What does anyone think about plugs like Waves Mixcentric and Center?
Center
http://www.waves.com/plugins/center?utm_source=wnletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=center-sale
Mixcentric
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7e0CPhg_z4
I'm always tempted because they sound like a quick way to do remarkable things but surely you should be able to mix and master without such things?
Is anyone using them, got an opinion?
 
Thanks - rev
 

I haven't used MixCentric but I've used Center. I'm not a mastering engineer but it seemed pretty handy when I've had to pretend to be one. When you have an entire project and you can basically adjust everything on every channel I don't think it adds much but when all you have is a stereo track it definitely has its uses. But like all Waves plugs, you can try it out for free and see if you like it. Never buy it at full price, wait for a special or a special on a bundle that it's in. 

I though about buying Waves Center Yesterday because it was 29.99 for that one day only, but I realized that I didn't need it.   Yes it does a great job of Compressing the signal and it bring up & lower the sides or middle, but you can do the same without the plug.  
 
But if you wanted CENTER, you should have gotten it yesterday.

>But if you wanted CENTER, you should have gotten it yesterday.
Not sure if I do, hence this post. I'll consider your vote to be a thumbs down simply because you can do it without. As for the price, they often have promos and the more you buy the bigger the discount. 
 
I was quite impressed with the Greg Wells Youtube vids demonstrating Voicentric and Mixcentric which I checked out while waiting for replies here. I wouldn't say the reverb is the greatest in Voicentric but the doubler feature is really nice, somewhat similar to the Roland Dimension D chorus.
 
Mixcentric can provide a bump in brightness and clarity which you can dial in to taste. I have a few murky tracks that could really benefit from such a simple tool.

Greg Wells gets a piece of the action, so of course he's "very excited" about MixCentric.
 
I wouldn't waste my money on either of them, and not just because I've sworn off Waves products. I wouldn't bother with similar products from other vendors, either. 
 
 
 
 

I've got my problems with Waves stuff but I'd like to hear why you've sworn off them?
 
I forgot what you told me about that equation in your signature, is that Finnemans' thermodynamics, Dirac's quantum mechanics, the Hubble constant or just a Heizen burger with cheese? I'm uncertain...

I've quite a few of the Waves plugs that emulate hardware, but the "signature" ones that combine several processes into a single plugin with a few controls mostly unappealing. I can see why people might go for them as a simpler, quicker, alternative to learning about compression, eq and doing lots of experimenting though.

Mixcentre did interest me, because it struck me as a possibly useful short-cut tool, but having demo'd it I came to the conclusion that perhaps I don't really want the "Greg Wells sound".

And if he's being "very excited" in those videos he must be among the calmest, least excitable people on the planet :-)

As has been said, never pay full price for a Waves plugin, wait for it to go on sale. Unless you've a paying client that insists on a particular Waves plugin being used on their recording and you can add the plugin price to the bill and you're sure the client is good for the money.

Many of the Waves emulation plugs I have are no better than the plugins that come with Sonar Plat or the Cakewalk developed plugs like Concrete Limiter by the way. I got them mostly for use in Logic which comes with a much weaker set of plugins. Though I do sometimes use Waves Abbey Road set (though not the mic imitations), their exciters/enhancers and side-chainable multi-band comp in Sonar.

I've accumulated a number, not a great number, of Waves plugins over the past couple of years, mainly because, as tlw says, they were on sale.  Typically, a $29 dollar Waves plug comes on sale and I might grab it if it seems useful and if the review are worthy.  Just have Waves put you on their email list, and, every so often, a discounted plug comes up.

> "very excited" in those videos he must be among the calmest, least excitable people on the planet :-)
That's a crackup! I thought he had one foot in the grave and the other in clinical depression...
 
I got the Maserati plug for acoustic guitar and discovered that all the controls on the right side do almost nothing at all. You can swing the Color control from 0 to max and I swear it does nothing or it's so subtle that you can forget the difference in a mix. I don't really want to pay for another set of controls that don't work.

Digi:
>Just have Waves put you on their email list, and, every so often, a discounted plug comes up.
Yeah, but what do you think of them?