I have bought 25 Waves plugins over a longish period of time. 2 of them have now run out of free updates.
(the other 23 are still getting free updates) Firstly on the subject of updating or buying plans. Waves told me that you don't have to do anything at all in fact. All your existing plugins will continue to work forever. But those two for example I will need to pay for in order to update.
(the others will eventually run out one by one) You can buy individual updates as well. If you are actually happy with how they sound, you don't have to update them at all. There is going to be no big change here.
In terms of V10. I can upgrade everything to V10. Except
(right now) those same two plugs will be on V10 but they will not be able to be updated from this point on, same as before. Unless I buy individual updates or a plan to cover them.
You don't even have to have to upgrade to V10 either. You can just leave everything the way it is, let all of them come out of free updates over time, but still use them and they will sound and work fine.
Grem is wrong here. Upgrading mine to V10 now will still allow free V10 updates
(for the remaining 23) The two that were not free under V9 will still need to paid for under V10. Others will come out of free updates one by one.
Grand Rhapsody was the very first one I bought. So it is one updates that needs to be paid for. But seriously it sounds pretty damn good right now so you have to ask yourself what is any update going to do for it.
If an update though does add some serious improvements and features then just buy the single update for it. Wait and see what the updates actually do.
Update Just updated everything from V9 to V10. All went fine except now the
two plugins that were out of date are gone now. The reason they are gone is because during the V10 install I was asked to have all V9 components removed, I said YES and in so doing those two plugins are now not there. I will obviously need to buy the single V10 updates for those plugins.
Further Update So as I thought just had to buy the two V10 licences that were still on V9 and hence not visible in my case. They are around $10 each I think, so it was no big deal. So yes they are back. One of them for me was Grand Rhapsody. NOTE. The samples were never touched or removed etc. Once updated to V10 all was back to normal with that piano. Samples do not have to be downloaded again.
Moral of the Story If you have got a bunch of V9 plugins right now that are still getting free updates and you want to go to V10. Do so. No worries there. If some of your current plugins are V9 plugins that are
not free updates anymore, then there are three things you can do:
1) Pay for the V10 licenses for each of them. Not a bad way if its only one or two or so.
2) Pay for a full update plan which is capped and that will cover all of them for a year.
(not sure when that starts, I imagine from the moment you do it, so if you have just bought quite a few recently, then they may remain free for a while yet! The capped plan works well once you go over 20 say that need updating. Do the math) 3) When you do your V10 conversion for your current free update V9 plugins when you get asked if you want to delete all the V9 stuff simply say NO. You will end up with a bunch of V10 plugins and their updates that were free before and will still continue to work and be free now. And your V9 plugins should still be there except they wont be updatable now until you move them up into V10.
It is complex! I was almost afraid of booting up Waves Central. Its OK though and the step up to V10 is painless. By the way if you do convert to V10 it is easy to see in your account which
(no longer free) ones are still on V9.
And there is More!It cost me $25 (US) to update the two plugs. So Waves have just given me a free voucher to the same value. It means I could jump another $29 special I guess for only $4! Nice of them. Except after a while it too will have to be covered somehow for updates.