MusicMan

Hit download on MeldwayGrand before going to bed and have just been checking it out.. that's pretty mmmmmmm ? I haven't even made it through hardly any of the presets, but already found some very nice and useable ones!

Are you sure? When I tried, the individual prices for each remaining synth in the cart went up.

Does anyone use MLimiterX and can recommend it? I already have Elevate, Pro-L2, TDR and a few others. I don't mind having a selection as different source material sometimes works with one limiter more than another. But I would want it to be in that same kind of level, otherwise there's no point buying (even though it's cheap!) Same with MUltraMaximizer. Does anyone ever use this over their alternatives?

Hi Dan, would you mind confirming if the Taster pack is royalty free please? Thanks

There are as least as many sales at Waves as the sun rises, so there's never any hurry. While the Waves bundle has more plugins, the UA bundle for $99 or less with voucher, or at resellers, outclasses the Waves equivalents in their bundle in every case. In 2 or 3 years time, you're much more likely to still be using these UA ones and will likely end up buying them anyway if you buy Waves first so getting UA first would make more sense. https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/plug-in-bundles/uad-producer-edition.html The Signature Bundle from UA is even better, but Producer is closer in price to what you were looking at.

Song Athletics: OSS (One Shot Sampler) Free for 24 Hours, then new price of €10 OSS, or One Shot Sampler, is a standalone plugin designed to help you find the joy in your one shot collection. It allows you to access and trigger your samples quickly and easily. Locate your samples, write a melody or hold a chord, and scan through your one shots, like presets on a synth. Oh, and for a bit more joy, you can change the background image and the colour scheme to whatever you like. Includes a demo pack of one shots and background images. TECHNICAL INFORMATION VST3/AU Runs on Windows 10/11 and MacOS 10.11 (or later) Supports Intel Macs Download size: 225 MB uncompressed (includes one shot and background demo folders) Engineered by John Howes aka Cong Burn https://songathletics.com/products/oss

This should be obvious too really just from watching the recent years. The hobbyist market is huge and growing and a lot of players are trying to get a bigger slice of it, or trying to get into it and capitalize. That's not to say they don't make a packet from pro studios etc, but any business that chooses to neglect such a huge market sector like hobbyist, would be leaving a lot of money on the table and it certainly doesn't make for the best business sense.

Well said. Melda is definitely up there with the best of them when it comes to free updates. To give you free updates for life and free instruments / plugins when they release them with some of their bundles, or instruments destroys Waves on long term value.

Just yammering on But it really doesn't take Einstein to see their market share has taken a massive hit from where it was say 20 years ago. Waves used to be the big dog and could charge what they want. Plugin Alliance who have fallen out of popularity now a touch, significantly displaced them and pros and hobbyist alike flocked to them in droves. UA dropping to Waves like prices has further cast them aside. Even Softube has shown signs of competing on price with some of their recent sales and bundles. These are all considered to be a tier above Waves. Even if at worst, you consider them on par, they're in the same market segment for customers now. Let alone the plethora of brilliant new developers that have products that are modern, innovative and better quality. I dare say if it wasn't for Waves other licensing and income streams apart from plugins, they would be feeling the pinch even more. To make a play to drop sales altogether and cease WUP and try and go subscription only, could very well be a reflection of feeling that pinch. In terms of meaningless, even if it helps one person avoid the Waves / WUP trap then it has all the meaning I need On your flipside, I see where you're going with that, but not really great examples at all unfortunately. Updates to iZotope you're referring to are major version updates. Even they will keep providing compatibly updates and enhancements for many years later, for free, no update plan required. You're also referring to major version updates with Fabfilter. They also keep providing updates many years later from what I've seen. I don't know how far back, because mine are current. That would require buying the same Waves plugin to get updates multiple years and work out the same, or paying WUP if someone really wanted to get every update. But there are so many great alternatives that provide free updates forever and some even major versions for free: Acustica Audio, Arturia, Eventide, Kazrog, Kilohearts, Melda, Overloud, PSP, Softube, SSL, TDR, u-he, UA, etc, etc Everyone has this mindset they can just keep paying WUP, or rebuying the plugins. Let's not forget it was only about a year ago, they went subscription only, no more WUP, no more buying. Banking on a company to hold course and also to keep the cap at $240 a year for WUP when they've already shown their hand sounds pretty shaky to me. Unless like you said, you love subscription only and then it won't matter, but that's not the case for a lot of people.

Some of those are very easy to reach black and white numbers. The one I think isn't and yet is probably the most important and telling, is how many sales are lost due to their scheme. I actually like some of their plugins and might buy them if they scrapped WUP altogether and changed their ways. Although after that subscription only debacle, even if they did now though, I'd still be very cautious and hesitant. I get income streams look great for them and of course WUP paints one picture on the books, but there would also likely be a point where dropping WUP would drive more sales, newer customers and then potentially allow them a net boost overall. Even if they broke even and they cancelled each other, the brand would gain such a reputation boost and potentially get back some of the shine it once had. They really need a new CEO at this point, or be taken over. The way they're sticking to these old ways is reminiscent of the old video stores who never adapted to streaming and went bust as a result. They should always be evaluating whether their current approach makes sense. Business shouldn't be set and forget normally if they want longevity. It's a competitive market with SO many great options. If they want a piece they need to compete.

The WUP scheme exists because people keep paying it. It's similar to ransoms. If people keep paying, the perpetrators keep on doing it. If enough people boycott WUP and Waves altogether and their plugins, sooner or later they should realise just how damaging it is for their brand reputation and with sales of WUP tanking it would make more sense to drop it. Although unfortunately their marketing and tactics do exploit people just getting into buying plugins, which makes it harder. Like Peter said earlier, that's where its good to make their scheme known to starters before they fall for it. I really dislike venture capitalists, but Waves are one case where a VC could actually be better than than it is now! I'd actually be happy if Soundwise took them over ?

I passed on Sylenth for ages until it had a decent drop in price. The rent to own deals are very popular with people like that with some of these synths. If / when it all pans out you should be getting Serum 2 for free if they stick to their word which could be an amazing synth! Although you could've got Massive for less, $40 is a great price for it and worth it any day of the week ?

I wouldn't personally, but apart from Serum which was never discounted (apart from one or twice where a discount slipped through with resellers) I don't think I've ever paid full price for a synth. If I have it must be pretty rare!

Maybe not, but still an excellent FM synth and amazing at the sale price.

It's still a trap! Haha...

Yeah that's what I mean.. if it wasn't for how good he's been up until now, I would completely cut him off. It's out of character for sure.

Melda: Hexadecimal Anniversary (Everything 55% off (or more) Some pretty low sale prices. A few examples: MeldwayGrand for $10 https://www.meldaproduction.com/MeldwayGrand (RRP $106 : 91% Off) DreamMachines for MSoundFactory for $10 https://www.meldaproduction.com/DreamMachines (RRP $74 : 87% Off) PowerStrings for MSoundFactory $10 https://www.meldaproduction.com/PowerStrings (RRP $74 : 87% Off) MUltraMaximizer $10 https://www.meldaproduction.com/MUltraMaximizer (RRP $53 : 82% Off) MSoundFactory $106 https://www.meldaproduction.com/MSoundFactory (RRP $321 : 67% Off) MLimiterX $20 https://www.meldaproduction.com/MLimiterX (RRP $106 : 81% Off) Can use the code from my signature / PM to reduce by 20% further if you haven't purchased from them before https://www.meldaproduction.com/16thAnniversary

There are a few downsides that you haven't factored in. If you have two computers, you can only use your Waves plugins on one when the WUP runs out. Unless you want to use a USB dongle which is a hassle, or deactivate from one machine and activate on the other each time and that simply is not required for the vast majority of plugins. With Mac and people upgrading, the plugins do at times break with the update, especially any hardware updates. This seems to happen quite frequently for people. With iZotope you're talking about version upgrades. I dislike, but don't object paying for major version release upgrades, but even iZotope still provides bugfixes and compatibility updates many years later. Waves does not provide anything as soon as WUP expires. With Waveshells, in Acoustica Premium right as of now, not all of my Waves show up in there for me to use, purely due to their stupid Waveshells. There might be other companies that fail to get things right, but I'm somewhat at a loss to think of one that gets it so wrong like Waves on so many fronts and still holds course ?

https://musicsoftwaredeals.com/

I read that same comment from his as well.. unless he's not paying any attention to stock levels, but even that seems unlikely.

Thanks BTP, that makes more sense now! I did wonder if it might be something like that. At least I can delete all the rest apart from VST3 when I download it. Have you had a chance to use it much yet and if so, what are your thoughts so far?

Shows $49.99 for me now..

There's been a few of these from them lately.. he normally seems pretty straight up so I'd like to give him the benefit of doubt.. but it's getting harder to do that with these now too!

Is it IR based? Very large installer apparently. 500MB. Still totally worth it if the sound is good. Thanks ?

That really sucks too because they're pretty great value and some of them quite OK plugins. I won't buy more until VST3 though.