Logic Pro. Integration with iDevices. And now: Apples own CPUs that look extremely promising (and power efficient/silent). But yeah, I have no doubt Windows is an excellent OS environment for a lot of use cases nowadays; I used to be there myself prior to 2009 – I remember Windows 7 being a huge leap forward in stability compared to Vista/XP. However, the move to a Mac Pro with Leopard was just a mind-blowing experience where things really just worked (99.5% of the time). For me, that was key – and for gaming I had my Win7 Boot Camp partition 
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I’m running an older iMac myself.
Yes they are expensive, especially in Australia, but they’re not noisy. Well not until you’ve been pushing it hard for a while and it starts to kick in the fans a bit. I usually find that a sign to take a break, put the Mac to sleep and let it cool down for a bit. Less stress on the components will extend its life too. However, this is not really addressing your question…
This is a bit of dilemma. If only you had a way of knowing how close M1 support was it would make this whole thing easier. It’s been something like 6 months, I can’t imagine it taking much longer than it already has, but its all just speculating.
Perhaps you can put the “Do I or don’t I get an M1” question to some of the Waves admin. They might be able to tell you how far away M1 support is, but you might be able to “read into their response”
No updates since January 
This is absurd. I had a 2011 Intel MBP crashing on me every session, and upgraded to an M1. At the same time, I put a Waves Soundgrid card in my Midas M32. I am really disappointed with Waves at this point. Who cares what emulations or plugins they’re offering anymore? If it doesn’t work with Waves Soundgrid, I can’t use this for live recording. I regretfully have to go back to the old USB card, and just use the native plugins on the console, and use Izotope software for my editing stuff.
I’m about to boycott Waves.
A LACK OF RESPONSE IS AN INSULT TO THE USER BASE.
How many months has this new chipset been available to developers? Is this not a priority? Is there a DEAL with Intel to shut out competition? I’ll be straight up, those WSG Servers are absolute garbage machines running basic code. That in itself is an insult. A CELERON processor with a single stick of RAM glued in is just a joke.
HOW THE EFF am I supposed to be excited about TRACT integrating into a widely-used console when it doesn’t work with the computer that is current?
What is it that waves says about WSG support? “Doesn’t work at all.”
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I refuse to buy any Waves products until they get this fixed. I believe intel will be switching to ARM too. Hello - Waves - please wake up. Instead, Waves spends their time with all these 99% off all plugins !!! spam commercials and comes up with ways to make you pay for the same thing over and over.
This issue is fixing itself in that I am slowly replacing waves with products that are M1 supported (all Fab filter stuff, TH-U overloud, valhalla, etc.)
All they need to do is at least acknowledge they are working on an update, but they wont… Guess they just don’t want my money.
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they put the Mac M1 compatibility on the 13th of the 13 month of they Year in Waves V13!
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Well in reality, spam emails come from the marketing department who’d don’t know a thing about DSP or code, and its automated. So no time is really been wasted there, however annoying it is.
I think its fair not to buy no plugins at this stage. I’d be waiting for M1 compatibility too. Instead I chose to wait for all those cards to be in place before I buy a new computer myself.
Just think, in all of these 6 months or so we’ve only seen one new plugin too. That just says that almost everyone is working on compatibility solutions, probably to cover Windows 11 now too. Otherwise they’d have to follow it up with a V14 just to accomodate them. That last bit is just a guess though. They do have A LOT of plugins, A LOT of DAWs and a quite a few OSes to cover though, as I keep reiterating.
As my grandma used to say, “a watched pot never boils”
Still waiting… even for just the smallest bits of news. Back in April, I bought the SSL4000 collection thinking that M1 support was just around the corner. 4 months in… the plugin has yet to be installed on my M1 machine.
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I had heard about the M1 compatibility issues and even expected it when Apple announced the new silicone. However, my hand was forced by the dying of my main computer. Like others, I wasn’t about to buy an Intel machine just to have to turn around and buy a new machine less than a year later
What’s burning my toast is not even being able to access Waves’ site from either of my macs running Safari. I’m typing ever so slowly and painfully on my iPhone.
Add my voice to the volley regaling Waves for a status update. 6 months is an eternity in the computer world
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Agreed, I have a lot of money invested in DiGiGrid and waves plugins. The M1 chip has been out for almost a year, they should be supporting this by now.
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I agree 100%. The SoundGrid platform is (in my opinion) a truly underrated platform, and M1 support would be very reassuring for those that have invested a lot of money in the platform.
I could really use just the driver so I could put an M1 laptop on SoundGrid for Mainstage or Playback to send channels to LV1. Not sure why the driver is taking so long? I just bought an M1 Air. I checked the apps would run on it but didn’t check if the driver would :-(.
Still no updates?! M1 users are still stuck on V12.0.0
Traditionally Waves releases its new versions in October. So we can reasonably assume that V13 will be released in a few weeks.
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That’s an interesting insight. I’ve never noticed that. Here’s hoping you’re right.
I’m just as anxious as anyone as someone who upgraded not knowing such a prime plug-in like waves wouldn’t work but maybe it’s because everyone pirates the software and these fools are short staffed. Just a thought. I buy all my plug ins (yea I know, I’m crazy) but as a professional I can’t have mess ups and things to slow me down. It makes me more frustrated to have a bunch of plug-ins I recently bought from Waves that I can’t use.
I just had a really bad interaction with a customer service rep over email. I downloaded the new NX standalone system wide headphone controller, and long story short, apparently one of the vital components of the install package can’t be opened on M1. I asked for an update on when that would be, and they said no. So I responded and asked if they would at least release an unofficial statement about general timing-like if we’re looking at another 2 years and a version upgrade, or is it just around the corner? Without that info, users can’t make informed decisions, and those of us in the waves user community currently feel pretty strung along and taken advantage of. I reiterated how not having support for M1 yet is one thing, but keeping us in the dark for almost two years now is completely unacceptable, and this was their actual response:
“We cannot provide you with additional information on the way our software is structured or coded. Since you are trying to install the software on an unsupported system we are not able to troubleshoot this issue. Please make sure to use the software on a supported device and in case you will encounter any issues doing so, we’ll be more than happy to assist you and get you up and running.”
Replacing my new computer is not a valid solution! It felt like they were saying “because you have an M1, were not even going to help you with issues we can still help with. We just choose not to offer any support to users running waves on an unsupported system.”
I wrote back a few days ago with the following:
“I know this is an annoying question that you guys probably get a lot and are sick of, but hopefully you can understand my position, not being able to afford rent-let alone redundant plugins. Like the message has been “buy our stuff now, and then sit on it for the indefinite future. Maybe you’ll get to use it soon, maybe not. But give us your money now anyway.” Like waves is intentionally selling me products they know I can’t utilize, likely to force a version upgrade on us! If I’m going to need to pay for a version upgrade in order to bring compatibility to plugins I’ve never been able to used, I’ll be pretty frustrated. I know it’s no ones fault-it’s just the company policy being followed. It’s just frustrating that this is how the company feels about it’s customers, electing to keep its customers in the dark rather than at least be honest that it’s going to be a while if that’s the case. But the writing might be on the wall in that waves just isn’t a company that can be totally trusted to come through for its customers. Use at your own risk. Any answer other than “M1 is coming soon and that’s the best we can do” would be so appreciated and really help me feel seen.”
I have not heard back and do not expect to.
@waves Please listen to this and release SOMETHING!!! Anything! Otherwise you’re going to start losing us, and more and more users will jump on the “leaving waves” bandwagon as the trend picks up. And you won’t know it’s happening because it can only be measured in future sales. Treat us right because it’s the right thing to do, not just because it’s the formula that will ultimately generate the most revenue by keeping customers happy, which it is.
I invested in a bunch of Waves plugins over the last few years thinking they were good value. And they were industry standard so support would be good. I then purchased a Mac M1 out of necessity and hoped the emulation would be ok. It was at first. Now it’s terrible. Projects take forever to load and CPU usage is terrible so all of the additional performance I had with the M1 is lost. So after 12 months of seeing no updates and no indication that this is going to change I decided to move away and started investing in FabFilter and other compatible plugins. Waves aren’t alone in stonewalling customers about Apple silicon support but all of these companies should understand that people will start using alternatives. And once they do they may not bother going back. Indeed I doubt I will pay to upgrade my Waves plugins, certainly my 12 month ‘upgrade’ support was pointless. Anyways FabFilter are great!
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@carl I agree, fabfilter is great, Pro-Q3 kicks F6’s behind! And yeah, even if waves does eventually finally go M1 compatible, this situation is leaving such a bad taste in my mouth, I doubt I would return - not because of convenience - but because I don’t want to do business with a company that has so little respect for its customer base.
Two posts ago, I copied and pasted the email I had last send the Waves representative, check my post from September 29 to see that in full.
Well, I heard back. And honestly, even with my expectations so low, they still surprised me with how passive they are being about this. To reiterate, I asked them specifically NOT to worry about giving me a specific date, but that its really important to me that they acknowledge what they are putting us through, and give some kind of very general statement about whether we are looking at just a few more weeks, or multiple years. This is what I received back after a week:
"Hi Zachary,
I understand your frustration and I wish I had a more concrete answer on the matter.
However as mentioned, we currently don’t have an exact ETA when M1 systems will be officially supported with Waves software and therefore I cannot provide you with one.
Let me know if any further information or assistance is required.
Best regards,
Gurik Zarifian
Technical Support
www.waves.com"
I specifically said I do not want an exact ETA, but rather, a general sense. He clearly didn’t even read my email. This behavior is pretty hard evidence that they are going to put M1 compatibility behind the V13 paywall. I responded again, specifically asking if that is what they are planning to do. We’ll see what happens.
Anyone who has any insight or would like to discuss similar situations and strategies, please feel free to reach out or respond here!!
Like many others on this thread I, too, have already upgraded to an M1 Mac (back in June), because I needed a new computer and ever since Apple’s ARM announcement over a year ago it would make no sense to buy another Intel-based Mac.
It is now almost a year since the first Apple Silicon Macs were released and almost one and a half years since Apple announced the change and made developer hardware kits available. Waves have yet to release universal Mac binaries. That’s a bit frustrating.
I wasn’t able to wait with my M1 upgrade for Waves to release support first, but at the same time I rely on some Waves plugins every day. That puts me between a rock and a hard place.
I’ve recently started to make the average time it takes a software manufacturer to support new hardware or OS versions a major factor in my decision on whether or not to further invest in a manufacturer’s software. From that perspective I can basically not justify buying another Waves plugin in the future. As other have mentioned, though, Waves are not alone in dragging their feet on Apple Silicon support. I started to shift my investments more towards those manufacturers who are consistently fast to provide maintenance updates for new hardware or OS versions.
Looking at some previous posts, I personally understand that Waves don’t want to provide an ETA. I personally wouldn’t do that, either. Anybody who has ever worked in software knows that giving out an ETA leads to nothing but trouble because things always take longer than you think. It’s done when it’s done. What I’m complaining about is that it’s taking too long. I don’t need an ETA, but I need for it to take significantly less than 12 months for Waves to provide support for some new hardware or operating system.
It’s not great for us customers that we’re perpetually forced to stay 1-2 years behind on any new hardware or OS innovation because the companies who make the plugins we need are dragging their feet on the necessary updates every time.
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