Free Waves StudioVerse

[Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann]

Somewhat lost in the noise of the subscription-only-fiasco, Waves announced the new StudioVerse for using AI techniques for creating plugin chains. After the "both subscription and perpetual" was announced, I've been waiting to see how much they asked for StudioVerse and, pleasant surprise - It's free!

From https://www.waves.com/studioverse/about

Quote

StudioVerse opens from the Waves StudioRack plugin chainer. Get StudioRack as part of a Waves Creative Access subscription (try first 7 days free), or download the demo (including all Waves plugins) from Waves Central. Or, if you already have a StudioRack license, you can simply update it in Waves Central, even without a new subscription or demo.

StudioRack has been a free-of-charge license for quite a while. If you don't have it (or have an older version), it's price still seems to be $0, but the purchase functionality at waves.com seems to be a work-in-progress and not functional yet

Note: Like many other plugin chainers, you need to have licenses for the plugins being chained. If you don't already have a good collection of Waves plugins, StudioVerse will probably be of limited or no use.

[MusicMan]

There's a reason why I never used Studio Rack in any actual projects I intended to keep as I always had a gut feel they would sweep the rug out from our feet and make it require WUP, or take it away..

After their recent fiasco, free isn't worth the hassle from Waves on something like that. It's easier to replace a couple of Waves plugins in a project than a whole advanced signal chain that won't open when they paywall it or make it subscription only.

My gut says no.. so does my brain.. basically everything says no to Waves for now ?

[Pragi]

1 minute ago, MusicMan said:

There's a reason why I never used Studio Rack in any actual projects I intended to keep as I always had a gut feel they would sweep the rug out from our feet and make it require WUP, or take it away..

After their recent fiasco, free isn't worth the hassle from Waves on something like that. It's easier to replace a couple of Waves plugins in a project than a whole advanced signal chain that won't open when they paywall it or make it subscription only.

My gut says no.. so does my brain.. basically everything says no to Waves for now ?

 Thanks for making that clear.

[Lionel]

My exact sentiments.  I can’t and won’t trust them again.

[mettelus]

As a spectator, these Waves threads are baffling to me. There have only been a few vendors with epic "gripe threads" over the years, and reading those has been enough for me to steer clear of them. Just the time investment to deal with some of those issues seems a bit much.

[Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann]

I've been playing around with it. The workflow is similar to iZotope Ozone and Neutron. You let StudioVerse "listen" to the track and then it comes up with a list of suggested plugin chains that you can tweak.

Some differences with iZotope are:

• Instead of one chain, it presents many possible chains, and you can easily one-click-switch from one chain to another and listen to the difference (but note that this switching can sometimes get very CPU intensive)
• The chains have "macro" knobs, to easily tweak the main parameters instead of having to dig into each plugin to tweak the settings (similar to how presets work e.g., in Analog Lab and many other synths)
• You can refine the "AI Listen" results using tags, name or id. You can also skip the "AI" part and just search in the whole collection.

Sure, if you don't have many Waves licenses and/or have crossed out Waves from your list of plugins to use, this will be of little use to you but, if you have a large collection of their plug-ins (Mercury, etc) this is a really nice freebie.

This is the "AI version" of the "make your mix sound like Chris Lord-Alge/Greg Wells/Tony Maserati/etc" that Waves has been marketing for years

Edited April 4, 2023 by Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann

[MusicMan]

13 hours ago, mettelus said:

As a spectator, these Waves threads are baffling to me. There have only been a few vendors with epic "gripe threads" over the years, and reading those has been enough for me to steer clear of them. Just the time investment to deal with some of those issues seems a bit much.

It's actually surprisingly quick to bash Waves.. they provide all the materials so readily ?

The number one reason for calling them out is so that new starters don't fall into their trap. Waves is a powerful advertising machine and if it wasn't for forums and Facebook groups etc it would be easy to think they're the best choice when there's so many better companies out there these days. Better to call them out, hold them accountable and try to break the cycle of victims getting suckered into a lifetime of WUP extortion.

[Guest]

Waves who? Never heard of them. Doesn't look like a trustworthy company to me.

[husker]

5 hours ago, Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann said:

I've been playing around with it. The workflow is similar to iZotope Ozone and Neutron. You let StudioVerse "listen" to the track and then it comes up with a list of suggested plugin chains that you can tweak.

Some differences with iZotope are:

• Instead of one chain, it presents many possible chains, and you can easily one-click-switch from one chain to another and listen to the difference (but note that this switching can sometimes get very CPU intensive)
• The chains have "macro" knobs, to easily tweak the main parameters instead of having to dig into each plugin to tweak the settings (similar to how presets work e.g., in Analog Lab and many other synths)
• You can refine the "AI Listen" results using tags, name or id. You can also skip the "AI" part and just search in the whole collection.

Sure, if you don't have many Waves licenses and/or have crossed out Waves from your list of plugins to use, this will be of little use to you but, if you have a large collection of their plug-ins (Mercury, etc) this is a really nice freebie.

This is the "AI version" of the "make your mix sound like Chris Lord-Alge/Greg Wells/Tony Maserati/etc" that Waves has been marketing for years

THanks, I think I'll check it out.

[Fleer]

WOOP those Waves