I'm done with Waves, they just gave away a FREE plugin!!!

[bharris22]

No e-mail yet here either . I signed up well before Black Friday, and then entered my e-mail again yesterday.

[ramseysounds]

Jeez, all the WUP shite that gets posted on here by morons.
You don't have to buy WUP. I have versions 9 and 10, all expired and all working happily alongside newer plugs. Hey ho.

[Obsolete236871]

Waves does allow to reinstall older versions, even if you bought a v11, you can get v9 if you want that. Its just bad for slow internet connections, as you download all plugins and then select during installation. I don‘t see a huge difference between WUP and other upgrade policies. Any cp is complicated for the honest user... There had been times where WUP was more expensive than buying the next bigger collection on a sale, but it seems they stopped this strategy... (as it would allow to sell the older collection...)
The companies which have their own licensing system like Waves, Steinberg, Izotope, NI etc. pretty much work quite similar and usually reliable. I never had real problems with any of them. Of course users prefer the u-he way of cp...
And the bigger the company and the bigger the market share the more complaints you will read. The happy users just use it and make music...

The issue is not whether companies use license management / copyright systems - that's acceptable and if we don't like it, we can still choose products from smaller "boutique" audio companies like U-He, Tokyo Dawn, Klanghelm, Sonimus, LVC-Audio, Valhalla who have less invasive procedures in place. In fact, even a big company like Izotope uses a procedure that is much more user-friendly (including ability to activate the plugs on offline computers).

But as many correctly summarized it in this thread and the other threads about the whole WUP scheme: Waves seem to make it deliberately difficult for their customers to use (particularly reinstall) their plugins that have not been "WUPped", even when those plugins still should work perfectly fine on the users system.

I can accept an upgrade fee if in the meantime a completely new generation of hardware and OS has been released (let's say next Windows OS is 128 bit only and there is a completely new generation of CPU-architecture) and the developer has to take an effort to upgrade the productline to support this new generation setup.

But Waves tries to pressure users into WUP even when they are still perfectly happy with the older version license they bought before. That essentially means: when you buy a plugin license from Waves, you never know whether you can easily access, re-install and use that product in the future, once a new version is released, since they will probably hide the installers, force you to download their entire product line or create other deliberate difficulties for you, which will cost you as the user valuable life time, physical and mental energy.

Most of the other companies you mentioned have a much more transparent and concise way of managing, downloading, reinstalling and authorizing licenses - which is a crucial difference!

[Obsolete236871]

Jeez, all the WUP shite that gets posted on here by morons.
You don't have to buy WUP. I have versions 9 and 10, all expired and all working happily alongside newer plugs. Hey ho.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about! Did you ever have to re-install them? Nobody said V9 and V10 plugins won't work alongside V11 plugins - that's not the actual issue!

The actual issue: if you ever redo your setup and then want to re-install those older version, then you are faced with an extremely annoying experience. Waves deliberately increased the hassle for users of older versions. You cannot use the same license management / installation procedure that the newer plugins use, but you are forced to basically download their entire product line and then choose those plugins you own licenses for. I also have v9 and v10 plugins working perfectly next to one another, because back when v9 and v10 were the current versions, the installation procedure was relatively complicated. But now that a new version is released, they are again hiding the installers for the older versions or change the procedure to cause more hassle - that's the actual issue!

[chk071]

I've been there, yes. And, i dislike what Waves do with their WaveShell as well. But, it isn't reason enough for me to declare world war 3. Just a tiny flaw in paradise.

[ramseysounds]

Jeez, all the WUP shite that gets posted on here by morons.
You don't have to buy WUP. I have versions 9 and 10, all expired and all working happily alongside newer plugs. Hey ho.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about!

You keep telling yourself that.
The amount of mis-information on this forum and others is truly astounding.

[cprompt]

This is in regards to the BF sale, "buy any 2 plugins and get 1 free." I'm miffed because in my error, I didn't read into the fact that the freebie is from a set list of OK plugins.

Really? Honest question, cos it states "choose any $29.99 plugin as your free one" and in the T&Cs is says "You may choose any Waves plugin listed at $29.99 during the time of the promotion as your free one" (my emphasis). Surely if you got a cut-down list, you should contact Waves and point them in the direction of their own T&Cs?

[Tj Shredder]

Yesterday it was cut down, today its not... No difference for me, I am only interested in a single one and probably skip it anyway...

[Local Man]

You're really not gonna like what Waves have gone and done now!

That's right, they're giving away another plugin!
One Knob Wetter. Check their homepage.

The horror!
Now we're all gonna be on the hook for a double WUP! That's right, a Dub Dub U P!

Its just like all those ladies that Oprah gave a car to so they'd go broke paying the taxes.

[FarleyCZ]

The plugins are independent from the installer as far as their running goes. V11 installer even can install legacy plugins from offline backups. They also have to host the older plugins on their servers. There is very little coding needed in order for the installer to be able to download all versions of the plugins. ...but nope. The installer doesn't offer that and on different occasions even deletes the old plugins on it's own. Just so you know what to do with an evening I guess...

[imrae]

The problem isn't a "hiccup" during OS update, the problem is that an OS update may leave your plugin(s) completely unusable with no fix until you WUP.

And what's the difference (beside the name WUP) to for example Steinberg ?
When Cubase 9 doesn't work anymore on the most recent OS you have to pay for the upgrade to Cubase 10. That's absolutely normal. I don't get all that WUP drama.

Features. The difference is features.

[rasmusklump]

No its not. If I only need to update because the old OS doesn't work anymore I don't need the new features.
And yes I think it is ok that there has to be paid something.

[2:43AM]

Yesterday it was cut down, today its not...

Exactly. BF sale vs. CM sale. Different beasts.

Looks like the CM sale may be still going on.

[AdvancedFollower]

But as many correctly summarized it in this thread and the other threads about the whole WUP scheme: Waves seem to make it deliberately difficult for their customers to use (particularly reinstall) their plugins that have not been "WUPped", even when those plugins still should work perfectly fine on the users system.

In their defense, the transition from V10 to V11 seems to have gone a lot smoother than V9 to V10. V11 of the Waves Central handles both V10 and V11 plugins so there's no need to download massive offline installers or go through complicated manual install procedures. It should automatically install the V11 or V10 version as appropriate, and you can freely mix and match V10 and V11 versions of different plugins.

Of course the procedure could still fail for some individual users due to bugs, untested scenarios or user error, but that's true for all software.

[cprompt]

The new Waves Central is a huge improvement. Using it I removed all the Waves plugins off my computer and then using the V9 and V10 offline installers, I re-installed all my V9, V10 and V11 plugins. It was completely painless and just worked. I was surprised and happy.