍿

I can only respect Waves' competitors for seizing the opportunity to promote that they don't force their customers into subscriptions or even do an Update Plan type program (Waves previous less than embraced strategy for ongoing revenue from its customers). I think it will appeal to many former Waves customers who feel burned right now.

I suppose today would be a great opportunity for all of Waves competitors to open the floodgates of "special" sales!!! 🤣

The one thing I do agree with here is that Waves has handled this situation just about as poorly as you could handle it. I totally get the desire to move to subscription so I don't really have an issue with this as some do (I won't be subscribing), but this is going down as a textbook case in how NOT to do this.

Got masterdesk true peak for free with voucher as i got masterdesk already and

Yup. I picked up Needlepoint for $5. If anyone is at all interested, it's also worth jumping in now, as they may reset the voucher in a day or two for those who used it, as they've done plenty of times in the past.

most of us with paid licenses will loose all money invested in waves as at some point with new MAC or WIN systems they will stop be compatible so sooner or later you will not be able to use anyway,,,

anyone went for sub yet.....💣

I don't hate this, but I definitely don't love it. Waves does have the product line to be the one stop source for plugins( excluding instruments) if you are running a profitable studio. I think the big gamble Waves is taking is that they don't have the unique position that Adobe had. Photoshop has enjoyed the advantage of not having had a serious competitor since the 90's. The same is true for After Effects to a lesser degree ( more powerful compositing software exists, but AE occupies a unique lane that happens to work well with their other software). It took me awhile to move on from Adobe( Resolve is better than Premier in multiple areas and Affinity photo is a notch below but usable for my purposes), but finally have a combo that works for me. With Waves it is very different. I could never use a Waves product again starting now and not miss a step. I am sure this is true for many of us even if we love certain products ( Rvox is on most of my vocal chains ). In fact, I am willing to say most of us have individual plugins as good as or superior to every equivalent waves plugin. Most of us wouldn't be lose sleep if we were "stuck" using Fabfilter Pro L, Sonible Smart Limiter or even Newfangled Elevate instead of L2 the same way as an image processing professional would struggle if Photoshop got yanked overnight. I get the theory behind subscriptions. It forces upgrades when customers would be content to skip version or wait, and thus making income more predictable. In this case, it may blowup. I simply don't need Waves and I am sure I have at least 5 years with my current versions. More than enough time to replace Waves with plugins I likely already have. I started playing with Bassmint more today.

Totally agree! For me, my main Waves alternatives are: Plugin Alliance IK Multimedia Softube Arturia D16 Melda Universal Audio As for someone that just recently purchased a bunch of Waves plugins, I'm actually not going to use them for the same reasons you just mentioned. I'm just going to take that temporary hit and move on. As one of my favorite TV Show characters, Barney Fife, would say... "Nip it in the bud."