MusicMan

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.

That's 108 (36 x 3) plugins installed if you did, since they force you to install VST2, VST3 and AAX regardless of whether you use them or not.. 5GB to 10GB of disk space completely wasted on those wasted formats too plus longer scan times ?

This is Waves method of gatekeeping by artificially holding back updates unless you have active extortion.. l mean WUP. ? So your old plugins get locked in that old shell / set of updates. If you buy a new plugin, it gets installed into the new shell with all the latest updates. If you pay their ransom.. (I mean WUP!) on that old plugin, it will be updated to the latest shell. They're an annoying construct and like WUP should be abolished as they cause issues when scanning Waves plugins for some DAWs / audio editors.

Or ever using them if you're like me ?

That's exactly what I've been thinking too Lars.

Note: Physical iLok only with this one.

Have they made any progress in updating their plugins to VST3 yet?

Pretty crazy value for $1.30, so definitely not a bad choice!