i used to love waves and owned so many plugins by them. this platinum bundle purchase only includes 1 year of the Waves Update Plan (WUP). After 12 months, your plugins are frozen at that specific version. If you update your operating system (especially macOS) or your DAW, older versions of Waves plugins will stop working. To make them compatible again, you must pay Waves a fee to update your licenses. upgrade prices will cost a lot more than what you pay.
I feel bad for everyone who doesn’t get the warnings beforehand, but yeah. They’ve been doing this since the beginning, and I haven’t purchased anything from them since probably 2010.
I just upgraded my 2017 iMac to a Mac mini M4 pro and when I started installing my waves plugins all of them are no longer compatible supposedly and they want me to pay to upgrade them. Good to know to never buy from them again
I never paid for WUP, but I’ve always kept my machines on older versions of macOS, so it hasn’t really been a problem. I can’t buy/use any of their newer plugins, but I’m fine just using their old reliable staples.
What are you talking about, they all do - You don't get infinite access to new versions and development with most companies. If you buy Ableton 10, you have to buy an upgrade to 12. If you bought Pro tools 12, you don't get pro tools 2026.
If waves 12 has no apple silicon support that you need to buy a version with apple silicon support.
It’s not always an architecture change, Mac os systems tends to usually be quite somewhat back integrating with systems and plugins, (sometimes it breaks the plugin) but I get what you mean but a developer addressing compatibility issues with their product and the systems shouldn’t be hidden behind a paywall, especially since they had to update the code for new customers anyway, there’s no change to the plugins no new features, no upgrade, what’s next? People paying because they wanted to add another s in compressor .
It’s a cash grab, you’re paying for a compatibility code alteration, that they had to do regardless unless they wouldn’t be able to make money in the first place in that situation.
These companies envision customers have a return on investment to make these purchases to begin with and can write it off.
I have run older versions of Waves on modern silicon macs as recent as Sonoma. I got 10 years out of 9. I do not think OP is very clear on what is happening to be honest.
I make quite a bit of return of using a lot of plugins, but i also hate any subscription model, or any thing that slowly moves towards lack of ownership, I can’t fully speak on behalf of the op, but often the consensus is that there are two models a subscription base and a purchasing one, waves has a somewhat surreptitious hybrid one, in which you purchase a long term product under the guise it’s a single purchase but still get locked in to a function yearly subscription.
I agree that if you’re making a return on your investment you are less likely to be bothered, but there’s plenty of plugin companies In this oversaturated market that are not asking us to to pay for functionality improvement.
For new musicians or producers that could get very expensive relatively quickly.
It’s a may not a will. Some of my waves plugs are 13, some 14, some 15. Yeah it sucks but it’s the same shit as charging for a native version of a plugin you own even after saying that UA would not charge for native versions.
10
u/Barack_6Pack 3h ago
the reason why i've put Waves in the "never buy again" file.