Waves. Heck with them!

[Shooshie]

Waves 9 works in DP8. I still go into DP7 sometimes and it works there too (with a few graphic glitches here and there).

I feel it's my fault Waves raised the WUP fee. I just sent them an email on Wednesday telling them how pleased I've been with them and their plugs lately. Big mistake. Less that 12 hours later I received the email about the WUP increase. Sorry about that.

BAD DAWG, DAWG! Bad Dawg!

[Shooshie]

There's no question that Waves has been a good company (most of the time) with great products. There was a period a few years back when they were not supporting DP, despite my fully paid up WUP for 3 years. (You could still buy many years of WUP and get better prices "in bulk.") They were not only unhelpful, but were derisive toward me for using DP, suggesting that I switch to Logic.
Shooshie

Wow. Shoosh I am so sorry sorry. I wish I ad been aware of your woes back then.

We were pretty miffed back then too at the whole DP MAS -AU thing. We went straight to the top of Waves and took along the owner of one of the largest waves dealers in the world. They comped all of our back WUP. (We are talking thousands $ as we were in TDM land then, and of course then built the MAS to AU preset converter for all of us DP guys and gals).

But it is sad when their folks on the front line treated you so badly. That story of yours is simply horrendous.

Oh, I was very verbal about it here in the forum. Probably to the point of annoying our buds here.

Someone said that there's nothing wrong with their doing this if you know what you're getting into when you buy in. That's just it. You buy into Waves, and pretty soon they change everything. Then they change it again. And again. And when they change, you pay. THAT is the part that disturbs me about Waves. That's why I compare them to my Public Storage facility, which is the only other business that treats me that way. They have our stuff locked up in a big room, and they know that the last thing we want to do is rent a truck and move it all to another facility, so they just keep jacking up the price. Every three or four months, the price goes up a little more.

The funny thing is, I've said more than once that Public Storage reminds me of Waves!

Shooshie

[rlcartwright]

I think Waves has made a good effort to revamp their copy protection and upgrade plans. I have the Diamond Bundle and use it quite a bit. I had to upgrade my WUP after several years of falling behind (V6->V9) and there's no penalty for big leaps in version numbers and you don't have to upgrade until you really need to. Also, I asked the Waves sales what I would have to buy to be eligible for a free year of WUP and found that I could just add the L3-16 limiter to my bundle for $100 and get the free WUP upgrade. With every other plug-in manufacturer there's a cost for upgrading version numbers. I paid $215 to upgrade from Altiverb 6 to 7. I paid $99 to upgrade iZotope RX. I paid $148 to upgrade PSP N2O and VW2. I paid $195 to upgrade from DP5 to DP7/8.

The $300 maximum may not hit those with a single bundle-that remains to be seen. It's possible that WUP for the Diamond Bundle will still be around $200, I don't have time to check on that right now.

Finally, the Waves WUP price gives you a dollar-for-dollar voucher towards a Waves purchase-which may or may not be useful, depending on your needs.

I'm really not too unhappy with the current state of Waves policies. I was not impressed in the past.

Best,

Robert Cartwright

[zed]

I made the mistake of buying my first Waves plugin last year. Learning that I was going to have to jump through some hoops and pay WUP to have it work with DP8 had me deciding to just stop using that plugin and cut my losses ($100) before giving them any more money.

But now Abbey Road joined forces with Waves to released the REDD plugin. I have longed for such a plugin for so many years, and now I am faced with having to decide whether or not to boycott it or not. I'm not happy about this.

I've heard the arguments about how the WUP plan isn't really so bad, but somehow just the thought of it just rubs me the wrong way. For the time being I am not proceeding any further with Waves. Some of the comments I've read in this thread have helped to solidify my position.

Sadly, that REDD desk is going to continue eluding me for a while. I might have to consider just buying the original model from Lenny Kravitz.

[rainmaker]

I really don't get the issue with WUP. I just don't understand how it is any different than any other company that requires an update fee for their product. For any plugin company, you pay for upgrades. With Waves, you pay for upgrades. What's the difference?

It's not a yearly fee that you "have" to pay for and neither are the upgrade fees from other companies. You simply pay when you want the upgrade and only then. Same thing as any other company. In fact, because you sometimes get new plugins in your bundles and vouchers for every dollar you spend that can be used for new plugins, please explain how this is a bad thing? What other company gives you $250 towards any of their other products if you spend $250 with them unless its a big two-for-one sale? What other company gives you additional free plugins with your upgrade that you didn't have before?

The last Slate plugin I bought was $250 and I didn't get any voucher for another free $250 plugin. I will also have to pay for the upgrade when it comes along and they will certainly never throw in another new plugin when I do. I recently purchased an iZotope plugin for $250. Same thing.

I find Waves WUP equal to any other companies' upgrade policy and in some cases even better. Especially if you own Mercury.

And to say that they just keep raising and raising their prices... for the last couple of years they've done nothing but slash their prices by large amounts. Their prices are lower than they've ever been. This WUP increase is the first upward price adjustment in a long time. And since when isn't a company allowed to raise their prices? Even with this increase its the cheapest upgrade I have of any of the software I own.

And let's be fair. It's not really a $100 increase. First, that's only if you have enough plugins to even reach that amount. Most will be much smaller based on a smaller number of plugins.

Second, they have allowed for a discounted $240 amount if you re-up early.

Third, you can reduce that even further by going to certain dealer like Waves Universe, etc, who discount all Waves' plugins and WUP fees.

Anyways, I just don't understand those that view this as such a different and wrong way of doing things and seeing it as totally unacceptable. It really is very reasonable and good.

[bayswater]

And let's be fair. It's not really a $100 increase. First, that's only if you have enough plugins to even reach that amount. Most will be much smaller based on a smaller number of plugins.

It's a 50% increase. Effectively more than that one your point about decreasing base prices is taken into account. What justifies a 50% increase?

You're right, it's an upgrade fee. So it MOTU sent out an email saying, BTW ladies and gents, updates to DP are henceforth $295, how should we react?

(I'm also comparing this to the recent move by IKM on T-Racks. Somehow they made it seem a little sweeter than Waves did.)

[rainmaker]

Well, nobody likes prices going up but that's how business works. I guess all I can say is Waves' upgrade pricing is the least expensive I pay for from any company.

And for what it's worth, DP didn't cost as much in the past either and will go up in the future as well. Everything goes up. I guess for those that are turned off by it and don't see enough value in Waves' tools, then by all means, dump them and quit using them.

Sure I wish they didn't increase the price. But I guess I'm still in the camp of being ok with the price compared to the value I feel I'm getting in return.

[Shooshie]

It's just too soon for me. They burned some bridges a while back, and then they tried to rebuild them. I was just beginning to trust them a little when they did this.

Let me be clear about what they did: I had spent $563.70 for WUP, for 3 years. Within 6 months they no longer supported DP. It was nearly two years (and a lot of burned bridges) before they did support it again, but my WUP expired as if there had never been a break in service. Some people got extensions that made up for the hiatus. They offered me six months, take it or leave it. In other words, they stole $250 from me. Never gave me the other 18 months they owed me.

Afterward, I bought the L3 for $300. Because of the way they had written their installer (very poor programming) the L3 Multimaximizer would not clear the initial test in DP (or anything else), because the L3 Ultramaximizer (free with Platinum bundle) told the Waves website that it already covered the L3 Max, when in fact it didn't. In other words, the L3 Multimaximizer was not operable. Not in DP, not in Logic, not in anything. I called tech support, and they worked with me for about a month, telling me to reinstall it over and over and over and over. It never worked. They finally blew me off, but did not refund my money. It was a year later when I finally managed to talk to a programmer, who wrote me a new installer and sent it the next day. It worked. But I had gone through a year of ridiculous stupidity on their part, during which they blamed me for it not working, when it was obviously the installer's problem.

I wanted to like Waves. They made it very hard to do. In each case, they had my money, so it just didn't matter what I thought, or whether my plugins worked. They didn't f'-ing care. So when they come along and slap another $50 to $100 upgrade fee on what is already at $200, I see a different face -- not just "business." I hear the taunts I received over the phone when I was trying to get what I'd paid for, but they just didn't give a crap.

At $200 for renewal, no matter how long the WUP had expired, it seemed fair for once. If that could have gone on for a few years, I might not mind the increase, but this policy is just over a year old (I've only renewed once under this policy). Suddenly it's $300 if you let it lapse, and $250 if you renew in advance -- bringing into question whether they credit you the full term of the existing policy before the renewal goes into effect.

It's too soon, and it's a move back toward the punitive and greedy policies of old.

And the fact is, I HAVE been moving steadily away from Waves. There are maybe four plugins that I still use: L3, HEQ, C6, and Z-Noise. None of the above are in my Platinum bundle, but it doesn't matter, just those four plugins alone would bring the upgrade fee to $250/$300, the cap, so I may as well get the Platinum bundle in there, too. (and I think the L3's days are numbered. I'm liking Slate's FG-X too much to go back to the bizarre and difficult L3)

Not everyone has a history with Waves like mine, so I understand that most people probably don't feel as put off by this as I do. But I've seen this company at their worst, and I do not like what I saw. I know they're still capable of cheating their customers and probably will at some point.

Not a single other company with which I do business has ever been so brazenly rude and dishonest to their customers. It's just bizarre that Waves is the leader in the field, and yet they stoop so low.

Shooshie

[rainmaker]

Well Shooshie, if I had experienced those things with Waves I might have some of those feeling as well. I can't understand why they could treat you that way and other people so differently.

I guess I have been really lucky with them. They have extended my WUP for no charge to the next version during both of the last two periods where they didn't support DP. All I had to do was write one simple email each time and got back a very quick and courteous reply with my WUP extended for free.

And I guess the reason I feel it's so inexpensive even at $300 is because I own Mercury. It literally is a few bucks per plugin to upgrade and that's not even considering they throw in enough new plugins to far outdo the money I'm paying for upgrading. In fact, whenever I do upgrade, I feel like all I'm doing is buying the new plugins they've added to the bundle. I never even feel like I'm upgrading the old plugins.

But again, I would feel very different had I been through what you have. Maybe it's because I own Mercury. I surely hope they don't treat their customers differently depending on what bundle they own. That would be far worse than any pricing schemes they could come up with.

[Shooshie]

Well Shooshie, if I had experienced those things with Waves I might have some of those feeling as well. I can't understand why they could treat you that way and other people so differently.

I wasn't the only one, rainmaker. Many people reported lousy treatment during that period. As for the 1 year blow-off of my L3 Multimaximizer purchase, that was just incompetence enveloped in a bad attitude. But by no means was I the only one, nor was I the only one who didn't get the full value of their WUP restored after years of hiatus when they didn't support DP. Most people bought WUP in shorter durations -- not 3 years worth as I did. Waves was handing out 6 month extensions which pretty much did the trick for those who purchased one-year WUP contracts.

If you're implying that I probably caused the problem myself, I can assure you that I never lost my cool with them, and was always polite. I may have come here and let off steam by writing about the latest phone call to Waves, but I handled those calls professionally. I should add that I was pretty much the Waves evangelist in this forum. I always took up for the company prior to this, and encouraged people to try Waves, because the quality of their plugins was so high. The developers had no idea what the phone-boys in the front office were doing, which we learned when one of our forum members discussed the problems with a Waves programmer who happened into his store one day. The Waves engineer had no idea this stuff was happening, and promised when he got back to Israel he would fix it. A couple of weeks later, Waves supported DP again.

There's much more to these stories, and they involve many more people -- our fellow forum mates. This was a long, drawn-out story spanning over three years, and many people dumped their Waves software at the time. I depended on Waves, then, and could not afford to dump it. I did my best to get those jerks in the telephone office to understand the problems, and to seek a resolution. The rest is a blight on Waves' reputation.

Shooshie

[kgdrum]

Well Shooshie, if I had experienced those things with Waves I might have some of those feeling as well. I can't understand why they could treat you that way and other people so differently.

I wasn't the only one, rainmaker. Many people reported lousy treatment during that period. As for the 1 year blow-off of my L3 Multimaximizer purchase, that was just incompetence enveloped in a bad attitude. But by no means was I the only one, nor was I the only one who didn't get the full value of their WUP restored after years of hiatus when they didn't support DP. Most people bought WUP in shorter durations -- not 3 years worth as I did. Waves was handing out 6 month extensions which pretty much did the trick for those who purchased one-year WUP contracts.

If you're implying that I probably caused the problem myself, I can assure you that I never lost my cool with them, and was always polite. I may have come here and let off steam by writing about the latest phone call to Waves, but I handled those calls professionally. I should add that I was pretty much the Waves evangelist in this forum. I always took up for the company prior to this, and encouraged people to try Waves, because the quality of their plugins was so high. The developers had no idea what the phone-boys in the front office were doing, which we learned when one of our forum members discussed the problems with a Waves programmer who happened into his store one day. The Waves engineer had no idea this stuff was happening, and promised when he got back to Israel he would fix it. A couple of weeks later, Waves supported DP again.

There's much more to these stories, and they involve many more people -- our fellow forum mates. This was a long, drawn-out story spanning over three years, and many people dumped their Waves software at the time. I depended on Waves, then, and could not afford to dump it. I did my best to get those jerks in the telephone office to understand the problems, and to seek a resolution. The rest is a blight on Waves' reputation.

Shooshie

+1 to what both of you are saying.
It's a really difficult to like this kind of policy change even as WUP was easier to deal with before the new policy kicks in it was better than it had been and once again it's not only more $$ but it feels punitive.
The fact that people with Mercury get different kinds of treatment than users who aren't as heavily invested in Waves product line does not feel right as well.
I have Gold/Renn Maxx and 5 or 6 other plugs,I've never been offered extensions on WUP and really the companies I like behave differently, they treat all customers equally,if you don't like the product you don't have to buy it.
But in the case of Waves it seems they treat the Mercury clients differently than the clients with less invested in the product line.
Waves propensity in constantly moving the fences on WUP & changing the terms is what bothers me.

Waves customer service has improved over the last few years & the prices have come down but the apparent double standard of WUP extensions which we've only heard about from Mercury clients and not all users really bothers me.
I'd honestly feel better if they don't offer this kind of courtesy to all users they didn't offer this to any users.
I like Shooshie use my Waves products less now ,I do find I prefer other companies plugs much more mostly because I actually prefer the plugs but I'm sure it's also partially due to the double standards & them constantly moving fences and changing policies.
Yes they've lowered prices but even this never feels right,they either keep phony list prices and sell at the actual "sale" price instead of saying we've lowered our prices.
So if the economy improves are they going to stop these 1 or 2 year "sales" and go back to the old prices?
They seem to be moving back towards the old WUP so I don't know what to expect from Waves as a company.
Waves has always felt unapologetic with their tendency to initiate upgrade policies that feel punitive while we keep hearing from select few customers who state WUP is fair,I guess we'd all feel that way if we got 1 or 2 years WUP free.

I'm the forum member Shooshie mentioned who met one of the Waves developers that helped us get Waves working with DP again so I've seen 1st hand they can do the right thing and I've also seen with my own eyes,they are truly dysfunctional.
The developer had no idea about the issues users were having or the perception in the market Waves has had with WUP.
For the solution to come from a chance meeting and a conversation actually bothers me,good companies listen to customers and hear what's going on,they don't need to have chance meetings between a developer and a client to solve issues.

A company I love dealing with is UA,they're not cheap but they are always upfront about issues,they have great plugs and they treat all clients as far as I know the same.
They have had issues in updating UAD to 64bit and it has taken a bit longer for them to get this transition completed but they have always been honest about it.
We're still waiting but they've always been upfront about updates and pricing.

My WUP just expired,I can update now for $176 through Waves Universe before 1/01 or I can blow it off and pay $300 later when I actually need to,I guess when the next OS or V10 is released.
I'm ambivalent,I rarely use these plugs anymore,I have them and the plugs are not even 2nd choices for me now,is it the plugs,the policies or the company?
IMO it's actually all of these things combined.
I deal with another company which I don't agree with some of their decisions,NI.
I didn't like them dropping B4,Pro53 or Kore but they did & they were honest about it.
I've upgraded Komplete several times,5,6,7& 8U and I want to and will upgrade to 9U when it's released because I like the products,the company and I always feel like they're honest & I feel like they treat all clients the same and I've never felt conned or misled.
Software based companies IMO play with a different set of rules than Hardware companies,how long would a Hardware based company stay in business if they behaved as many of these Soft/companies?

[HCMarkus]

Shooshie, I would send them an email with your last post included therein (possibly edited just a tad!) and ask them if they'd care to correct this long-festering issue. Wouldn't hurt to run it up the flagpole one more time to see if whoever is running the shop now might not be interested in keeping a good customer happy.

That said, had I experienced what you did, I would have dumped Waves long ago.

KG, back when the Waves-DP debacle was underway, I owned the same Waves plugs you do. I still managed to finagle enough of an WUP extension to get Waves functional (5.97 Beta as I recall), and then used that version of the plugs for six years without any further WUPping. As also noted in my other post, I expect V9 to last me for years, once I move to DP8. As you note, the fact that Waves apparently did not have a uniform approach to its customers is troubling. I guess I just got lucky.

I will say this: I prefer to get my machine operating solidly, then lock it down, OS and DP and plugs, with the possible exception of adding a VI or two here and there as needed for specialty projects. This way, I make more music and money (and spend less money) and pull out fewer of my precious remaining hairs.

[uncle dunc]

Well, nobody likes prices going up but that's how business works... .

Depends. In the studio business, established places are closing left and right and indies like me are getting squeezed by home studios. Movie and TV placements are paying less and less. Microphone prices have been dropping with all the clone manufacturers coming out with great sounding alternatives. Gear prices in general have been going down due to tech advances. Of course, some music software companies also bite the dust. I'd be curious to see financial statements from Waves. (POLITICAL CONTENT DELETED BY SITE OWNER) On the downside for Waves, they lose a lot to piracy, and have to pay "investigators" to track to renegade studios and users who don't pay, so there's a cost there. Anyway, in the context of the music biz in general, raising prices for plugins doesn't seem to fit with the reality on the ground. We shall see.

[James Steele]

uncle dunc: Please refrain from slipping politics into posts. Thanks.

[Shooshie]

Shooshie, I would send them an email with your last post included therein (possibly edited just a tad!) and ask them if they'd care to correct this long-festering issue. Wouldn't hurt to run it up the flagpole one more time to see if whoever is running the shop now might not be interested in keeping a good customer happy.

I think I'll pass on that. I'm afraid it would be seen as a belligerent act, and they could ban me from their website, or even their products. After all, we don't "own" our plugins. They are just licensed, and they can revoke the license anytime they want.

I don't want anything from Waves except trust, and based on past experience, I don't think they are going to take seriously such an exchange from a little DP user.

Shoosh