BEWARE OF WAVES AUDIO
In recent years a lot of digital services have shifted from a ‘buy’ to a ‘subscribe’ model. For some services I have found this acceptable and convenient. I was an early subscriber to Apple Music, finding it very liberating to give up physical CDs for a cloud-based ‘all you can eat’ type of deal. For other services, I resolutely hold firm to the idea of actually buying and owning something rather than merely leasing it. In this camp I would place such things as photo / image processing software and music production gear, two of my semi-professional areas of interest. I don’t like the idea of being forced to pay yearly whether I want to upgrade or not. I would much rather wait until an upgrade has something to offer that I actually need before purchasing it.
Many companies offer one model or the other, and some both. I would never use Adobe’s Lightroom for my photo processing since they only offer it on a subscription basis, whereas Capture One Pro gets my money because it gives you the choice (and I choose to buy rather than rent).
And then there are companies such as the audio plug-in maker Waves, who seem to be one thing but are actually another, confusing the unaware with their ambiguous business model.
Logic Pro, Apple’s Mac-only DAW
For those of you who don’t know, audio plug-ins are tools used for the production and shaping of music within DAWs (digital audio workstations). These DAWs (such as ProTools, Logic Pro, FL Studio, etc) usually come equipped with a host of software plug-ins to help to you create music on your computer. However, there is a massive industry in third-party plug-ins. Many companies offer software that replicates vintage equipment from famous recording studies or allows you to use expensive synthesizers and keyboards that are impossible to find in the flesh. Others just provide studio effects that can spice up your music.
Collecting these plug-ins can be quite addictive, and most hobbyists end up with huge numbers, many of which they don’t actually use.
Some of these plug-in makers are now pushing a subscription model - a yearly fee gets you access to their entire range, but I prefer companies who still continue with the buying model.
An example of a plug-in, in this case Arturia’s emulation of a hardware compressor.
And that brings us back to Waves Audio. This company has been making plug-ins for a long time. Take a look at their website. They have perpetual sales as well as various ‘buy two get one free’ sort of deals, an approach which can be very seductive. I ending up buying about thirty of their plug-ins over the years. Some of them are very good, others a little long in the tooth, but to be honest, in recent years I’ve largely stopped using most of them, finding those of other purveyors better. However, there were one or two that had become mainstays of my music production workflow.
Imagine my surprise a few weeks ago when, as I started up my DAW, it informed me that it couldn’t load any Waves plug-ins because the licenses were no longer valid. Pardon? Excuse me? Why? I thought I’d bought them! I thought I owned them!
After a bit of detective work on the internet and a chat with a Waves operative, the ugly truth came out. Take a look at this statement from somewhere within their website:
“When you purchase….a Waves software product, you get one free year of the Waves Update Plan for that product. This gives you updates for your covered products…The products you own remain yours forever, even after your plan expires…”
The ‘updates’ they are referring to seem not to be improvements in functionality or additional features, but just the ability to run on the latest operating system. So presumably, my licenses had expired, and some kind of update to my computer’s OS triggered the failure of the plug-ins to load.
But oh yes, it’s all good, because as the Waves blurb states, the plug-ins ‘remain mine forever’ even if if I don’t go for their ‘update plan.’ This is, of course, totally meaningless, because it seems the only way they will work again is if I downgrade my computer to some previous OS iteration, which is completely impractical.
Never-ending multiple sales and discounts on a Waves plug-in…
So, the situation which has suddenly been forced upon me is this : I can’t use any of the Waves plug-ins I own and have paid for unless I buy an ‘Update Plan’ which I am informed will cost $240. That’s right, I have to pay again for something I supposedly already own. And that’s just for one year! This feels like my products are being held hostage. It also feels as if I unwittingly entered into some kind of rental plan when I thought I’d bought the software outright.
Waves seems to suggest that you are buying plug-ins from them when to all intents and purposes you merely leasing them for a time, after which you will have to pay again if you want them to continue to work. It’s disingenuous because they do not tell you this upfront in a transparent manner, giving you a false impression as to their real business model.
I will not pay the $240 ransom and have removed all Waves plugins from my DAW. I would suggest anyone new to the world of audio plug-ins looks elsewhere, since there are many alternative companies who make similar or better products and who are more honest when it comes to letting potential customers know the precise nature of the deal.
Caveat emptor.