Every plugin company on the planet should run a sale right now and call it the “Waves Sale”. UA and others are about to make a ton of money.
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Remarkably, it seems that Waves has no understanding of what it’s like to make a living in music.
As a professional musician, I’ve experienced cycles of feast and famine in the music industry. The next time famine hits, I don’t want to be dependent on a subscription I can no longer afford to make music that will raise my income. Any interruption in service would disrupt my ability to earn a living.
The traditional model of buying licenses makes much more sense in my experience, because I can buy gear during the good times; and when hard times come, I still own everything I paid for and can use it as long as I have housing and electricity—and housing and electricity is more affordable than housing, electricity, and multiple subscriptions.
I realize that not everyone is like me and that it may make sense to offer a subscription model. That’s fine. It’s the removal of upgrade options for perpetual licenses that I have problem with. A subscription for temporary use is no substitute for selling an upgrade for perpetual use. It’s demoralizing that Waves seems to think this is an equivalent option.
If an organization goes out of the business of supporting and updating perpetual licenses, then as far as I’m concerned, they have gone out of business. I’ve purchased countless Waves plugins over the last 25 years, but I will not subscribe.
I’m mostly on version 12, with newer purchases on 13 and 14. I was waiting to get another Waves Update Plan until I was ready to buy an Apple Silicon Mac. Now, it seems that my next Mac—or possibly even my next OS upgrade or DAW update—will be the end of the road for my Waves “perpetual” licenses, as I no longer have an option to make these licenses current.
It was negligent of Waves to not to give us plenty of time to decide how to proceed. As I’m only interested in perpetual licenses, I guess my only option left is to use the money that would have gone to a WUP to buy any plugins I need from other manufacturers to replace the Waves plugins that I don’t already have an equivalent for.
As a result of Waves’ choice to no longer upgrade perpetual licenses, I’ve decided to stop using Waves plugins unless I’m willing to print them as audio files, to future proof my sessions. When I’m tempted to reach for a Waves plugin, I will ask myself, “What can I use instead?”
It’s a real shame, because I was a loyal customer who had been purchasing Waves products since the ’90s; and I would have continued my support going forward had your longstanding policies remained in place.
Sincerely,
Geoff Grace
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By all means let the subscription model be an option for those who want it thats fine, but dont make it the only option. you are gonna loose so many customers with this move
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After 27 years of buying and updating Waves plugins I’m finally done if this isn’t corrected. It was difficult and frustrating at times dealing with with all the authorization problems and expensive to keep WUPing my 100s of plugins but this is the straw that broke that camels back. This is a terrible decision. The essential subscription doesn’t include most of the plugins I use and $25/mo forever isn’t worth it. In the end neither is a good value. I feel cheated. Luckily I have replacements for most of the Waves plugins I used from PA, Izopope, DMG, Soundtoys, PSP and Hornet. In most cases they are better but I will miss some of my favorite tools. On top of tis not giving a warning to your customers regarding a new pricing structure was a brutal and mindless decision as many of us are transitioning to AS. I hope Waves will reconsider and make this right for all of our sake.
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This is a the worst thing i have experienced as a customer in my life!!!
The fact that I literally just bought over $200 in plugins that were on sale expecting to be able to follow the upgrade path and eventually own outright the bundled products that I actually want to use was my goal.
Now, you switch over to a subscription only service without any sort of notice to customers is a complete Joke, and a complete slap in the face to all previous customers.
A better way to have gone about this would have been to inform customers ahead of time that there were plans to switch to subscription only based plans, and that they should hurry and buy the products they want before the licensing model changes over, and offer the secondary license free and future updates as a one time payment for all owned products.
This would have actually pushed more sales and allowed customers the chance to buy what they want, or to decide if the should save there money and pay for a monthly or yearly subscription.
The subscription would litterally make all the money I just spent a complete waste as their is no discount for already owning part of the products in the plan and now no way to purchase the bundles I wanted.
I prefer how Native Instuments licensing model works, buy all the licenses you want and join the subscription as needed to gain acces to what you dont own already for the time thatyou need it.
Whomever is running your marketing and licensing structures needs to be re-evaluated
In their position, because a group of monkeys could have make a better decision then this.
How about instead of sticking to this plan, you backstep and give your loyal customers what they want and deserve before we all bail on you and leave you to go bankrupt.
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I did the same. Uninstalled everything and I will never look back. I don’t believe that Waves can be trusted anymore even if they send me a tremendous deal 
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Really??? The subscription scam???
Good bye. You just lost my business.
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Adi, you’re talking nonsense here, or you should at least be a more explicit about 'we are not taking them away from you and will continue to support them
Namely, you just removed the WUP entirely, and that has been the only way to get continuous support on perpetual licenses.
The way I and a lot of loyal customers understand it, is: congratulations on the car you bought up until Sunday, we will not service it anymore if needed. Instead, hire a new car.
Please explain! Why and how!
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Yes i agree this decision to force the LV1 project down the same pipe witll kill it off. Subs for studio users fine but live sound NO WAY will it work in practise, traditional model for Live users.
One size doesn’t fit all.
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I can’t support a company that doesn’t care about its customers, especially the loyal ones.
Simply put, this was a greedy and evil move on Waves part.
The silver lining of this… I no longer have to think about Waves products in my workflow anymore. And companies like Universal Audio, Plugin Alliance, Arturia, Melda, Softube, Slate, IK Multimedia, etc will confidently have my business.
So long Waves.
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@Adi.Waves The only way you remedy this now is to give perpetual license holders the ability to upgrade to V14 one last time. Thats the main issue here, the rug pull.
To apologise you should do it on grace, with no 12month support, that way everyone that can get on same level of V14, There is no point charging for it becuase you’ve already removed that feature and it would be in bad taste now.
Everyone on V10 or above can upgrade to the lastest V14.
And as a sweetener you should give duplicate V9 versions of revelvant legacy plugins they hold to be put on usb pen for the utilisation on Avid profile consoles as an apology to Live sound users, who have been hit the worst here.
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Anybody have info on lawsuit filings etc? Especially if they’re causing people who’ve already spent thousands on software having to be forced to pay in this new model nobody but them agreed to. I’ll gladly take a refund for all the money I’ve spent on waves. This is just shameful. Really hope you plan on taking care of the people who’ve spent money on your perpetual ownership licenses.
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Public service announcement for those, like me, who didn’t know or were confused:
V14 IS compatible with AAX Silicon Native. If you are looking to update in the future to a new mac with Pro Tools, this should work (until Waves drop v14 from a future OS).
(Can’t post a link - PT users go to the Waves Creative Access thread on the DUC, post #46).
Curiously, Waves don’t seem to want you to know this. Their own compatibility website says it is Rosetta only for PT. (Again, cannot link this).
This won’t help any PT silicon users on V13 or below of course.
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I made two posts to this thread and both were deleted - probably because I mentioned a competitor product line.
It seems that Waves is now censoring this thread.
Has anyone else been censored?
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So this is the big problem. You say you’re not “taking them away” but you are. All of my plug ins(I own almost all) were on v13. I like many others were waiting for Avid to release Pro Tools with full M1 support. They did on Friday afternoon. On Sunday you removed the ability for everyone to update to v14. Now, every single plugin I own is dead in the water because I can’t update. The subscription is not an update to my perpetual license. It is a reoccurring rental for products I already purchased. If I pay the subscription fee I can use the plugins, but after that year I can’t. There is no way for me to update and that is the problem I and many others are having. This absolutely screws over the entire working engineering community. The sub is great for newcomers, but the rug was just pulled out from your entire customer base with no options…except to pay you for the rest of time.
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“All 220 Waves plugins”! Not ‘all’. Nonsense!
Waves DTS Neural Surround Collection is not included and if you own it already, then you’ll need to continue to pay for Waves Update Plan for it.
And within the last few minutes the product is now discontinued - but it’s ok - I can pay for WUP 'til 2028 for DTS as well as paying the subscription for the other products I already own.
Thanks for finding a way do me over twice. Very funny.
Obviously I won’t be paying for either WUP or subscription when you treat me like that.
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I’m disappointed. I love the products and use them every week. I’m frustrated about the lack of 2nd licenses because I definitely used that feature a ton! I feel scammed knowing that my thousands of dollars of plugins is instantly worthless even ones purchased last week.
To make things worst my WUP expired 4 days ago on a few plugins and tech support will not extend an ounce of grace to update these few plugins to V14… 4 days! Although a friend of mine was able to get his plugs updated yesterday with expired WUP.
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Let me keep using the plugins I own without worrying about Apple, Waves or anyone else breaking them with an update!
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Let me keep renewing my WUP as needed as before!
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Let me buy new plugins as needed as before!
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Keep the subscription model for new users, it’s a great plan for them and a great model for future revenue.
Unless something changes…
I intend to keep using the plugins we have as long as they’ll last and then we’re moving on.
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No notice. No choice. No conscience. I carefully selected the plugins I wanted, when I needed them. Now, after not telling me anything, I find out that my selection is no longer valid, and have to fit into waves plans and pay a subscription for the selection you decide? After all the money I have given you of my own free will, you want to devalue my investment to zero and require me to pay for the privilege?
I sincerely hope you have a buy-back plan for your now worthless plugins.
I am more than disappointed, I am livid.
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Sure you are, because anything else would simply be a breach of the licensing contract on your behalf and thus legally questionable/actionable. Having to explicitly point it out like this just shows how little you think of your customers. I for one feel insulted by this implied subtext of being treated as too stupid to know how licensing deals work.
Also I’m not going to accept being nudged into a subscription deal. There are alternatives and if Waves thinks they are indispensable they will have a bad morning when looking at the barren wastes after the mass exodus.
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But you did just throw my 30 year investment in Waves plugins in the toilet. When my WUP runs out and an OS/Host update causes v14 to stop working, I have no choice but to junk my entire Waves collection and go to your subscription plan for MORE than I’ve been paying for WUP every year. AND I loose my second licenses. Not a happy customer.
1 Like