PavlovsCat

I have all of those but MHarmonizer. I just thought the Waves one appeared to offer something slightly different. I never got anything usable out of the Eventide one. I'd be willing to trade that one for something I would actually use if anyone wants it.

Even with what I wrote above, there is one Waves plugin that I was interested in -- Waves Harmony. I would love to hear from anyone who owns it and what they think and what they find are alternatives worth checking into. For $29 USD, even with my feelings about Waves -- it is very tempting to pick it up.

Especially when sales prices for similar plugins from Plugin Alliance, Softube, Eventide, Sonnible, SSL, AudioThings, XLN Audio, Wavesfactory and other very fine developers are either similar or not much higher than Waves sale prices, I don't find Waves very tempting. Frankly, after Waves recent move to going subscription-only overnight, they're just not a developer that I would put in my consideration set unless they have something that is absolutely unique. I'd rather reward developers that have shown to be ethical and customer loyal. I have zero trust in Waves and I think it would be unwise for anyone to trust that company. (As always, this is just one person's opinion. We should be able to disagree and still be civil. I just wanted to express that I don't have a good deal of trust or respect for the way Waves runs its business. Of course, a bunch of influencers are likely to soon be shilling for them, defending their actions. I'm merely a regular customer and observer of their practices and I don't find them in the realm of what I'd call customer-centric practices.)

I also own the Soundpaint version of Bazantar and it's, by far, my favorite Soundpaint library. If you've never bought from 8Dio, you can PM me for a link to save $15 USD on your first purchase to pick this up for $5 USD.

They've restored perpetual licenses, but restoring their customers trust will be much harder. Waves showed their customers that there was something even worse than WUP. It doesn't endear Waves to me. In fact, after this, I doubt I will buy a Waves plugin again. However, if one of my Abbey Road plugins stops working, I would WUP it -- assuming that Waves hasn't gone back to subscription only at that point, which I do think remains a possibility after this situation. Without a doubt, I don't think it's wise to trust this company. However, I'm grateful that they restored perpetual licenses and their customers' ability to buy support contracts (WUP) in case our existing plugins stop working. But it's a lot like a school bully who decided not to steal a kid's lunch money for a day. I have zero confidence Waves will not engage in future problematic practices; in fact my expectation is that they will engage in other problematic practices. However, there's a wealth of talented developers that I think are more trustworthy and deserving of our money. I'll be supporting them.

You completely nailed it.

Just some simple facts (my real life background is Fortune 500 business strategy director, marketing director and business writer and speaker), because I see just about everyone here stating software subscriptions are more popular than perpetual licenses as a fact is actually merely asserting gut feelings as facts, or, at most projecting single data point perspectives; what's referred to as fallacy of composition error in the strategy world. Let me explain. For B2B, for example for an IT department, software subscriptions or SaaS are often preferred. However for B2C, or consumer buyers, like hobbyist musicians and producers, in this case, these subscriptions are not viewed very favorably. Further, a pro engineer may love subscriptions, a hobbyist with dreams of making it someday has a very different budget and perception of subscriptions for this purpose. If you're so inclined, you can find plenty of studies from researchers like Gaertner and publications like HBR that have studied and issued white papers and intellectual capital on this topic. From memory, while the average consumer perceives subscriptions like this with a deal of skepticism, research does indicate that there is a correlation between this mindset and age, as some here have speculated. But it's not as clear cut as some are asserting. The average consumer has a few subscriptions for various services, but generally hesitates before adding new subscriptions and views the commitment less than favorably. Of course, they have been very successful for streaming music and video, but that doesn't translate to consumers desiring several subscriptions at once. New subscription categories are often perceived unfavorably, so the response to Waves announcement likely cuts across a wide range demographically. Again though, that negative reaction to subscription commitments is very much in the consumer market, not the B2B/pro market. In the end, Waves is taking a risk with this strategy. I think it is likely it will not meet their expectations. Of course, I don't know what their expectations are beyond desiring recurring revenue. But I would expect they desire to also increase annual revenue, and my instincts are that that is definitely not a given. The DAW related market remains attractive and is growing, but competition is also growing and Waves played a lead role in lowering the average cost of effect plugins, which, of course, have meant developers are dealing with much smaller margins then they had a decade ago. I think Waves faces significant challenges in moving to a pure subscription model. While I don't have enough research in front of me to offer strategic advice, I suspect if the data showed what I expect it to indicate, I would have recommended that Waves continued offering perpetual licenses and subscriptions, with the former having much greater appeal to consumers and the latter appealing to the pro market.

I love Sound Dust. Weird, quirky and, IMO, just perfect at what they do. Stay weird, Sound Dust.

The AudioThing folks tweeted/posted this. More power to them. AudioThing is among the small developers I have bought many plugins and libraries from and would recommend.

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.

Consumer buying behavior is very different than the behavior of B2B buying behavior, especially with regards to things like subscriptions, which are often viewed favorably by business buyers, such as IT professionals. However, consumers often view software subscriptions very differently. I realize that you have an IT background. I come at this from a different perspective, as a strategist that assesses buying behavior (with technology my area of specialty). I've managed, written and spoke on this area for decades with B2B and B2C Fortune 500 experience and these are very elementary observations I'm sharing. But after you've sent me more than one very hostile PMs making insults at me. I'm not going to reply to you further. So, you can have your own opinions. But if you notice the backlash that Waves is getting for going to a subscription only model, it's really not surprising, because of the way they did it and because they're largely serving hobbyists, which is where the vast majority of money is in this market.

How corporations IT departments buy is very different from how consumers buy, especially when it comes to subscriptions.

Let's use this thread to share the names of developers we love that have replaced Waves plugins for us. For me, Sonible. Izotope, Softube, Eventide, Arturia, the various devs through Plugin Alliance....I have yet to buy SSL stuff, but I have a musician friend who really knows mixing who has urged me to get their stuff. Between cclarry, Bapu and Fleer, those guys own everything and we can just ask their opinions! The recommendations I've received from many forum members here have been really high quality. I rarely spend time at other music forums because of all of that and the many friendly people here. In the end, I have 30+ Waves plugins and I'm going to try to use alternatives -- so that one year from now, if I open an old project, I don't have a Waves plugin that stopped working.

Well, many threads and posts later, we have our answers. My guess is that Waves move to subscription only will be short lived, and hopefully, before our plugins stop working, they'll switch back to subscription and perpetual licenses. Until then, there are plenty of great alternatives to Waves and those are the developers I'll continue to support and even if Waves goes back to perpetual licenses before the end of the year, after this, I won't be buying from Waves again.

Sweetwater is still selling Waves plugins as they did before. It is possible that Waves is just changing their software registration system and eliminating smaller retailers that weren’t moving a lot of product. In any event, we'll soon find out.

Seriously, I'm glad you were finally able to sell it! I love the Abbey Road stuff, but I completely understand and relate to why you really don't want to deal with Waves anymore. If I could do it over again, the only Waves plugins I would have bought are the Abbey Road stuff and I wish Abbey Road would do a deal with another developer for those plugins in the near future, as I would greatly prefer if they were Softube, Izotope, Sonible, Eventide, etc. over Waves. I don't like Waves marketing strategies, I'm not a fan of WUP and, while none of us really knows what's going on, it's less than ideal to not know the future of the plugins you've used on projects for years. As someone else pointed out, if you've used a plugin on a project and Waves no longer offers support for that and goes subscription only and the plugin stops working, you're SOL. I'd prefer buying from developers that are more reliable and upfront -- and there are a wealth of great alternatives these days.

It's the end of an era as Fleer's love affair with WUP comes to a close.

Frankly, my instinct is that if Waves moves exclusively to a subscription model, they'll eventually find it doesn't generate the desired revenue and move back to perpetual licenses (and continue to offer subscriptions as an option). I completely get why software companies love the idea of the subscription model, it's steady revenue. But not all consumer audiences share that affection for subscriptions. If Waves is going subscription only -- and it's still an IF at this point -- I don't think it will last two years before they return to perpetual licenses. In any event, there's been multiple threads about this and pages of speculation, so Waves has gotten a lot of attention for this. I am very interested in how it resolves. I own easily 30+ Waves plugins and the only ones I really would hate to leave behind are the Abbey Road series.

This is the third thread on this topic. People have already asked -- me included-- but unsurprisingly, companies are going to be careful about letting big information like this leak, so unless you know someone at Waves personally or a vendor who is willing to share what they know, we're left to speculate and there's a lot of speculation going on there.

I've heard and read really good things about SSL's Drumstrip and meant to pick it up last sale. Of course, SSL has a great reputation. Next time Drumstrip goes on sale, I'm picking that up. But I'd like to hear from someone who owns this plugin before buying it, as tempting as that price is. It also would appear this would be a great deal for someone just getting started with a DAW.

How could I have forgotten. A friend used Piano in Blue many years ago and recorded this impromptu version of Carole King's "Natural Woman." It sounded great for this tune, IMO.

Thanks again! And you're a fine representative of your wonderful country!

Thanks. That is what I thought. Of course, I'm still going drool over Piano in Blue, and I'm pretty sure that I'll eventually pick it up and play it and think -- there's no way I'm good enough of a pianist to be playing this!

Thank you so much and sorry, I promise this will be my last question. I do rock music and want to use the cello for folk rock - ish arrangements largely centered around piano. I'm mostly going to use it for slower, emotional parts (think of Eleanor Rigby or Damien Rice for the kind of simple arrangements I enjoy). Do you think Vol 2 would work for me if I could only choose one of the libraries or do you think Vol 1 is the much better fit? Of course, I'm interested in Vol 2 because of the additional articulations.