Waves moves to subscription only

I mainly use L1 to manage peaks in vocals, like CLA does. I've tried to move away from it to the stuff that Dan recommends (TDR limiter, etc) and DMG TrackLimit, but nothing sounds quite like it.

I'm pretty sure it's a simple algorithm full of aliasing, but it does make a vocal cut better l and stay present without artifacts, when set appropriately.

Has anyone found something like L1?

I love this developer from Germany. No sales. No subscriptions. Once you buy at his very reasonable price he gives you free updates forever. And he actually listens to suggestions and often incorporates them into the product, or explains why it doesn't work for him. 

www.tbproaudio.de/products/gainrider

Hey Waves.......

Bye, bye. Hasta la Vista. Sayonara. Au Revoir. Shalom.


ADIOS GRINGOS!!!!!!!!!

Don't let the door hit ya on the way out!!!

If you "own" any Waves plugins now, you can keep using them as long as they continue to work with your OS and DAW of choice. 

But from here on out, it's a true rental system. The plugs will work as long as you have an active subscription. If you let your sub lapse, the plugins will not work. They will revert to demo status on your system, which means the plugins will introduce "periodic audio mutes."

Yep, WUP is no more. I didn't think it was possible to replace it with something worse. Looks like I was wrong!

Fuggin pissed about this. Would have been mostly ok with it if they had given more than 4 days notice. And really they switched over a day earlier than they said so just screwed all around.


I need an LA3a plugin now and La2a plugin. And SSL EQ.

Unfreaking believable how they went about this.

When I was taking client work (I might go back to that when I semi retire from being a full time musician) then $25 a month is irrelevant as the clients are paying for it.

I don’t think successful studios and full time music producers are going to flinch at $25 per month - it’s 0.83 cents per day.

In my part of the world a sandwich and a coffee is $15!

I know I’m going upset people saying this, but Waves have without doubt thought this through and I honestly think their business will grow.

It’s attractive to beginners starting out who have no software.

It’s an irrelevant cost to successful professionals (it just gets written off as expenses)

People like me who write and mix in cycles can turn the switch on and off.

That leaves those not falling into those three categories who I do honestly feel for and I fully understand why they are very p***ed off …. I know I would be in their situation.

Same here. Haven't found anything that sounds like L1 for pushing vocals.
Also RDeEsser is lovely for vocals in addition to Weiss Deesser.

This subscription really sucks I got to say.
I use SSL. EV2, L1 and 1176, RDeEsser in almost every mix/production. I also use RVox and RComp from time to time.
On some sources I like Waves 76 than the UA ones. 

Yes, Emagic did it too me. TC electronics did it to me. There are others.

I try to be philosophical about it, it’s the nature of licensed software, you never own it anyway.

It’s why I started to build up my hardware racks …. until you need new tubes or a repair then it costs of course!

I’ll end up buying 3 months of sub when I mix the album I’m currently working on, if I go back to taking clients I’ll no doubt subscribe monthly as I still value their plug-ins.

Thanks for the helpful comment.
VR is useful to me maybe 30% of the time. When I’m in a hurry and need some leveling that’s more dynamic than a limiter, I give it a try. The fact that no one’s suggesting a substitute tells me it’s somewhat unique. Nectar 3 may do something similar, but the leveling function is not explicitly broken out among all the things that Nectar does.
I guess I’ll take a look at the subscription terms. I can do just fine without Waves. I do still have hands and ears. But sometimes you find that one tool that does that one thing that comes in handy every once in a while.