PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

I don’t know, but after so many years of using Waves plugins I don’t longer like them as I used to. It came to a point to my ears where I find them to be harsh, there is a “quality” of some sort that is present in many of these plugins, that’s what I feel. It is perhaps a subjective perception, I don’t know, but for mastering, I don’t longer wont them. There are so many other great plugins out there right now. Unfortunately, even if I’m found of them, for me it is time to give up with Waves in general. I’ve used them for soooo many years in sooo many productions, it is a bit sad for me.

What is your experience on this one?

Most of their older plugins are very lofi, and all the newer stuff needs to have the noise disabled if it's an emulation. Newer stuff is good, but compared to a saturated market, the only difference it should make is recall for older material in terms of opening up with plugins. Clearly this is why Waves chose the WUP model, and everyone just sort of has them floating around.

I do find that using things like L1 or L2 when I actually want that 'flavor' in a mix isn't a bad idea. Squashing the top end of a layered sample for a snare to sort of fizzle on top isn't abnormal, but I haven't touched L3 in years for instance.

I just bought a rollup of all Plugin Alliance plugins through end of year 2022, and have so much crap that I can't even install half of it on any given machine. Once again, project recall is the main consideration, and you're experienced enough to know there's ways to print material to ensure compatibility in the future anyway.

Or, I deleted years of work just so I didn't have to keep thinking about it, and that simplified things in other ways.

When I got my 1st Pro Tools TDM system I tried all Wave plugins... and trashed them the next day
Nothing among them that wasn‘t covered elsewhere in a better way.

F##k WAVES´ biz model and WUP !

I´m done w/ ´em since decades now.

Bud

I agree. With companies like PA, Polyverse, and Valhalla. I really don’t see the need for waves anymore……and as Bud referred to their update/upgrade policies are pretty lame. Of course if you’ve got a Scope system, I’m not sure why anyone would prefer a VST for dynamics especially. Even the stock plugins are good but dNa and spaceF really knocks it out of the park.

To Valis: that’s right, exactly. Yours is pretty much the same experience than mine. But I have to say I had the 9th version of the pluging, so a bit old I have to say, perhaps the latest ones are a bit better.

Dear Astro: It seems you had a better ear than us from the beginning, hehehe…

To Bud Weiser: WUP is a shame!

Nevertheless guys, I have to be thankful of these plugins, because in those days they were pretty amazing and I had a lot of fun with them, that’s true.

Now, why am I abandoning Waves now and not long time ago like you guys did? It all started with the trial of some SSL 6.5 plugins, I’m talking about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFp8NPzDe0g

https://store.solidstatelogic.com/

What the heck is this man, what a phenomenon! Never heard of such warm quality and clear sound, so beautiful, easy to use, simple, straight forward, it is THE solution. If you chain the ChannelStrip first and then add the X-Saturator, you’re done, (for modern music I mean)! I am delighted and could never come back from these SSL plugins now.

Everybody should at least try these plugins, seriously, you will end up replacing everything else you use for your mixing purposes, with these ones. They are somehow expensive that’s true, but if you can make your life simple, they are worth it in the long run.

I was tired of sculpturing difficult track’s characters with far too many plugins, choosing from too many possibilities, which is a waste of time but also a painful process that discourages your creativity because you do, with this little one here, this little bit of compression, with this other one here, you compress the low end, too many EQs, too many limiters, gates, reverbs, too many strange plugins with weird names that are, in fact, EQ variations or chains of plugs of plastic quality, too many free plugins also (that I thank very much), but that I never use anymore, etc., too much of everything…, you end up losing perspective.

Remember I am not a professional trained mix & master engineer or anything closer to that either, I’m a self-taught guy after all, so…, I struggle. Anyways, the results are not that good compared with SSL plugins even using a trillion VST plugins.

I usually struggle with voices, I am not totally satisfied, the SSL Native Vocalstrip 2 is fantastic in that regard, you can easily achieve very good, natural results in no time, without the hassle.

You should try these SSL plugins guys, seriously, go and try them all. Take at least one hour with some tracks you already know well and hear the difference by yourself.

While the world is crumbling down, we are, paradoxically, achieving the best plugins ever made.

hi Nestor, I don‘t consider my ears superior in any way. I just compared sounds and liked the non Waves more.
Btw I‘m a late PT TDM starter and only picked a dozen or so plugins for permanent use, but the rig happened to become my main in/out frontend.
(bought a lot of converter boxes because of cables thrown in on top)

I didn‘t watch dedicated videos of the SSL plugins, just the mix you posted above.
YES, that sounds good... but it‘s that typical modern mix style that doesn‘t click with me at all.
(probably mentioned this countless times)
Everything is balanced from bottom to top, but the mix neither breathes, nor does it have edges or events that surprise or catch the ear.

So my advice (if I may dare ...) would be:
use these plugins sparsely and well considered, focus on instruments and voice... not on tech capabilities.
Not everything needs an air band, not everything a sub bass, not everything has to hit -0.2 dB/fs.
Sometimes a shitty reverb from yesteryear may just be what the doctor ordered.
(recently got a Roland SRV2000 and really like it)

I should note that while I have no dearth of plugins, the highpass from the waves Q series is often better than many others due to its exceptionally low CPU usage without DC offset & 'ripple noise' which don't cross most DA's but DO contribute to headroom issues when mixing (trying to highpass a signal and winding up with a 5hz sideband ripple component is no bueno). BX DIgital and many others have specialized tools for these, but the Q series are so low in cpu usage that I often defer to them just for that fact. Low Q (as in curve) values also mitigate any concerns about both impacting low end too much (when warranted) but also quality issues.

yayajohn wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:28 am I agree. With companies like PA, Polyverse, and Valhalla. I really don’t see the need for waves anymore……and as Bud referred to their update/upgrade policies are pretty lame. Of course if you’ve got a Scope system, I’m not sure why anyone would prefer a VST for dynamics especially. Even the stock plugins are good but dNa and spaceF really knocks it out of the park.

Yes, for sure, they are fantastic, the problem is that I still use a Pulsar I only, so..., not much power to process all the tracks I normally load in any project.

astroman wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 12:29 pm hi Nestor, I don‘t consider my ears superior in any way. I just compared sounds and liked the non Waves more.
Btw I‘m a late PT TDM starter and only picked a dozen or so plugins for permanent use, but the rig happened to become my main in/out frontend.
(bought a lot of converter boxes because of cables thrown in on top)

I didn‘t watch dedicated videos of the SSL plugins, just the mix you posted above.
YES, that sounds good... but it‘s that typical modern mix style that doesn‘t click with me at all.
(probably mentioned this countless times)
Everything is balanced from bottom to top, but the mix neither breathes, nor does it have edges or events that surprise or catch the ear.

So my advice (if I may dare ...) would be:
use these plugins sparsely and well considered, focus on instruments and voice... not on tech capabilities.
Not everything needs an air band, not everything a sub bass, not everything has to hit -0.2 dB/fs.
Sometimes a shitty reverb from yesteryear may just be what the doctor ordered.
(recently got a Roland SRV2000 and really like it)

Hehe, I know, I just was happy to read you again after so many years, it was a little silly joke that's all, (now, your preferred smile)

I suggest you to try the SSL yourself, you can achieve anything you want with them, they are not really "that" colored or "that" structured in their sound, I think they can be very open by the way. Please, try them for a while, I think you might end up linking them too. The examples I posted are way to short to judge on them, and are probably focused to a specific commercial market.

I love your advice because you pay attention to "art" instate of "technology", so, how could you be wrong on this.

My struggle goes, not with the creative side of things, I'm a driven person in that regard, but with the "pro" sound that is still difficult for me, and these SSL plugs are giving me a good hand to at least, get a little closer to a polished sound. Of course, like you, I sometimes don't want that polished sound, but in many cases it is the most suitable for the music I'm doing, particularly, if it is not for me but a request.

Another set of amassing plugins, (to my ears at least), are the ones that come with T-Racks. T-Racks itself it is pretty amazing software to finish your songs.

Sorry if my ignorance gets me to where I should not go, I don’t know, perhaps, it is not as good as I believe. Anyway, I enjoy very much the SSL plugins used alongside with the IK Multimedia plugins that you can use as VSTs, I think they are very, very good, I love their sound. Have you tried those yourself guys?

Another set of plugins that I enjoy like crazy are the Eventide plugins, by the way, right now there is a 75% discount if you want to take advantage of them:
https://www.eventideaudio.com/plug-ins/
Anything from these guys, I love (except, perhaps, their chanelstrip). It is all about creativity and flavor, they inspire you immediately and sound fantastic. My preferred one is Blackhole, love it’s sound.

I guess i'm the only Waves lover here.
Many of their old plugins don't stand the test of time, but that's true with most developers plugins from the old days, Waves just never discontinue any of theirs. Having to upgrade from bad plugins was not only a problem with waves Users but most of the Computer-Musoc industry.

Mastering plugins are not Waves strenghths that arena belongs to TC, Weiss, Tone Projects, etc, but some of Waves newer Mixing plugins are as good as anyone else to my taste and IMO. Their compressors such as SSL Ev2, API 2500, Vocal Rider, Bass Rider, etc are top notch and Ovox voice synthesizer is best-in-class, IMO..

Waves Copy-Protection sucks but it beats Subscription. Waves are the best at making you Upgrade but you must factor in upgrade cost with your initial purchase and thus never pay more than $50 for one of their plugins and generally pay only $29 when it's buy pne get one free.

Waves has the largest plugin collection and they discontinue none so many are very old and out-dated but there are some gems in that pile of trash.

Waves plugins are needed for some people cause they have capabilities other Native plugins don't have. Waves has Soundgrid Server and its Realtime apps.

They are certainly a flawed company who was forced to adjust to today's Market cause their plugins were waaay too expensive back in the days, now everyday is a blow-out sale. They survive now by devaluing the whole Market as others are forced into lower and lower prices.

I think the whole market devalued itself, but not due to the plugin market specifically.

Once the MP3 format landed, the insistence on sticking to the existing CD sales model and label contract model lasted for a well over a longer than it should have, and only favored high end/established players and their ownership. So Waves plugins made sense when you wanted to take a session from a home studio into a 'Pro' studio and vice versa, along with Pro Tools.

Below that, since the access to publishing shrank for non-established players, many new and existing audio companies were chasing people who at best earned a tiny amount with local and regional gigging, which I would warrant includes many of here if one were to reflect on personal experience. Ie, the market had a HUGE gap between the high end and the 'rest of the players' for pricing models across the board, and as the low end began to actually make inroads into novice and beginners (who have little staying power, but lots of profitability) the high end eventually collapsed and had to adopt similar marketing tactics and fill product pricegaps on the hardware side.

Or, just choose to get bought and be treated as a prosumer line by whoever wound up owning you.

Nestor wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:39 pm ... Another set of plugins that I enjoy like crazy are the Eventide plugins, by the way, right now there is a 75% discount if you want to take advantage of them:
https://www.eventideaudio.com/plug-ins/
Anything from these guys, I love (except, perhaps, their chanelstrip). It is all about creativity and flavor, they inspire you immediately and sound fantastic. My preferred one is Blackhole, love it’s sound.

One of the reasons I run PT TDM are those „Eventide“ plugins.
No such label attached to them, but WaveMechanics did a lot of development for Eventide, so it‘s the same algorithms in many cases. WaveMechanics later continued as SoundToys in the Intel native domain.

Similar to Adern turning into Polyverse.
Recently got their Manipulator and Supermodal. Great stuff, RedMuze at his best and btw a totally smooth user experience with the Apple touch pad.