Marina

8 minutes ago, mettelus said:

Also makes me curious if they have a free 9 to 10 upgrade window for the folks that have been asking about this.

There was a grace period update for SL 9 last year https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/115001891190-How-to-verify-eligibility-for-free-Grace-Period-update hopefully there will be one this year too.

It’s using improved Hybrid Transformer Demucs for stem unmixing, so  hopefully it will be better at this than RX. In a nutshell, bye-bye RipX - you’re out of the game  

It’s a nice synth imho.

I’d definitely prefer the activation method with activation codes as provided in this purchase outside PA  

I would avoid using license keys from shady online stores, even more when using the following license key on a PC used for business purposes.

1 hour ago, Fleer said:

Is there a minimum spend limit?

According to UA support on Gearspace thread for native plugins “Purchases made from this offer should not trigger thank you coupons.”, but in fact their billing system seems to act strange and gives the $25 coupons to some of its customers, but that wasn’t the case for me. I got 3 out of 4 plugins in two separate orders, but no thankyou coupon

Of course you might test your luck and order all of them in separate orders to see if $25 arrive in your account.

EDIT: Oh, it looks like I got you wrong and you did actually get the $25 coupon.

This promo code works just fine with my UAD account. Got the Teletronix LA-2A along with Pure Plate Reverb for free with a Volt 2 device a few weeks ago and who knows why the promotion is currently available for me. I have no hw 1176, but I still like TrackComp’s 1176. On the other side TrackComp has no Fairchild emulation as of yet, so getting the UAD Fairchild looks reasonable for me. Also I’m using the Ignite Amps Pultec, but would be happy to replace it with UAD’s Pultec. Now the only question left is how good is UAD’s own 1176 emulation  Anyone here to share if they have UAD 1176 and do they prefer it to TrackComp’s 1176 emulation?

Save up to 33% on all plugins

Still no sign of sunshine here in Denmark, but at least we have a Spring Sale! Make a great deal on Basslane Pro, Unisum Mastering Compressor, and Kelvin Tone Shaper. Or grab the bundle and save even more.

The last day of the sale is April 15, 2023

https://www.toneprojects.com/products.html

Including the “useful” RipX feature of calling home every time you start it.

Run it four times with no Internet connection and it will greet you with this cute message: “RipX periodically checks online that the product license is valid. Please note that the next time you run RipX it will need to be connected to the Internet, otherwise creation and editing will be disabled”.  Run it disconnected once again and it will promptly deactivate itself. Check it yourselves in the screenshots below. Looks like useless in disconnected post-production environment. Thankfully Demucs that is integrated jn RipX DeepRemix as a source separation utility is completely free and open source and it could be downloaded here: https://github.com/topics/demucs

And their software doesn’t support license transfers.

I’d stay away from any other products coming from these ppl.

10 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Yes, he's gone silent since his estimated angry 20% of the userbase were actually listened to. 😊

I will say, I can forgive Waves management for the move now that they've changed course and issued an apology. For management to pull a take-it-or-leave-it move like that and then admit that they screwed up is unusual. I have respect for a good apology and making amends.

Of course, despite having licenses for many of their products, I've only ever obtained them via freebie offers, never spent a dime except for one round of WUP.

After my latest system rebuild, only two remain installed, MetaFilter and Elements 2. I found one cool preset in Elements 2 and used it on a song and I have a thing for rhythmic filters.

It's funny, 5 years ago on the old Cakewalk, Inc. forum, people recommended Waves plug-ins so often that I put a joke in my sig that if anyone ever recommended one to me I would "relentlessly troll them" or words to that effect. On the current forum, which started about 3 years ago, I don't believe I've ever seen someone outside the Deals sub recommend one. Instead, I've become the annoying one, recommending MeldaProduction ad nauseum.😄

That suggests to me a decline in popularity/loyalty of Waves' stuff. Maybe their policies (single seat per license, having to buy WUP in order to get updates) finally wore people down. Especially the single seat. These days, everyone seems to have a tower system in their studio and a laptop to haul around.

A strange coincidence, probably he was mobilized to be around for their crisis management.

I didn’t know about these audio forums back in the years when Waves had no WUP. Audio production is a hobby for me only during the last 3 years. My first impression when I registered here was that the community was upset about Waves update policy, so I stayed away from their plugins, because well, I’m a hobbyist and I prefer to own the copies of software that I paid for.

Melda seems like a good actor among sharks just like the few small developers. Let’s see what will its acquisition by Image-Line bring long-term. I hope that it’s simple offline authorization will stay untouched.

Sore losers

This is good news for perpetual license owners, but trust was already lost.

At least subscription enthusiasm among other audio plugins companies was killed by Waves wrong move. Must have been a great lesson for all of them once and for all. Having in mind that most companies are doing their best to promote their products on forums in the form of “user” comments, it was an earthquake what happened everywhere from Cakewalk Discuss, to KVR, Gearspace and VI-Control communities. Probably the damage was fatal to Waves. Who’ll dare to be the next one?

After the Waves sub-only fiasco other plugin dev companies will think twice before following the Waves steps. Couldn’t be happier. AVID, I hope that you’re taking notes now

3 hours ago, John1984 said:

https://www.waves.com/news/perpetual-waves-licenses-are-back

 

They’re backtracking now, LMAO

Where are now the Waves advocates of our forum to tell us the tale about the Angry Minority ™  like this guy called @Carl Ewing who was sharing his wishful thinking yesterday, destroying all the critics of Waves sub move.

52 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

Waves will likely do very well with this model despite the angry minority screaming away on the internet. And small developers will think this is opportunity to capitalize on angry consumers. This will fail, like it does in all industries where large competitors who can afford a robust subscription infrastructure wipe out smaller competitors. Happens every day.

Sounds like Waves Audio advocacy based on wishful thinking more than a realistic prediction. I hope that the CFO of the company is wiser than this, but looking at the “success” story behind WUP it looks very doubtful.

22 minutes ago, Bapu said:

What amuses me in all this is the stance that people here are going to deinstall working plugins in protest to the change in business model by Waves.

I mean we hear of people on V13 plugs (and earlier) that say they still work.

For those with Macs it’s inevitable for the plugins to become useless sooner rather than later.

Selling their plugins in protest might have been the best choice if only they knew that Waves is about to jump the sub train.

1 hour ago, Carl Ewing said:

Subscriptions are extremely profitable and significantly cut down on overhead / developer size / ecommerce headaches, and help with piracy (last one is debateable).  That's why companies use them. 

This isn't to say these models are always successful. Some fail spectacularly. Time will tell if Waves does well with it.

Complaints about subscription services likely make up half the internet at this point. Adobe went through hell with theirs, even prompting a Change.Org petition and an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to all the criticisms from designers and shareholders. Despite that, SEC filings showed that customers were choosing Creative Cloud over CS at a ratio of 4:1 prior to their move to pure subscription. In other words - the angry minority were completely overshadowed by the majority of customers.

I assume it will be the same with Waves. If I were to judge by internet forums, virtually every software company (gaming, music, design, etc.) should be out of business because of consumer complaints. Yet, most of them...especially those running subscriptions....are doing extremely well. This Waves switch is likely no different - it's probably a welcome change for the vast majority of users, most of which likely never hang out on / post on forums. I think companies are starting to realize that internet forums are a total ****hole of outrage and have stopped listening to them when making critical business decisions. 

 

 

Adobe Photoshop was the de-facto standard for raster editing back then. Illustrator still is the preferred vector graphic software (yet some studios around the world are using CorelDRAW). Adobe Premiere is currently losing ground to DaVinci Resolve Studio (lifetime 2-slot license that gives free updates to future versions).
 

Waves was never the audio production/mastering de-facto standard to begin with. They also weren’t the Avid of audii plugins.

Of course they have the right to try ruin their own business. With no doubt many other developers will profit from Wave’s losses of customers. One could easily find one of the many online lists of Waves plugins alternatives - from pro-grade to cheap alternatives to free ones. I believe it must have been a difficult decision to destroy a semi-successful audio software company. I’m afraid that what they used to earn with their endless sales they will never see again with their subs model.

Looks like BRA is actively reading the audio forums

If I were a (former) Waves Audio customer, I would get this bundle

I feel for every single Waves customer at this very moment

In the same time I feel lucky that I never purchased a single plugin from Waves. I preferred plugins and audio software that could be activated with a simple key or static key file (FF, DMG, Valhalla, u-He, Xfer, TDR, Acon, SIR, Tone Projects, Kazrog, Wavesfactory) instead and now I can see what could have happened if I had loads of this $29 per plugin crap.

In future I will be even more careful to only get new plugins that offer offline key activation and nothing else.

Waves are probably adapting to the new economic really and it’s already obvious that WUP didn’t work well for them. Instead of throwing WUP under the bus they doubled down.  A stupid move IMO.

Don’t jump the Waves sub train, Waves looks to be an unreliable developer!

34 minutes ago, abacab said:

I'm OK with a company offering subscriptions, as long as they are optional, and an alternative to reasonably priced perpetual licenses.

What Adobe did is unforgivable. They did away with perpetual licenses for all of their pro graphics software. Stop subscribing and you lose the ability to edit any of your works previously saved in the Adobe file formats. Apparently Adobe has a firm grip on the pro graphics industry. SMH.

When there is working competition, perpetual licensing is still available. Adobe Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Office are first examples that come to my mind.

And IMHO audio software business has too much competitive businesses in the game and not that many customers on the other side, which creates hostile environment for sub models. But it looks like some developers are testing the water just to find that their dreams of subscription heaven are unrealistic.

0 Waves plugins

0 audio plugins subscriptions

Challenge/Response for offline activation according to their user manual https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php That’s not good & makes me skip, skip, skip, skip.

Here comes the first bug report. My DMG Audio plugins don’t show in VST3 plugins list. Not even a trace of Essence, Limitless and TrackComp 2.

However it’s long awaited improvement that is welcome.

12 hours ago, Fleer said:

This:

is right up my alley 

Sounds great!

Thank you all for letting me know, URL fixed.

Get a $100 voucher by taking the NUGEN Audio survey at:

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Vouchers expire on March 4th 2023.

Survey starts 18th January 2023 and ends 17th February 2023.

56 minutes ago, Leandro Álvarez said:

For sure! In my case, I have a Macbook M1 Pro. Generally speaking, all plugins works fine. In the case of non-native apple silicon processors, the software runs under an emulator called Rosetta.  Imagine using your plugins in windows with a virtual machine.

What happens to me? I cannot assign more than 6 or 8 instances of non native plugins. The solution? run everything under Rosetta, in that case there is another incompatibilities and lack of performance. I tried to use brauer method using IK Multimedia compressors: with the previous versions, it was impossible. Now, they're natively compatible and they run smooooooth.

In the case of Lindell 50 series, it's one of the plugins you want native, because it is intended to be put in every channel and bus. The reality? Is it not going to be updated anymore. It's not in any list and it seems to be abandonware. Zero problem for windows, zero problem if you run it with Rosetta until you put more and more instances.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience with Rosetta emulated plugins.

I was really curious, having read many times about low performance under Rosetta, but I wasn’t aware about the number of loaded plugins limit under Rosetta, being a Windows laptop user myself.