Literally every user in Hollywood communicated with each other today and are discussing options to replace any waves plugins they use. In conversation with engineering at two major studios today, they said this was a deal killer. They will no longer support the use of waves plugins. And those were just the two I happen to talk to. At this point, I have just 5 waves plugs I’d love to not live without. But, there are alternatives. I will not partake in this business model. Not worth the money. Plus, I think this is the end of the company. They can’t support innovation if everyone leaves. And boy, I’ve never seen a backlash like this in the post community.
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I don’t get all these crazy half-cocked ideas of “give us credit towards subscription etc”
No no. Honor my perpetual licenses, offer subscription as an OPTION alongside the traditional perpetual and WUP options.
Sub only is anti-consumer and a complete joke.
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Another plug in company bites the sub dust…
A sad day, RIP Waves
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With Avid, Adobe, UA, Plugin Alliance, and every other software subscription, you know what you’re getting when you purchase. Conversely, Waves just gives you the ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ and makes changes in the middle of the night without any warning or clear path forward. Somehow the entire marketing department at Waves failed to understand that customers appreciate options. But whatever, with all of the layoffs in tech going around, I’m sure there are some in Waves’ near future too. I just hope the people responsible for this get the axe
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I have 2 full copies of Mercury + Studio Classics…and many others. I DID pay WUP for both and always kept it current the whole time. You go ahead and question that if you want. Don’t give a ■■■■. Waves can look up my account. They can tally up the pile of coin I have paid for products over the years. I also bought my first Mercury long before it was only 2k or WUP even existed. There are many of us in this situation.
I just paid WUP through May 2024.
What’s jerking my chain is that’s like wasted money. Someone who has paid nothing this whole time can now get everything for the price of WUP. What about those of us who actually bought the plugs? We are the reason Waves even exists today.
Sounds like you may be one who owns little and now gets everything by subscribing. Perhaps you’re happy with the deal. Good for you.
It’s not about the fee…except i now would have to pay $750 per year for my 3 machines. See i bought 2nd copy of mercury before they had 2nd licenses with WUP.
Whatever…wasted enough time being pissed about this. Enjoy your subscription.
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Now no consumer owns Waves plugins right?
This is plugin communism!
Change my mind!
Naw Bro,
Wasn’t questioning how much you pay or trying to spin you up. Just noting that the yearly fee for subscription would be less than $500/year WUP fees. But on the other hand, I may be wrong, because that was for 2 licenses, right? So maybe you have to pay $500 still.
Like you, I have the Mercury+Studio Classics+NxCollection+The Abbey Stuff. So I feel your pain. I skipped WUP alot. But it looks like you have some serious projects going on there. I’m frustrated like you because it forces a commitment.
But last night I emailed them to verify if their model is similar to ReasonStudio, meaning with Reason+ if you cancel your subscription your plugins continue working and you are locked in with the last version you had prior to cancelling. That way you could skip years and chose to reup whenever you wanted and get the latest versions. If Waves comes back with a response and says that all plugins will be inoperable once a subscription is cancelled, then I will start removing Waves plugins from my projects and go another direction. And I wonder what happens if you have to build another PC due to a crash, but after you have cancelled. Without installers downloaded to your machine, I am not sure users would be able to use Waves anymore until they renewed a subscription. But I didn’t ask that specific question.
Oh and for anyone that didn’t know. Last night I opened up the Waves Center app, and it let me update all of my products to the latest V14 release, and I was able to download the installer for all of the plugins to run Mercury/etc pre-purchased version as it was before.
And for the record, I didn’t get a subscription. LOL. I won’t be. I will be using V14 until I can’t. Too many other competitors. Once again, was just trying to mash numbers in my head. Last night I thought about the fact that it would take 20 years for someone to accumulate $5000 worth of Subscription fees. So to a newcomer they could skip in and it would feel like an extended payment plan to use all of the stuff now, that you and I had to pay thousands up front and instantly. SMH. Doesn’t seem fair does it?
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K. My bad. I am already spun up. 
It would cost me $750/yr to continue to use Waves the way I was. Not worth it to me any longer. But…i recently sold most of my Waves hardware, and LV1.
So, my studio work will just be moving in different direction now. Nolonger running soundgrid, so I don’t “need” Waves plugs, and don’t care about revisiting past projects.
It is more the principle and lots of buyer remorse for all the $$$ wasted on plugs that i thought i owned, but never really did.
This tears off scabs of past frustration with Waves practices…like Mercury was supposed to be “everything”, yet Abbey wasn’t included. Then WUP came along. Then they give away the product with gimmicks that devalued my investment over and over. Now this.
If anything, i will nolonger “buy” plugins. I will only do subscriptions as you don’t really own them anyway.
Waves just left me with repeated instances of betrayal. I should have walked away when WUP started. Now is the time. Stock plugs are good enough, and I have tons of other plugs already.
I was already rolling out of the soundgrid ecosystem, this just accelerated my departure.
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This is a real shame, but is it that Waves has decided to commit suicide? put a subscription but don’t delete individual purchase or upgrades! I have hundreds of students in my courses who use Waves and they are very angry, we are going to stop using Waves en masse if they don’t reverse this infamy!
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The way Waves has handled this is disgusting. They pumped out all sorts of upgrade specials over the last few months - tempting me into spending hundreds of dollars into deals that seemed too good to pass up.
If I hadn’t literally just spent all that money on upgrades and completing bundles then I would have had hundreds of dollars to consider putting towards subscribing for a year or so.
Talk about a misstep. I’m not even sure if it’s legal. It is certainly immoral. Bait and switch. A kick in the teeth from a plugin manufacturer that had such a great reputation. Way to ruin it in one go.
How about giving us subscription credits for the amount we spent in the last year? OR proportional to all the money we have spent, or the bundles we own?
Oh - and also - lowering your subscription rates would be wise.
Whoever advised you on this business plan needs to give their head a serious waggle.
Cheers.
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thanks @stefankleinschmid
To @Gilad Keren
If you’re serious and listen to us customers, just simply take this step back!
Bring back perpetual licenses as it was!
Otherwise you will loose many customers including me!
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@Adi.Waves You have to move quickly to fix this. One of the posters above said that a lot of users in his professional community had talked today. People who can afford the subscription model without a blink in the eye, but will opt out because of the feeling of being backstabbed. I’m seeing the same in the post industry, and also in my own little circle of professional users. I myself can afford the subscription, but I won’t since I seriously doubt that you will be able to afford R&D moving forward with this model.
I also manage a lot of Waves installations at my University. We talked yesterday, and there is no way we can deal with a subscription-only model. Not because we don’t want to; we really do since Waves plugins are a industry standard, but because our payment systems isn’t set up for this. This goes for a lot of higher educational institutions in my country. We have to buy from our dealers, which we can’t anymore. Also, we can’t take the risk of having non-perpetual licenses which stops working.
Take a look at post #991 (!) on the Gearspace forum, where Matt from LiquidSonics states that yesterday was the busiest day in the LiquidSonics store all month. Of course he doesn’t comment on Waves or the new subscription models, he just states facts. THIS is what is happening, and it is happening NOW. Please fix it before it’s too late.
All the best,
Stein Tore
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a mandatory subscription, without the option to buy individual plugins, No thanks and goodbye,
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Thanks for dumping on us loyal customers who have supported you for 20+ years. Thousands of dollars invested and squandered on plugins I will no longer be able to use in a few years.
You did this just as UAD plugins no longer need hardware, Plugin Alliance has tons of better plugins for far less money, even Slate Digital at this point is a better option because you can still purchase perpetual for certain plugins.
I really hope you run this one back, is not I am out.
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Well this forum is showing you how unhappy your customers are so why not show us some of those requests for Waves new plan?
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Hi Sam,
The Waves Creative Access (Waves Ultimate which includes over 220 plugins) is 250 USD (yearly), WUP was 240 USD and this was the price, if you own bundles that are not as big as Mercury or Horizon, like the Gold i.e., and, or even just several individual plugins.
Waves Creative Access will have new releases and updates regularly which you will be able to get with no additional costs, based on the plan you choose to go along with.
While I cannot comment on numbers or timelines for such content, I can say it will be different than prior to Waves Creative Access.
I do suggest you contact our Sales Department directly to obtain further information about the possibilities at hand and choose the convenient path for you with Waves Creative access as you see fit.
Thank you for your support and feedback.
What about those of us who have already spent THOUSANDS of dollars on Plugins and WUP? Are we just supposed to forget about the time, money and workflow we have created around your plugins? As Sam stated WUP was $180 when combined with the 25% discount you would offer to long time customers. So we are just supposed to be happy we are being charged more? I own the plugins I use already, if I wanted everything I would have bought mercury…so now I am just sol on all my old projects unless I pay monthly.
I am sure you know this already, but you need to seriously do something here to calm existing customers and prevent a mass exodus - it may already be too late, and the longer you leave it and keep saying the same thing without listening or responding to our issues the worse it will be.
I suggest at the very least, a transitionary period of 6 months for people to update WUP if they choose with clear information on a timeline to transition to subscription only.
The preferred option would be to honour the original sale of perpetual licenses and continue to offer the WUP to existing customers.