Good deal on Waves Gold bundle (for real) - but hurry

Recently, Cakewalk offered the Waves Silver bundle for $250.  But here's a bigger bundle for less:
 
http://store.dontcrack.com/product_info.php?products_id=616
 
$209 (with the code PDZ_Waves_Bundle) is the lowest price I've seen for the Gold bundle.  But I think this offer is good tomorrow (4/24) only, so act fast if you want it.  Oh, and you'll probably need to create a Don't Crack account if you don't already have one. 
 
This bundle has some good stuff, including the V-series (Neve emulations) and the H-comp / H-delay.  Also the usual Waves bread-and-butter plugins like the Q10/Ren EQs, C1/C4/Ren compressors, and L1 limiter.  This would be a good toolbox for those who don't already have a bunch of third-party plugs.
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 
Edit:  the sale price I mentioned above was visible when I checked a little while ago, but now I don't see it.  I assume it'll be there tomorrow.
 
Edit2:  looks like the deal at dontcrack.com isn't happening, but plugindiscounts.com has it for $212. 
 

hmm, not showing up for me

if this deal for tomorrow (weds) is really for Gold for under $300 - is it a no brainer?

What I mean is I see so many sales on Waves plugins and I don't know that I need all these plugins but at that price well, I might have to add it to the collection as the price is too good to pass up.

Are they worth it?  3 -4 plugins worth the price and the rest meh?

I don't have any Waves mix/mastering plugins and was looking at some alternative things to spend $300 on this month.....any advice?

MachineClaw

Are they worth it?  3 -4 plugins worth the price and the rest meh?
 

It's good solid stuff, but most Waves plugs are not necessarily the best-in-class, IMHO.  You probably don't NEED Q10, C1, C4, etc. as the Sonitus/ProChannel plugs are more or less equivalent.  As for the others, that's up to you to decide whether you'd make use of them.  A quick demo of the plugs will let you know how they mangle your sounds.  :-)
 
One thing about Waves is that they're so popular and used in so many pro studios that it's a good idea to at least be familiar with them.  A lot of the tutorials from places like Groove3 and Audio School Online, not to mention free vids on YouTube, make heavy use of Waves stuff ... having them yourself makes it easy to follow along.  But still, there are usually less expensive ways to achieve what Waves does.
 
Before jumping into the Waves (heh), I would advise trying the demo to make sure you don't mind their convoluted installation and licensing system.  Also their GUIs can be a little flakey on some systems, with jumpy controls and such, so check those out also.  Good luck!
 
Cheers,
Eddie

 

 

 

Just got an email from audiodeluxe for a 70% off sale on the Gold bundle, so it wouldn't surprise me if dontcrack does have their sale after all.  I've had this bundle for a while now and it's one of the best deals on bread-n-butter plugins around IMo.

They jumped the gun and Waves pulled the plug (ins).

'Yesterday we announced the Waves Gold Bundle promotion on a world wide based timezone and that has been considered as a breach in our agreements with Waves. At this time we have removed ALL Waves products from our store until things settle down...'

Looks like they are on the naughty step for a bit.

I can't imagine any deal good enough to make me buy another Waves product.

Starise


 I got a few emails. One from wavesuniverse.com and one from audiodeluxe.com both offering Waves Gold at 299.00 but after a one day only discount I can get it for 229.00...not too shabby. 299.00 seems to be the normal price,at least it can be bought every day for 299.00 at Sweetwater. 

The official Waves e-mail announced the $299 price for today only, so I would question whether you could get it for that price from Sweetwater (or anywhere else) every day.  Anyway, $212 from PluginDiscounts is the best actual price I'm aware of, which ain't a bad deal.  Again, that's today only, until midnight EDT in PD's case.
 
And yes, Bit, Waves plugs don't get along well with every system, and their licensing scheme isn't exactly simple -- that's why I advise trying a demo first.  And maybe setting a system restore point before installing, just to be safe. 
 
Reasons to buy Waves:  industry standard, stable on most systems, several unique products, cool GUIs, good support (IME), loads of helpful presets.
Reasons not to buy Waves:  arduous installation and licensing (incl. WUP nonsense), can be flakey, more expensive than most competitors, not always the best of breed.  Also, buying something and later seeing it offered for hundreds less.  :-)

Cheers,
Eddie
 

I can't imagine any deal good enough to make me buy another Waves product

ditto,
Thanks, but NO THANKS!

Tom

I think I'm going to pass, I already have most of the plugins on the list that I want.

Reasons to buy Waves:  industry standard, stable on most systems, several unique products, cool GUIs, good support (IME), loads of helpful presets.

Not looking to be argumentative, Eddie, certainly not with a gentleman such as yourself. But since I've already announced that one of my life's missions is warn people away from Waves, I have to refute these seemingly-reasonable reasons.


1. Industry standard
There isn't any such thing as an industry standard for plugins, and even if there was, why would I care? McDSP and SONNOX are equally-qualified candidates for such a classification, and I don't use them, either. Waves was an early entrant in this market, and many of their products initially became popular simply because there were few quality alternatives. That's certainly not the case anymore.


2. Stable
Waves only gets a C grade here, because although the plugins themselves are as bug-free as any out there, the labrynthian copy-protection scheme is unreliable. If it fails, the failure is catastrophic: you can't use the plugin at all. That's the worst kind of bug you can have.

3. Unique products
There are indeed two or three products in the Waves catalog for which there are no alternatives (I don't count the 1-knob stuff; there's a reason most vendors don't offer such things). But none of these unique plugins are must-haves. Their most-popular products, which are mostly garden-variety standbys such as dynamics and EQ, are not unique at all. I have two of their more unique plugins (Trans-X and Doubler) and I gotta tell you, I've not been terribly impressed with them, unique or not. Among my own collection of plugins, they're unique mainly insofar as they usually end up doing more harm than good. 

4. Cool GUIs
Well, that's subjective, and certainly doesn't apply to every Waves product. The older plugins in particular seem to have been designed for VGA displays in the 90's, and their text is difficult to read on a modern high-res display. Nowadays the trend is toward resizable UIs, or at least multiple-size UIs, but not so in Waves Land. I will give them credit for keeping their UIs fairly clean and not cluttering them with unnecessary junk (e.g. sliders instead of 3d knobs). But "cool", nah. ValhallaRoom has a cool GUI. Fabfilter stuff has cool GUIs. The Sonitus suite has very functional, easy to understand GUIs, which rates as "cool" to me.

5. Good support
Support is paid only. If you don't buy into the bill-me-forever plan, there is no support. None. You can't even send them an email. No other vendor on the planet has the arrogance to impose such a policy.

6. Many presets
Actually, no more than with most products, in my experience. Of course, I don't spend much time looking at presets after the first day of install. Presets for dynamics processors and equalizers are a waste anyway. I don't know how hard it is to exchange presets for Waves products, e.g. emailing one to a friend, but I'm guessing it's not nearly as easy as other products, many of whom have downloadable libraries and XML-based human-readable formats.

Of course, I agree with everything on your "reasons not to buy" list.

I liek c4, c6 and linear phase multiband and classic compressors. I never use any of the others- including gold.

welp my think is all the Waves plugins that everyone DOES rave about or say are above average......are not included in the GOLD bundle.

I think I am going to save my $200+ for other things.

This certainly is not the only Waves sale I have seen in the last 6 months.  It's almost like the discount on purpose to get mor market share or something, I dunno but man the wacky crazy Waves sales, like this Gold bundle sale for 1 day, just weird in my book.

I think I need to start recording and laying out tracks more than I need to worry so much about the end mixing/mastering phase.  gotta have something to mix/master other wise I am just feeding the plugin addiction just to have plugins (ALWAYS a bad thing).

I think Mercury was 900 at one time or maybe I am dreaming

http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Mercury-Plug-Bundle-Tools/dp/B000MVI4BY

Be glad you're not a Pro Tools user.

 Well I didn't have time to check the demos out before the sale ended.

 I don't like rushed situations, especially when they want my money. If you want us to look your products over Waves give us a chance.

Wouldn't a group buy have been better? I want to take my time and look things over, but one day that  we were already 12 hours into when I found out simply worked against you.

 From what I could tell in simply looking at the descriptions, a lot of those plugs would be redundant for me although if Waves has , say an EQ with something special it would be worth another EQ. The GTR plug looked interesting. The flangers and mods not so much for me. Some of the others looked like something I could use and might have considered.

 Suggestion- Group buy or give us longer to look it over.