I gave 'em a chance, but I'm done with Waves

Waves is famously paranoid about copy protection, and their new non-iLok scheme is about as obtuse as they come (just where IS my local license, anyway?). That has made me uncomfortable from the get-go, fearing what kind of convoluted process I'd have to go through if, out of the blue, my license was not accepted. 

Well, tonight that's exactly what happened...I tried to bring up a project with Waves plugins in it, and it failed with a "has no license" message. I'd been working on the same project just hours ago with no problems (no reboots, no installs, no hardware changes in between). But tonight, for reasons I can only speculate, Waves has decided I have no licenses. 

They still have my money, but I have no license. Wish I could revoke my payment so easily.

So I go to waves.com for help. It says to run wlc.exe and tell I want to recover a "lost" license. wlc.exe refuses to run, insisting that I must download the V9 installer package and use the version in there. Half an hour later, after apparently copying down every product Waves sells, I am able to run wlc.exe version 9.2. It's an upgrade, I tell myself. Don't be such a pansy.

After all that, after "recovering" the licenses, they still don't load and insist there is no license. OK, maybe I didn't do the recovery right, I'll try it again. Mmm, no, I won't. Because Waves only lets you do that once per year! That's right, kids. Upgrade or repair your computer more than once a year and you're out of luck.

OK, I'll just ask Waves Support what's going on. Ah, no. Support is not available to people who just buy plugins without the WUP. 

So it's off to the forums with fingers crossed. But regardless of the outcome, I'm pretty sure I am DONE with Waves.

EDIT: Got my licenses back, had to transfer them from the cloud because it thought my local license device was empty. OK, I'm guessing longtime Waves users are thinking "everybody knows that". But I'm still done with Waves. Future purchases will be limited to vendors with email addresses.

I don't think I could trust Waves. Thanks for sharing your story.

the vst plugin thing, "in general," is starting to loose a lot of its luster to me.

A.  Todays DAW plugins, are nearly just as good, and just as good as the ones you can buy.  ( Really the quad curve eq, is like, "one of the best," eq's around.  Ok, well its not an LP eq, but Cakewalk provides that for you anyway in the form of the LP64.

B.  It just seems like, "the plugin market," was a very inexpensive market for a lot of these developers to enter.  They themselves, "for the most part," do not have that much of an investement in the market, and we are really beginning to see, "how detrimental that is," to the end user.

C.  We are starting to see plugins that, "reinvent the wheel," and have no real addition to mixing or mastering music, and really exist to sell themselves.

D.  There is so much out there to buy, and each time you buy something you have to learn it, you are so much better off not buying a thing.

E.  When these companies go bankrupt, and several of them inevitably will, because the market place simply can not have, "200,000," best Eq's ever..   Your plugins become absolutely useless; the combination of copy/anti-piracy protect, and lack of further updates.

Bit
I purchased a few waves plugs on that black friday sale and while trying to install them I managed to wipe all my waves plugs off my system....

It took me a few hours of dancing to get them all back and registered and working.....

so I feel your pain and am thinking the very same thing!

Clifford

vintagevibe


I have RenBass and Maserati.  I've purposely staid away from them because of stories like this.  I'm thinking I should get cracks for the plugs I own.

people wonder why companies resort to ilok
you're probably anti ilok too 

That's a bad bead bit. 

I'll admit that I have not had that problem (yet?) but maybe it's because I put my license on a USB stick that ONLY gets moved if I need it on my laptop (my alternate DAW). I also tend to not write to that stick even though there is ample space.

Just curious, which option did you choose? Computer, USB Stick or cloud?

I went with PC.
Now wondering if there's a way to change it to USB.

Can anyone please explain in a 4 year old's terms what the differences are and the plus and minus of them?

thanks.

I hate to admit it but i was hoping that putting them on my iLok was still going to be an option.
I was used to the way that works and it always just worked.

To me, using a USB stick IS similar to the iLok except i'm out of USB ports and my iLok 2 has tons of space on it, not to mention quite a few plugins that i use often.

The least Waves can do is allow me to use the damn iLock.... which by the way i HAD to buy if i wanted to use the SSL 4000 bundle that i fell in love with on a friends DAW.

I say we all give Waves the good ol flip of the bird with a nice letter.
Than just do what loads of others do and just steal the waves products we want.
maybe, just maybe they'll feel the pinch, open up a line of communication and start being a customer based corp that actually cares how their decision making effects those of us who happen to have paid them loads of money for quality products, without hidden WHUP which are basically pay more  fees or lose the product type crap.

Rant over.
Somewhat induced i'm sure by my pain med's but still my feelings.
Waves does make some very nice products but they need to get their act together.

Mike 

Linear Phase


the vst plugin thing, "in general," is starting to loose a lot of its luster to me.

A.  Todays DAW plugins, are nearly just as good, and just as good as the ones you can buy.  ( Really the quad curve eq, is like, "one of the best," eq's around.  Ok, well its not an LP eq, but Cakewalk provides that for you anyway in the form of the LP64.

B.  It just seems like, "the plugin market," was a very inexpensive market for a lot of these developers to enter.  They themselves, "for the most part," do not have that much of an investement in the market, and we are really beginning to see, "how detrimental that is," to the end user.

C.  We are starting to see plugins that, "reinvent the wheel," and have no real addition to mixing or mastering music, and really exist to sell themselves.

D.  There is so much out there to buy, and each time you buy something you have to learn it, you are so much better off not buying a thing.

E.  When these companies go bankrupt, and several of them inevitably will, because the market place simply can not have, "200,000," best Eq's ever..   Your plugins become absolutely useless; the combination of copy/anti-piracy protect, and lack of further updates.

Ditto.


When Waves announced REDD recently, I surprised myself seeing how little I care. I should have been all over that thing. But, no...


In fact, whenever I start to fool around w/ a song mix, most of the time I try and stick to the bundled plug-ins as much as I can. And if I use a third party plug-ins, whenever I have a bit of time to experiment, I'll go back and try to substitute w/ my native plugs and match the sound. 


What I find is that in many cases, it's a matter of design and workflow - some plug-ins will kind of push you into a certain direction, because of their limitations and particularities, which means that you may get certain results quicker. And for people like me, starting w/ a bunch of restrictions can be a good thing. But if I knew in the first place that that particular sound would work for the song, and how to get it, I'm pretty sure that I could do it w/ my bundled plug-ins in the first place. 


I guess that's where experience comes to the rescue. Which is why I like to go back and try to match settings w/ my bundled plug-ins - I'm learning how to make them do what I want. But of course, this can only happen when you can figure out what might work in the first place. That's the toughest part.

In my case, that's particularly true w/ EQs. For compression, I did my homework, and I can get what I want out of Logic's compressor 99% of the time, for everything, from opto type of comp on bass to vca-type mix buss compression.

vintagevibe

pathos

vintagevibe


I have RenBass and Maserati.  I've purposely staid away from them because of stories like this.  I'm thinking I should get cracks for the plugs I own.

people wonder why companies resort to ilok
you're probably anti ilok too 

I have an iLok and have had no trouble with it.  If I couldn't use the software I paid for I would get a crack.  Apparently you would be OK not being able to use what you purchased.  You would just do without it as a protest against piracy.  Very noble but not very smart.

What's not very smart is buying software without demoing or making sure it works on your system first.

Cracks never work..   or, "seldom work properly indefinitely."  Any serious professional, who has spent $100, $200, or $300, on a software that can not be authorized, "because the company is out of bizz," or whatever other reasons, has lost their investment.. IMHO


For eg:  Lets pretend PSP Audioware went bankrupt tomorrow.   Windows 9 to be out next week..    I get a new computer, with Windows 9 installed, and I try to install my plugins, but for some reason..   My authorizations do not work..   

I'm out the $.   I will simply be looking to buy new plugs.   Why?   I do not trust crack software...  Not when you are such a serious musician that you spend thousands of hours on learning, and using, and producing with the stuff.


I'd rather be out the petty cash, then the thousands, and thousands, and hundreds, and hundreds, of hours of work.

by the way my license are : 

C:\ProgramData\Waves Audio

Great..... I just bought my first waves plugs. So if I understand correctly, after 1 year I blow out a drive and I can't D/L get a free replacement from Waves? Wow. I assumed that if I paid for it I could use it forever but would have to pay an upgrade if I ever wanted the next version. That changes everything.

Thanks for the heads up. 

Linear Phase: Todays DAW plugins, are nearly just as good


Agree. 


I would love to see the DAW develop as truly being all ITB 


And include direct auto-backups/updates 'option'; with various 'users pref'; to any outboard memory device(s) of choice when closing the project.   Other options to backup/update of licences, critical user settings and Interface; drivers.   Should a catastrophic failure occur such as; hard-drive failure, Open SONAR X8 and with a simple one-click; Recovery is all that's required to get back up and ready to start where you left off. 

Guyz let's stay calm !! lol ...

First there's thousands of people using them without a single issue !! and i'm in those ....so my goal , is to help Bit to be on our team !! 

When V9 was first droped i heard horrible stories and specualtions !!! so i updated one plugin (MPX) just to check : super easy !!

So i went Mercury ...and i don't regret (they still greedy as hell  , the last WUP update is an exemple) but i can say one thing :

1) When they drop a plugin : it works from day one and extremily rarely , there's bug in it !

2) you're investing to a brand a that was here 10 years ago and certainly be here in 10 years ..! 

3) I went waves to minimise the brands i deal with : easy maintenance and installation !!

4) They got some unique plugins , some sounds real great !!


Now back on topic : just call them , the guyz are super pro for real ...

if you haven't done one thing to the licences (not upadte , internet connection via the center or some) and it past from working to not ...some happened !! 

so try to isolate this on your system ....the communication is in trouble between your plugins and the licence ...check antivirus (maybe he thought it was a threat) , upadte of the system (maybe the licences uses a component that have been updated) , check the project (try with other project) and even your buffer ..sometime i have issue with plugins if it's crazy loaded and i lowered the latency crazy (for another project i worked with after;))) ...do you have a cleaning utility that done some wrong on your system ...ect...

My comps are not conncected to interenet unless i do upadte or need it for centers (Waves , NI ect ..) no anitvirus , firewall , no win updates ...ect ...

So last night I open an old project that had NLS and Kramer Tape, among other non wave VSTs and was informed my license was not valid...

I ran the License Center and even though it showed my plugs residing on my device(my daw) I had to send them twice from the cloud down to my daw to authorize...

Ill see tonight if its gonna be a repeat.