I think it's alright to complain about Waves practices all you want, and by the looks of it lots of users have a legitimate gripe. But to try to use a thread organize a particular cause, no matter how worthy, would set a bad precedent.

--Brett

PS: Don't worry about me breaking your boycott. I can't afford the stuff anyway.

bruce has a little too much body hair sticking out of the leathers .. it's not good ;-)


just out of curiosity, did you get the EMAILs from Waves regarding the WUP when they
rolled it out? i got about 10 of them i think ..

also, it's not just waves that does this. if you don't stay under maintenance, then there
are many vendors (mcafee for one) that does not cover *any* maintenance once
the product falls out of the support contract. this is inclusive of downloads, installs,
etc.

i know it's frustrating ... but they've been communicating what they were doing
for over a year ...

jeff

ORIGINAL: jmarkham

bruce has a little too much body hair sticking out of the leathers .. it's not good ;-)


just out of curiosity, did you get the EMAILs from Waves regarding the WUP when they
rolled it out? i got about 10 of them i think ..

also, it's not just waves that does this. if you don't stay under maintenance, then there
are many vendors (mcafee for one) that does not cover *any* maintenance once
the product falls out of the support contract. this is inclusive of downloads, installs,
etc.

i know it's frustrating ... but they've been communicating what they were doing
for over a year ...

jeff

Mcafee or the lack thereof does not prevent you accessing previous work projects. Waves seems to be preventing you from using potentialy years of previously recorded material. Years worth of mixing shot to passify a strong armed thug? Even drug dealers give it to you for free until you've gotta have it.

ORIGINAL: jmarkham
...also, it's not just waves that does this. if you don't stay under maintenance, then there
are many vendors (mcafee for one) that does not cover *any* maintenance once
the product falls out of the support contract. this is inclusive of downloads, installs,
etc...

McAfee, though, is essentially a subscription-based service. Antivirus software, by definition, requires ongoing service in order to perform its function in any kind of reasonable or realistic way.

ORIGINAL: Owen
Mcafee or the lack thereof does not prevent you accessing previous work projects. Waves seems to be preventing you from using potentialy years of previously recorded material...

This is exactly it. Someone who bought waves, and who paid a hefty price for it, and who used it for what it was intended, may now be faced with a dilemmna of being unable to access projects that he once used waves on. Thjis would be like if McAfee required you to perpetually renew itself or else never be able to view old files from your computer that were McAfee-scanned. But even still, unlike McAfee or Norton or whatever, the people who bought the licence to use waves pre-WUP bought it with no reason to think that it was or would ever become a subscription-based service.

Whatever way you cut it, the new WUP policy is an obvious and baldfaced money-grab, and there's nothing wrong with that, so long as it's done fairly. Waves has always charged more than most of the competition, and they are entitled to do so. Their quality and reputation has made them the "gold standard" of plugin effects processors, the odd $10,000 mastering eq notwithstanding.

I am pretty sure that what waves has done is illegal in the US, but maybe there's some fine print in the EULA that legitimately gives them the right to do this. I suspect that the courts will eventually correct this if it ever gets that far, but who knows how long that will take and what kind fo remedy will actually be able to make things right for waves customers.

A buddy of mine used to have a thriving ProTools studio. He recorded some fairly successful artists (smaller MTV acts and big regional acts) as well as a lot of local acts, which were his bread-and-butter. Like a lot of studios, that bread-and-butter business started to evaporate for him in the past few years, and he was forced to close shop and sell off most of his gear and move his studio into his basement and get a job as a record-store clerk.

He still has excellent credentials, multiple MTV album credits, and outstanding connections, and still does remix work, work-for-hire, and audio productions for soundtracks, voiceovers, corporate presentations, and demo recording for some of his bigger-budget clients.

This guy has a huge catalogue of well-respected work but is currently living on subsistence wages. The WUP is a lot of money to him (much more than it is to me, who has a good day job). For him, it is not a matter of wanting to use new plugins, or even of wanting to use his old plugins on new projects (believe me, he is as ready to abandon waves as anyone has ever been). It is a matter of needing to access work that he has already done in order to get paid for it. And he is unable to do that because waves decided to change the rules on him.

Waves is counting on being able to milk the commercial studios, or the well-financed project studios or more affluet hobbyist studios, all of whom have been their traditional bread-and-butter. But several forces are at work that I am sure have been putting the crunch on waves' profits.

For one, a lot of their "bread-and-butter" clients, namely commercial studios, are either going out of business or scrounging for work at cut-rate prices. Studios that used to charge $1000+ per day and that were booked solid, without discounts, 365 days a year, arenow laying off workers and offering block rates for less than half their former rates, and often are operating at a loss, hoping that other studios will go out of business first so they can raise their fees back to a sustainable rate. Where it used to be a no-brainer to update their software whenever a new version came out, they now have to pinch every penny.

And as far as waves' other customers go, there is now a thriving and highly-competitive market for high-quality plugins. Waves is no longer the only game in town for hardware-quality effects. Companies like PSP or dbaudio or voxengo and countless others offer inexpensive bundles of absolutely first-rate effectsfor a fraction of what waves costs. And outfits like SIR and digitalfishphones are literally giving away world-class effects for free. Even a wealthy rock star with a home studio is going to think twice about paying for waves when they can now get a wider variety of comperable-quality processors for maybe a tenth of the price.

Waves is so accustomed to being the "best" that they have completely lost touch with any compulsion to be price-competitive. They used to have a good reason to take their customer base for granted-- they were the best, like Armani or Bentley or Dom Perignon-- they were selling to people with money for whom waves was a "must have," and who were not concerned about "value" shopping-- waves was the best and was worth whatever it cost if you needed and could afford the best.

But now there is legitimate competition for waves, and there is also a lot less money to be made in audio recording than there was a few years ago. Instead of developing a new business model to suit the new marketplace, waves has decided to go back to their old customers and hold hostage products that have already been bought and paid for-- as if Bentley decided to disable the ignition of every car unless the customer came back and paid more money. Whatever pretense they may offer, this is essentially extortion, and it's wrong.

There are those of us for whom an extra few hundred a year to run a top-notch effects bundle is no big deal, and I'm sure that applies to a significant portion of waves users. But that doesn't make it right to change the rules in the middle of the game in such an irrevocable way. And there are also a lot of people for whom waves was a major investment, who had to save and scrounge for the money to buy waves, who are not in a position to simply shrug and say, oh well, that's life, and cough up an extra $500 and chalk it up to a simple inconvenience.

Another $.02 from yep, anyway.

Cheers.

You are using the Sonar forum for what you want, not what it's readers want.

That is spam.

Do you speak for all the readers ? Comparing it to spam is ridiculous. I guess any topic that doesn't concern you is spam. Are you a Waves owner ? If not, why would you even take the time to read this ?
I see this thread as the reverse equivilent of a "group buy" where interested Sonar/Waves users can unite to influence Waves to reverse the customer abusive policy described in the thread. The only difference is that a "group buy" thread would not be bounced off the main Sonar forum.
I originally posted the boycott thread figuring that interested Sonar/Waves owners would participate in the discussion, and most non-Waves owners would ignore it. The offending double-post was simply an effort to allow the Sonar/Waves owners to have a fair chance to be aware due to the administrator parking the thread in nowhere land.
I have been a loyal registered Cakewalk user since PA9, and am currently at Sonar 4.1, therefor I feel that the minor faux-pas of double posting should be forgiven this time.
I will make sure not to do it again.

ORIGINAL: Autist

I think the most annoying thing is that Waves does not even include an iLok key with the bundles that require it. If you get a bundle, even one of the smaller, cheaper ones, you still have to purchase an iLok key, so a $150.00 bundle will cost $190-$200 if you don't have a key already. At least most other companies that require keys include them with the software.

I did not know this, seems like another way money is pinched out of customers, There whole system seems set up unfairly,causing to their customers disadvantages.

Can anyone recommend to me bundles which are comparable to the Gold Native Bundle from Waves?

Voxengo makes high quality plugs and has many that correspond to the Gold set.

Many folks have said good things about the Sonalksis plugs also, but I don't have them, but you can look into them as well.

McAfee, though, is essentially a subscription-based service. Antivirus software, by definition, requires ongoing service in order to perform its function in any kind of reasonable or realistic way.

and the changing world of DAWs, operating systems, plug-in standards and hardware is all that
different?

hey yep, i have a great deal of respect for you and your thoughts and opinions because there's
a lot of brain cells behind them. but, i also know what it means to be a customer of a software
package... when they tell you they're going to do something .. you better listen. Waves has been
*very* upfront about their decision to abandon PACE disk-based authorization and go to
an iLok based model. secondarily, they were also very up-front about the WUP model .. the
people who are now caught either didn't listen or chose to step off the maintenance ladder.

let's turn this around to Sonar .. suppose for a moment that Intel introduced a new processor that
obviated the instruction set which Sonar 2 was using. A customer decided to buy the new hardware .. Cakewalk,
for its customers, allowed a reasonable upgrade fee to Sonar 6 which supported the new hardware.
so what do we do? you would have two camps .. the Sonar 2 customer who demands that the old
software work on the new hardware.. and those who chose to upgrade the software to Sonar 6. from my
perspective, i would say the Sonar 2 customer is unrealistic in his expectation that the old software
work on the new hardware. that's without regard to whether the new hardware upgrade was a necessity
forced by the failure of the old hardware or not. the fact is, any action to support the old software
on the new hardware is an expense to the vendor.

what people are saying with Waves is that they got a new disk drive .. unless you're really not paying
attention, you must know that the disk drive *is* the authorizing entity in a disk-based authorization
scheme. you must also know that Waves has offered iLok based authorization for many years. if you
choose to use the disk authorization scheme on an old and unsupported piece of software .. well,
forgive me, but you're being foolish by betting on the benevolence of a vendor.

as to getting a new disk based authorization for the new hardware ... is this a free service
to be provided in perpetuity by your software vendor? no ... it's the same logic why your car has a
5 year 50,000 mile warranty .. if a manufacturer had to support their product for all time, what would
that product cost?

sometimes i think we treat software different from our air conditioners or toasters .. but the support
model is quite similar .. things wear out .. things change .... sometimes you have to either extend the
warranty or buy a new toaster. so you may buy a different toaster .. fine.. you should if the market
has changed since you last bought yours .. ;-)

jeff

Jmarkham,
I hear what you're saying, and the respect is mutual.

I have waves, and WUP, and iLok, but I am thinking of jumping on this boycott bandwagon just out of principle, although my principles really aren't that strong, so I probably won't.

I hear what you're saying about waves sending out emails and all of that-- I got em. In the real world though, people change email addresses quite a bit, people delete emails from vendors as spam without reading them, and most professional recording engineers are working 14 hours a day in the studio or more and are out at the bar afterwards and are far less attuned to what's going on in the software world than many kids working out of their bedrooms are. Not many of them visit forums or message boards, and most of them are inundated with spam and junk mail. Many of them are barely computer-literate beyond opeating a mac-based studio, and they tend to have other people "make the computer go." A lot of the stuff about being an "educated consumer" doesn't really apply to them in the real world.

But all that notwithstanding, the fact remains that even if waves made sure to communicate clearly and effectively to all of their customers exactly what was changing, the changes that thet made are still unfair, IMO.

I have argued long and loud in favor of software producer's rights to set usage restrictions and to licence software with terms of use as opposed to selling software outright. The company I manage does this-- our customers only purchase a limited licence to operate our software.

My problem is not with waves coming up with a new business model-- that's fine, if new customers want to pay for it. My problem is their holding older customers hostage by essentially disabling software that they once bought the permanent licence to use.

Waves has a unique position in the market, and I actually think it makes a lot of sense for waves, who has a lot of commercial customers, to include a recurring service fee as part of the licence. They are often dealing with businesses who expect rapid, idiot-proof, business-class service, and that is something that costs money to provide and that businesses are generally willing to pay for.

It makes perfect sense for waves to take a position like "we're the best, and we provide and uncomprimising, comprehensive, rock-solid product with second-to-none quality and useability and we charge accordingly. We are not making product designed for the late-night tweaker or internet bargain hunter, we are making product for professional commercial enterprises that need an all-in-one turn-key solution that will deliver top-quality results every time, every effect at every setting in every application. Send us the check and we'll send you the only effects rack you need, complete, top-quality, and fully supported."

My problem is, waves has decided to apply this policy retroactively to people who bought their product WITHOUT that kind of agreement or understanding. And a lot of people PAID waves the money, waves TOOK the profits, and some of these people either were home users who scrounged and saved to buy what the "pros" use, or "pros" who are not running million-dollar studios, who aren't ASKING waves for new and improved versions, or free technical support, or bug fixes, or additional plugins, they simply want to use the software that they paid for outright. Those people shouldn't have to buy an iLok, or subscribe to a maintenance program to continue to run the software that they already paid for a an indefinate licence to use. And now they're being told they have to do both.

I'm sure it does cost waves money to issue re-authorizations when someone replaces a hard drive, although I can't imagine it costs very much. But it was their decision to go with kind of stupid copy-protection in the first place. PACE was not implemented for the benefit of the customer, it was waves' decision to use that kind of onerous, unweildy copy-protection, and waves was (and is) very well-paid for their product, and I'm sure that part of the very significant price-premium was waves adding in an additional charge to their legitimate customers to pay for the unweildy copy-protection that only benefitted waves, not the customer who was paying for it.

i have always hated burdensome copy-protection schemes, almost as much as I hate software pirates. Both drive up costs for legitimate customers and punish the honest, charging them for the cost of the fight between the profiteers and the crooks.

I think subscription-based software models make a lot of sense, and will probably start to become more and more common (how about sonar, latest version, in perpetuity for $15 a month for the producer edition, and $10/month for the studio edition? sounds good to me--forces the companies to stay on their toes lest customers cancel the service, but also guarantees that people will pay for updates to keep the software operable). I would have no problem if Sonar 6 came out with this kind of pricing scheme, BUT, I would SURE have a problem if that meant that all previous versions of Sonar were invailidated if I didn't sign up.

The problem isn't that waves failed to notify users that they were changing the rules, the problem is that they changed the rules at all, for people who had already paid for it.

And even if customers had SWITCHED to iLok when the email was sent out, they'd STILL have to pay the WUP to operate the software that they already paid for.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: Brett

as to getting a new disk based authorization for the new hardware ... is this a free service
to be provided in perpetuity by your software vendor? no ... it's the same logic why your car has a
5 year 50,000 mile warranty .. if a manufacturer had to support their product for all time, what would
that product cost?

sometimes i think we treat software different from our air conditioners or toasters .. but the support
model is quite similar .. things wear out .. things change .... sometimes you have to either extend the
warranty or buy a new toaster. so you may buy a different toaster .. fine.. you should if the market
has changed since you last bought yours .. ;-)

You don't have to get permission from General Electric to use your toaster again if you move interstate.


Brett

i have long extension cords .. it's only 72 volts on the other end .. so the toast takes a while ;-)

what people are saying with Waves is that they got a new disk drive .. unless you're really not paying
attention, you must know that the disk drive *is* the authorizing entity in a disk-based authorization
scheme. you must also know that Waves has offered iLok based authorization for many years. if you
choose to use the disk authorization scheme on an old and unsupported piece of software .. well,
forgive me, but you're being foolish by betting on the benevolence of a vendor.

as to getting a new disk based authorization for the new hardware ... is this a free service
to be provided in perpetuity by your software vendor? no ... it's the same logic why your car has a
5 year 50,000 mile warranty .. if a manufacturer had to support their product for all time, what would
that product cost?

I've been busy building a studio and raising my twins (now three) and ignoring most of my email unless it's important to me in the near term out of necessity. I'll have to search my inbox, I probably have some Waves email that I never read. <groan>

IMO, what they should have done when they decided to retire the Pace mechanism was treated it as if they had gone out of business and found a way to unlock the plugs for those that bought the licenses and did not want to upgrade. The Warez versions are everywhere anyway. The node-unlocked, but still licensed, version could simply have the waves customer number encrypted into the key so they could go after you if you started giving it away to your buddies.

Or, they could simply grandfather in the old users for the price of the i-Lok dongle sans WUP fee, which would also be more reasonable.

ORIGINAL: yep

Waves has a unique position in the market, and I actually think it makes a lot of sense for waves, who has a lot of commercial customers, to include a recurring service fee as part of the licence. They are often dealing with businesses who expect rapid, idiot-proof, business-class service, and that is something that costs money to provide and that businesses are generally willing to pay for.

It makes perfect sense for waves to take a position like "we're the best, and we provide and uncomprimising, comprehensive, rock-solid product with second-to-none quality and useability and we charge accordingly. We are not making product designed for the late-night tweaker or internet bargain hunter, we are making product for professional commercial enterprises that need an all-in-one turn-key solution that will deliver top-quality results every time, every effect at every setting in every application. Send us the check and we'll send you the only effects rack you need, complete, top-quality, and fully supported."


Cheers.

"IF" you only want to deal with one developer for a complete, top quality, and well supported bundle then waves is the route too go,But you can get this and more dealing with different developers who in comparison to each other offer plugins of extremely different colorations and nature, giving you more area covered on the sound spectrum.A powerful,comprehensive bundle can be obtained in many ways!
In the end it will boil down to what a individual feels sound good to them. If waves truly sound superior to a individual then that individual should buy waves, long as it's not too far out of their price range (don't always buy immediately and learn to save for, is important aswell).I plan to buy the 10 band version of plpareq wich may be $1000 just for one eq, but for me it clearly has some superiority, I feel musicians are obligated to go after what sounds good to their ears (your music will reward and thank you for doing this later). Although i don't own alot of waves plugins (only a old version of audiotrack), and most of my plugins are cheaper, in my eyes i did not settle for less.For if there was a clear superiority there to me then i would own waves first.We all have different standards.But in the end most will agree that waves are very good, but "best" may be different to each individual.
As far as your comments that waves are not selling to "latenight tweakers" or "internet bargain hunters" but professional businesses are who they aim to please. I think you need to recognize who are the overwhelming majority.You may also need to think about what drove so many people to making music at home on their computers in the first place.The majority i assure you will go after top quality that is cheap in price first (this is why walmart is causing so many other stores to go out of business or file bankruptsy, this is also why ebay is doing so well).You said it yourself that many professional studio's are struggling, so if there struggling then why would you want to make only them your customer base?
Any smart business know's to go after the whole!

ORIGINAL: attalus
... "IF" you only want to deal with one developer for a complete, top quality, and well supported bundle then waves is the route too go,But you can get this and more dealing with different developers who in comparison to each other offer plugins of extremely different colorations and nature, giving you more area covered on the sound spectrum...

... The majority i assure you will go after top quality that is cheap in price first...

I couldn't agree more. That was my point exactly-- waves is still designed around a business model that is targeted towards a group of customers who are fewer and further-between every day. When I first started with waves, they were flat-out the best. This was relatively recent in my history with audio, but ages ago in terms of the development of computer-based recording. This was back when the only "serious" computer recording platform was ProTools HD systems that cost more than a new Chevy, and when most recording was still done to tape with racks of hardware effects. Waves was an outright bargain by comparison.

These days, you can get a full array of absolutely first-rate effects for little or no money (legally!) if you do some research and put some time and effort into it.

Waves is still a great product, and well worth it for people whose time is too valuable to prowl the internet and try out demos, or whose business depends on constant up-time, where the operators can't afford to risk using unsupported freeware or smaller, quirkier product that has not been thoroughly beta-tested. Waves' larger bundles are basically marketed, accurately, as a one-stop solution that contains every effect you'll ever need, and every effect is top-notch, flexible, easy to use, musical and fun to work with, and extremely high-quality.

That's still worth a lot to a commercial studios, but expensive commercial studios are no longer the large part of plugin-buyers. The computer-recording revolution is driving a lot of recording studios out of business, and is also driving down the rates that can be charged by the studios that still operate. More and more, plugins are being bought by hobbyists, home recordists, small-time studios, and larger studios that are actually feeling the squeeze and have started to question whether $2800 up-front and $500 annually is really worth it for an effects bundle.

Waves has ALWAYS tended to make life difficult for their customers in certain ways, starting with their onerous and intrusive copy-protection schemes. But this latest move really burns me up.

Cheers.

Eric,

I sent the following email to Barry at Waves. I hope you other guys who disagree with their unfair practices will do the same.

From: Darrin [mailto:@verizon.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 11:45 AM
To: 'barry@waves.com'
Subject: Upgrade to WUP?

Barry,

There’s a thread on the Cakewalk forums about Waves’ recent business practices http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=677430 that is causing quite a stir over there. A member named Eric Terlizzi has complained that he can no longer use the Waves products he’s paid for without being extorted an additional $90 to upgrade to WUP. This is bad, bad business, Barry.

I’m in the market for a new plug-in suite and I was considering Waves before I read this thread. I’ll never buy from you and I’ll discourage anyone who will listen from buying Waves unless you guys rethink your practices.

Darrin

P.S. You guys should drop the dongle. It’s not preventing anyone who is so inclined from illegally obtaining and using your products.

Thanks for the tips on other bundles/free plugins...I've been having fun researching some of these. For sure I won't be going back to Waves any time soon!