smallstonefan

If I was running Waves one option I would have considered is telling customers that you can continue to WUP for the foreseeable future but ONLY products on existing WUP - with a grace period to let everyone who wants to get on WUP do so. This would allow people on perpetual to keep their licenses current but it would require them to stay current on WUP. This would require customers to commit if they wanted to stay current and create a pseudo-recurring revenue stream. At some point in the future they could then say that WUP was going away, but they would have eased the burden and prepared customers to move to subscription. At that time you tell everyone on WUP that you are offering them a deep discount on subscription to honor their loyalty. They need to look at this as a long game, not a short-term transition.

Like it or not, subscription is the future. I'm guessing I'm the only guy on this board that took a perpetual software company to a subscription model - this is a topic I'm absolutely a subject matter expert on. I'm also rather proud that we navigated those waters successfully without institutional investment (thought we did almost run out of cash). With predictable revenue from subscription we were able to staff up and increase the pace of releases - creating a LOT of value for our clients. Our software is used to run entire businesses, so the the constant innovation and support makes sense. It's been a great thing for our company and I think it's been good for our customers overall, but I know many of them have a different opinion - and I respect that. Something else everyone here misses is that most businesses are valued on a multiple of their EBITA (ie profit). Software companies are usually valued on a multiple of their recurring revenue. So, a traditional business doing $10 Million in revenue with $1M in profit might be worth 3x or 4x their profit - a valuation of a $3M-$4M. The same company that does software with that $10M being subscription revenue (what we call recurring revenue) is worth closer to $30M (a 3x on recurring). Which would you choose if you ran a company? The reality is that a CEO's #1 job is to increase shareholder value. PERIOD. If the shareholders of Waves are thinking about a company sale, then moving to subscription is absolutely the right course of action. All software companies over time that want to have a big exit and not stay a life-style business will move to subscription. The only question is how will they do it - and I think Waves has shown a great example of how NOT to do it.

They bugged something in the installer when it comes to selecting individual plugins to install. It's hiding and showing things and changing my selections. Wierd.

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.

I have Waves Mercury and Abbey Road Collection and I used WUP. I have no regrets.

Maybe Waves knows their business better than any "forum experts" and they are doing the right thing for their company and shareholders. Just a thought.

I've got quite a bit from 8DIO and I've been happy with the quality. I suspect they are gearing up to sell the company - that would explain a lot of what I'm seeing on these often overly-aggressive sales tactics. EDIT: Read from page 31 on. YUCK! I'd hate to be 8DIO with that stuff floating about the internet. Then again, I focus HEAVY on customer service in my company and like to think I'd not let something get to that point. I still enjoy my 8DIO libraries.

Same for me but CS5...

I run a decent sized software company and I can tell you this whole thing is very complicated. I moved our company to subscription a number of years ago. It took years to accomplish, was very challenging, and I nearly ran out of cash. Let me tell you a $35,000 a month cash burn is NO FUN. We provide a mission-critical applications for business so it makes sense for our customers to be on subscription and to get constant updates - be that feature innovations or bug fixes. The subscription also includes access to our academy, training staff, and US-based 800 customer support. We work very hard to provide constant value and innovation, and not just sit on the product and take in the revenue. I struggle a bit with a subscription model that is "access only" - in other words, you are just paying to use the product and the product is never updated (ie Plugin Alliance for the most part). Over time, this is a very expensive proposition for the end user. I actually like WUP - because the products keep working if I don't WUP and I can choose to WUP when I see the value in it and I take comfort in the fact WUP is profitable for Waves and therefore they will continue to keep their products functioning through future tech changes. That said, if I ran a professional studio I would highly consider subscription models and just consider them as part of the cost of doing business - like an electric bill. I will also add that if you run a software company, subscription is THE model to shoot for. It creates a very consistent cash flow and when you go to sell your business it's usually valued on a multiple of the subscription revenue as opposed to a multiple of the EBITA (a truly unique situation for software companies); subscription is here to stay.

I'm with you Brian. I never liked the way they structured coupons and discounts so I avoided them mostly - but at the end of the day I bought a lot of plugins and never felt cheated or taken advantage of. Kudos to him for building a successful company (not an easy task) and making a successful exit (also not an easy task). 👍

I'll be watching for US tour dates. We'll fly out to see him while we have the chance!

Thanks for putting in the time for a detailed response Steve - I very much appreciate it! I struggle with the same issues as you. I haven't tried his techniques yet, but this guy has me really excited to try Scaler on melodies I write on guitar. I just need to dedicate some time to learning Scaler and so far there always seems to be something else I'm drawn to do instead...

Anyone here recommend reMidi 2?

Thanks for sharing! Peter Gabriel is, for me, one of the few that "got away". I never got to see him in concert and really wish I had...

Thank you sincerely for this post! I reached out to UVI and I qualified. I was able to get Falcon and three expansions for about $117. This was a GREAT post! 🙌

Does anyone know how much Bandlab paid Gibson for Cakewalk?

I'm not certain about USB or Thunderbolt. I use TB and have three UAD devices. I think USB would be fine if you were running a smaller interface. I have an x8 and I love just about everything about this interface. It's expensive - and it might be overkill for some - but it's a killer unit. I think a twin Quad would be a good entry point for UAD and I would avoid a Twin Duo - 2 sharks is simply not enough horsepower IMO. I'd highly consider a used one in good condition. A lot of time sellers will have purchased plugins and since you can't resell the plugins they transfer with the unit. If going new, talk to a Sweetwater rep about promos and maybe go to the UAD forums. People track the offers - sometimes you get bigger dollar discounts and sometimes you get more plugins when buying new so you have a little flexibility in your path. After that I'd demo the channel strips and choose the one that you like best - being mindful that you have enough processing power to run it on all of your unison inputs at the same time if you'll be recording that way. That will cover your recording. While it might be nice to add other plugins in your recording chain, everything else can be added in mixing. You'll want the channel strip while recording, however, to take advantage of the Unison technology. I think UAD makes the best versions of the Pultec, 1176, and LA2A, and Fairchild out there and some are friendly in power while some are not as much. You'll usually use a number of these in a project, however, so if processing power isn't plenty then I'd go straight for some of the plugins that are UAD only - such as their reverbs (which are fantastic). You can demo any and all of the plugins and purchasing a plugin resets to the demos. I think they reset over time as well but I can't remember. Test them and be discerning; I have a master template that uses a lot of different UAD plugins in Pro Tools and I can get to max out if I push it - and I have 18 cores, so you'll want to choose wisely. Oh, and NEVER buy a plugin for the UAD platform that is available natively - I've heard that UAD may upsample differently but I don't notice a difference so I see no reason to chew up precious processing power. I LOVE my x8. I love the UAD plugins as well - and they are even releasing some of them natively! Some that I own for the shark chips I've received free copies of natively. There aren't many, but it's really encouraging that they are on the path to release more. Over time you could use the native versions for things like the analog classics and save the sharks for bigger jobs - potentially. All this said, UAD is a bit of a rabbit hole. You'll be looking at charts to balance processing power with what you have, and it will at times seem like you simply never have enough shark chips - because you won't. UAD does run better sales these days than they used to though, so you can get pretty good pricing on plugins if you're patient. Let me know if you have any questions - happy to help.

I hadn't seen that bit of hardware, thanks Zo! I think I get the differences now...

It depends on whether or not you want an interface or just access to the plugin ecosystem... What are you thinking? As for plugin suggestions - that will depend on if you get an interfaced or not and how many cores you get. I LOVE the 1176, LA2A, and Pultec emulations but if you are limited on horsepower it might not make sense to use it for those plugins as there are many others out there. In that case, going for something unique to UAD (like reverbs) is a good thing to consider. If you get an interface, you'll probably want a plugin that gives you a nice recording chain - like a channel strip.

I love my UAD gear. I upgraded to the new x series after a mix with the masters with Andew Scheps. He was raving about the quality of the converters and converters are a big reason he went in the box. I have a Dangerous d Box and I used its converters rather than my old silver UAD converters. The new x series absolutely blows away the converters in the Dangerous. The x series are seriously good pieces of kit, congrats 👍

“Is there a line that I could write sad enough to make you cry?” Gin Blossoms

Thanks Zo. I watched your video and I read some articles and I'm still confused. I think that's Karma telling me to spend my money elsewhere...

Thanks so much Zo! I was wondering what would be the 2nd thing I'd get with Ultimate - I'm off listening to demos of the XV 5080 now...

Thanks for the video Zo! I used to own a JD-800 and would like to get the Roland plugin version. They are still running their two years of Roland Cloud with 2 lifetime keys. As I understand it, I'd have to use a key for the JD-800 expansion and a key for Zenology Pro... So I would have to spend $200 to get this one synth? Do I understand this correctly?

I went the other way. Since I had everything else I thought I might as well as get this too… 🤣