Waves Discontinues Perpetual Licenses (UPDATE: They have gone Subscription Only)

[topaz]

Nice tip for blocking a certain site from Google search

tape  plugin -site:waves.com

 

[Nick Blanc]

He makes a good suggestion.

[whoisp]

2 hours ago, abacab said:

Actually, Scheps plugins are only available in the "Ultimate" tier, which costs a bit more monthly...

So its £25 a month for a £29 plugin haha That the only plugin i was interested in testing lol 

[Busker Pete]

As so many have said, Waves need to retreat from this or they will lose a lot of customers.  There is a huge amount of competition among plugin manufactures. Waves have just made themselves superfluous!

[PavlovsCat]

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. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Bapu]

So have you all made Waves go crash in the loudspekah by saying #wavesgoodbye?

[chris.r]

I can see how established studios would be ok to pay Waves subscription but I can't see how freelancers without steady income (from making music) would want to pay a steady outcome for it. And since homestudios (i.e. freelancers) market is growing so much, how many big studios are being shut down because of this trend? So to me Waves is taking a risk here, we shall see.

You don't have to have the "Scheps" plugins to make great music, there's so much to choose from a wealth of great alternatives! There's no real *need* to have the access to Waves catalog if you want to produce music, the only case that I see is if someone is already heavily dependent on the Waves catalog because he's been using (too) many in all his projects down the past, then it could be hard to pass or at least it will be quite an effort. If your fairly new or sparse to Waves then it's easy to replace them with anything good out there.

[John1984]

As I mentioned before,  Occam's razor suggests to me this is preparation for cashing out. It was a good 30 year run. I can imagine owners looking at the market, seeing boutique companies on one side, the consolidation on the other (PA, as an example) and look at Waves' wide and deep well of IP represented in their catalog, and just doing the simple math.

Setting aside for a moment the rather substantial outcry on other forums and just looking at the non-response in that 375+ reply thread on their own forum, I am given to believe Waves' GAF button is good and broken.

As many have pointed out, there's very little in the Waves back catalog that has not already been duplicated to some reasonable degree. What's left is just a matter of motivation, time, and effort. I'll amend my previous 8-ball guess and say it won't take a whole year. (This is me at the "acceptance" stage of grief.)

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by John1984
typos

[kitekrazy1]

29 minutes ago, chris.r said:

I can see how established studios would be ok to pay Waves subscription but I can't see how freelancers without steady income (from making music) would want to pay a steady outcome for it. And since homestudios (i.e. freelancers) market is growing so much, how many big studios are being shut down because of this trend? So to me Waves is taking a risk here, we shall see.

You don't have to have the "Scheps" plugins to make great music, there's so much to choose from a wealth of great alternatives! There's no real *need* to have the access to Waves catalog if you want to produce music, the only case that I see is if someone is already heavily dependent on the Waves catalog because he's been using (too) many in all his projects down the past, then it could be hard to pass or at least it will be quite an effort. If your fairly new or sparse to Waves then it's easy to replace them with anything good out there.

According to the Pro Tools newsletter the popular answer is no since Waves is a single machine license and would require 2 subs if you also do work on a laptop,

[bluzdog]

19 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

According to the Pro Tools newsletter the popular answer is no since Waves is a single machine license and would require 2 subs if you also do work on a laptop,

I thought you could move licenses between machines with a usb key.

[dubdisciple]

10 hours 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.

I used RBass for about 9 years without updating. 

[Tommy Byrnes]

55 minutes ago, bluzdog said:

I thought you could move licenses between machines with a usb key.

That's what I do.

[abacab]

57 minutes ago, bluzdog said:

I thought you could move licenses between machines with a usb key.

I store my Waves licenses on a USB2 flash stick. Can move them to any PC with Waves installed just by plugging it in.

No need for a 2nd seat, unless you intend to run both computers at the same time!

[dumbquestions]

13 minutes ago, abacab said:

I store my Waves licenses on a USB2 flash stick. Can move them to any PC with Waves installed just by plugging it in.

No need for a 2nd seat, unless you intend to run both computers at the same time!

With all the changes to Waves Central, Is it possible at this point to switch your waves licenses to a usb key, if your current plugins/licenses are already stored directly on your hard drive? In other words is it too late you think?

[chris.r]

3 minutes ago, dumbquestions said:

With all the changes to Waves Central, Is it possible at this point to switch your waves licenses to a usb key, if your current plugins/licenses are already stored directly on your hard drive? In other words is it too late you think?

That's not a dumb question!  

[dumbquestions]

Side question, it seems like updating OS & software versions is really important to most people. So another question I have is, do those people’s (maybe even you as the reader) reasons for upgrading software or OS truly warrant losing their entire waves plugin library? Asking because I’m still on an old operating system, & don’t foresee myself updating anytime soon especially after this. I haven’t run into compatibility issues with other software yet, but I don’t want to lose my waves plugins personally, along with having full access to projects I’ve saved—I guess I would consider myself a heavy waves user. V12 work fine for me. I guess my confusion comes when i hear that people who frequently use waves plugins and value them dearly have spent thousands on their collection, but then willingly go and update their computer fully knowing the consequences of not being able to use them ever again now.

To whoever wants to answer: what are your reasons for upgrading OS (and basically sacrificing) all your waves plugins to the WCA? I’m genuinely curious, I am a hobbyist so my perspective is quite limited especially to the needs of more pro studios out there, which is why i’m open to hearing what everyone else might have to say here. Maybe I should update and ditch waves for shinier updates to everything else on my computer?

(Obv. my disagreement with all the waves madness should go without saying, more focused now on moving forward)  

Edited March 29, 2023 by dumbquestions

[Fleer]

With a new Apple it’s plain and simple. They come with the latest MacOS and don’t let you go back to the future. 

[Vst0nE]

sooo true ??

 

 

[abacab]

2 hours ago, dumbquestions said:

With all the changes to Waves Central, Is it possible at this point to switch your waves licenses to a usb key, if your current plugins/licenses are already stored directly on your hard drive? In other words is it too late you think?

The latest Waves Central still includes the function to manage your license storage locations, such as your local drive or a USB key.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, dumbquestions said:

I guess my confusion comes when i hear that people who frequently use waves plugins and value them dearly have spent thousands on their collection, but then willingly go and update their computer fully knowing the consequences of not being able to use them ever again now.

To whoever wants to answer: what are your reasons for upgrading OS

For one thing, at least at this moment, the current release of Waves products are fully tested, certified and guaranteed to work with the latest version of every OS they run on. So the risk at this moment in updating your OS to Windows 10 or 11 (or whatever the latest Mac OS version is) is nil in regard to Waves plug-in compatibility.

Since you're a hobbyist, I assume that you use your computer for things other than running a DAW with only Waves plug-ins? The longer you stall updating your system, the more painful it will be when you are inevitably compelled to do so. Have you frozen every piece of software on the computer at a single point in time? Anything else you want to update will at some point stop working under an older OS.

If all you do is DAW stuff on this system, and you have frozen it in time at a certain point, and you're happy with it's current capabilities, then, sure, whatever, run the wheels off of it and when they do fall off, build a completely new system and start over.

For most other people, it's a cost:benefit ratio. There are definitely risks to continuing to run a computer system on an OS that is no longer supported. And while we have all heard the hearsay about "the latest Windows update broke my whatever," I've had a Windows update negatively impact my system exactly once in my 30 years of using Windows, and it had nothing to do with my DAW or any audio software, and was addressed in the next hotfix. How many times have you heard (and I mean directly from the person it happened to) from someone that a Windows update broke a plug-in? In my observations, the only things that Windows updates ever break are drivers. And those issues are typically addressed quickly by the hardware manufacturer. Again, I've never had an application negatively affected by a Windows update, and I once took my DAW system from Windows 7 to Windows 10 when the Cakewalk devs informed me that Windows 7 was no longer officially supported. As is typical with new Windows 10 installations, it needed about 48 hours of sitting and sorting things out before performance was back up to speed, but after this, performance was better than under Windows 7.

I also had more than one piece of old hardware laying around that had long since stopped working on XP or Windows 7 that started working again with Windows 10. So it went the opposite way: upgrading Windows fixed driver compatibility and saved me from having to dumpster a perfectly good flatbed scanner.

But we all have comfort zones, part of mine includes keeping my system updated. Over my years of occasional use of Waves plug-ins, they have been rock solid across their updates and Windows' and all of my plug-in hosts, and some of mine go back to v.10. If I had fears about Windows updates, Windows 10 Pro licenses can be had for about $6 and will let you stop updates indefinitely.

I once tried collaborating with someone who had frozen their lovely Mac Pro tower on an earlier version of MacOS despite it being compatible with (at the time, current) Mojave. He was a Pro Tools user who was in (not uncommon at the time) Pro Tools terror at updating anything because Pro Tools was (rightly) known for getting bricked by MacOS updates. So he was stuck on whatever the Pro Tools version was before they switched to AAX. I was forever sending him files and links to freebie plug-in and other audio software deals only for him to tell me that they wouldn't work on his system. Stuff like 24bit FLAC's and MediaHuman Audio Converter.

Finally in frustration, I researched the situation for hours and sold him on the idea of updating both Pro Tools and the OS, because from what I could make out, Avid had finally gotten their act together. He bought a 3 terabyte backup drive so that we could entire clone his current setup and went forth. Not a hitch. Not a single issue, and both the computer and PT worked so much better that he was overjoyed.

For Windows systems, one of Microsoft's biggest selling points for Windows is backward compatibility. They sell tons of licenses (maybe the bulk) to businesses who can't afford to have their legacy apps break. And by "can't afford," I mean it could be disastrous in some cases. There are companies who depend on software that if it had a single hour of downtime, would cost them millions. This isn't "I booked a session with an important client and had to cancel because Manny Algae's All-In-One Vocal Effect was on the fritz," this is "we lost our scheduling program and now 5000 banks won't have security guards until it's fixed."

Long answer, but that covers it.