Hi deiseldave-
I can't believe I found this thread! I very recently had a run-in w/Waves due to a reinstall of my entire audio machine. I know it's long, but I wanted to include my correspondence with them to make you aware of how rediculous it got. Man, it got me fired UP!!
regards,
Eric
Here goes: (backwards chronologically, of course)
_________________________________________________________
Hi Barry,
What other companies charge this for their services that I'm not asking for? Phone support is usually by the minute...You are forcing me to take a service, and that's what you are not seeing. I don't need tech support, I need to re-authorize. But you can't help me anyway because you've changed methods...Other companies are charging for their services WHEN THEY ARE RENDERED.
When I re-installed Sonar (or Windows, or Antares, or UAD, or drivers) Cakewalk didn't say, "Well, that'll be $90 more dollars to reinstall. No, it's for our support, not for the reinstall." You've essentially taken my software from me until I pay your money and play by your new rules.
I am a full-time studio and will be uninstalling your product. At least in my case, and everyone I will tell about this, you have not created cashflow, but hindered it. Why would I want to continue with a company that tries to put this much control on it's customers? It looks as though Waves has a "party mantra" that they are unwilling to shift off of for a minute to maybe get a glimpse of what reality is in this situation. Be a customer for just a second and tell me this isn't riddled with inequity. The included Sonitus plugs in Sonar 5 are easily as good as the Ren, and the only reason why I was using yours was because I paid for them didn't want to waste my money. Now as it turns out, I have anyway.
I do hope the market votes with their dollars in this case, because you've lost a customer and I'll be sure to let folks know what they are getting into when they "buy" (or in Waves dictionary meaning "lease until you change the rules") your good sounding software. Sure, if they get into it now, it's no trouble...just get an iLock and you're all set....UNTIL 2009 when Waves introduces the all-new "iLock II-Tiger/XP Platinum Edition" and you can only reinstall if you get the new iLock system. For only $99...
Again, this is just not right, but it doesn't look like we are going to accomplish anything more. I do hope you read and try to understand what I'm saying and experiencing from the decisions that Waves is making. I like the concept of the native plugs, but I have to tell you, the UAD product is amazing (I have the Precision Limiter, and there's no reason to get the L3 or C1 now since the PEQ and P-Multi-band came out). Come to think of it, that's probably where your cashflow went... ;-(
Cheers,
Eric
________________________________________________________________________
On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 11:40:41 -0500 "Barry Cohen" <
barry@waves.com <mailto:barry@waves.com>> writes:
Hi Eric,
By paying for WUP you not charged for as you wrote 'A', 'B' and 'C' but provided with special bonuses. Again, you are NOT being charged for these bonuses. You are being charged for receiving technical support and maintenance with WUP and nothing more.
Charging for technical support and its various features is not something that can be found in Waves only. Other companies also charge for their services. Your WUP current price being only $90 makes it actually very hard for me to understand the problem.
With or without WUP – the option to provide you with another Disk authorization is technically impossible as our system changed to accommodate the new needs and various features. Disk authorizations are available only for single plug-ins that were released prior to 2005. All the later single plug-ins do not have this options available any longer. Moreover, technically speaking – ALL Waves bundles are not available for Disk Authorizations and Reauthorization any more. This is not a decision someone in his high office makes for good or ill but a technical parameter. A copy protection mechanism which we cannot override.
Please let me know if you will need any further information or assistance. Please include a copy of our on going correspondence in your mail.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Best regards,
Barry Cohen
Waves Sales
Waves Audio Ltd.
___________________________________________
From: Eric [mailto:@juno.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 6:19 PM
To: Barry Cohen
Subject: Re: FW: Eric requests special upgrade
Good morning, Barry,
I appreciate your response in such a timely manner. I'm trying to be keep a cool head, here, because it feels and seems to be an injustice, and that's hard for me to swallow. Why?
Because your company is only willing to give me the response to a challenge as long as I pay for it's bundle with other products I don't want or need. This is coersion and it is unethical. You've got a customer that needs his product back that is rightfully his, and you're standing there with the code I need to unlock it and saying "You can have it back if you spend more money on A, B, and C".
If you guys need more cashflow, there are other ways to solve that problem. The other companies I cited earlier have somehow figured out a way to let their customers do re-authorizations AND maintain there position in the market.
I will ask you again, PLEASE just let me re-authorize what I have so I can continue working on projects into which I've inserted the Ren products. It's going to be alot of unnecessary work if you can't help me out.
Thanks again for your consideration in this matter,
Eric
__________________________________________________________________
On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 13:39:27 -0500 "Barry Cohen" <
barry@waves.com <mailto:barry@waves.com>> writes:
Hi Eric,.
I'm sorry if you feel this way Sir. But Waves is not charging you money just "because of a windows clean reinstall",in your own words. Waves is charging ALL its users for maintenance each year. This Maintenance program provides Waves users with the following:
1) Technical support (since Waves is no longer supporting Disk authorizations you will need to authorize to iLok, just like you would if you went to a different company. Since this is a Tech Support service you will need to be under maintenance).
2) Version update support
3) Additional plugins to your bundle. (in the case of the RenMaxx bundle the additional plug-ins are the IR-L native, the Tune Lite native and the Ren-Axx Premium compressor plugin.)
You are charged with $90 for the ability to not only authorize your bundle to an iLok (which will prevent such satiations as this current one from happening again. iLok authorization is a one time process) but also provide you with more benefits for your money. Benefits that's worth much more than your current WUP cost.
We have to charge money not only for our products but also for maintenance. Simply put, WUP helps ensure that Waves' sound will be there tomorrow for all of us – customer and company. Waves is not getting any wealthier from the maintenance program – quite the contrary – it maintains us.
We created WUP to, preliminary, address the challenge that faces any software user and manufacturer-how to keep your tools working for you over the long haul. This has many faces to it:
You need to know that when you change platform versions or computer operating systems that you can use your Waves plug-ins-without having to buy a new bundle at full price every time there's a change.
We need to retain enough engineers to write, test, and debug the mountains of code required to keep Waves current on Mac, Windows, and all the DAWS and formats we support. It's like aiming at a dozen moving targets at the same time, and to accomplish it we need an army of engineers.
Moreover, a lot of man-power is put to make sure that technical and customer service is there for customers. This is at a time when more and more companies are out-sourcing their tech Support resulting in a lesser service and less than happy customers. This always back lashes. Still, keeping our customer service at home has its cost, as you would imagine.
To meet these challenges we created WUP, a program that offers you these benefits:
A cost precisely tailored to your usage. Instead of charging a high flat rate for updates, we wanted to keep rates as low and as fair as possible. That's why WUP is calculated on exactly what you own and for how long you've owned it. This is also why if you skip WUP for a year, the cost will be higher when you re-enter the program.
Complete updates with all the new features. With WUP, you receive updates needed to run your Waves plug-ins on new platforms. But you also get any major new release of your software produced during your coverage, so you'll always have the newest features. For example, IR-1 Reverb owners covered by WUP receive IR-1 V2, which includes a new feature that allows you to capture your own impulse responses to create your own custom reverbs.
New plug-ins added to your bundle-free. When you're covered by WUP, any new plug-in added to your bundle is yours free-and these are often major releases. For example, Diamond bundle owners covered by WUP this year received the L3 Multimaximizer multi-band limiter (the successor to our legendary L2 Ultramaximizer) for free. That's an $1,800 value.
Customer and Technical support. Almost around the clock Sunday through Friday and even on holidays.
And again, keep in mind that WUP helps ensure that Waves will be there tomorrow for all of us.
-----------------------------------
Please let me know if you will need any further information or assistance. Please include a copy of our on going correspondence in your mail.
Thank you for your cooperation, patience and understanding.
Best regards,
Barry Cohen
Waves Sales
Waves Audio Ltd.
____________________________________________________________________________
From: Eric[mailto:@juno.com]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 8:15 PM
To: Barry Cohen
Subject: Re: FW: Eric requests special upgrade
Thanks, Barry, but I just found out Waves is trying to make me pay $90 or so more just to reauthorize what I have because of a windows clean reinstall. If this ends up being the case, I will regrettably no longer be a Waves customer.
Thanks for you time,
Eric