Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
So, out of curiosity I just looked up the subscription price for these plugins.
$180/yr for most of the essentials (100+ plugins)
$300/yr for everything they offer (200+ plugins)
That’s…not terrible to me? It seems to me that most people are against the subscription model just to be against the subscription model. How many of you pay for Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, or any other subscription service? This is roughly the same price as those services.
For the hobbyist, I could see why you might want to look elsewhere as there are tons of other options. But, for the recording professional, you can pay for this whole yearly subscription with a 3 hour session. Not so bad really.
it's not comparable with Spotify, Netflix and the like imo as you can opt in and out of those without really losing anything, the other thing is, if you've spent a lot on Waves plugins or even bundles (Diamond in my case) over the years you won't be able to update or even use these in the future if they are not functioning on newer systems anymore (think Apple for instance with their ever changing system architecture)
I'm not a pro by any means but it's definitely more than a hobby regarding of how much time and money I invest .. for decades now
I'm a songwriter, musician, singer and aspiring producer (still, though pretty old already) and will never stop .. unless ..
Production Expert: Waves Creative Access - To Jump Or Not To Jump?
The only Waves plugin I use in Cubasis 3 is Waves Tune RT, and if that ever got taken away, well @dwrae came to the rescue with the AUv3/standalone version of Vocal Tune Studio.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/54914/vocal-tune-studio-auv3-standalone-released
(No cap I may just make the switch now on my next vocal production, lol.)
Firstly, you have the prices wrong; at least, if you choose to pay upfront. If taking that option, the consumer ends up with two free months over the price paid monthly. So, a year upfront is $150 (essentials) and $249 (everything).
While that recalculation might seem to make it an ever crazier value proposition, it ain't necessarily so. Sure...on a product-per-dollar basis, which is how it's being marketed, it's harder to argue against. The issue is the amount of overlap/redundancy within the line-up. Nobody really needs that many EQ's, Compressors, Tape Machine emulations etc. So that already eats into the value.
Then we have to consider that users will have favourites from other companies, that they prefer over the Waves versions. That removes even more plugins from the overall value equation. Of course, $249 per year would be good value even if it were 80 plugins, but not sure everyone would see it that way.
Add in the fact that no doubt the way the bundle levels are stratified means that some (I'd guess, most) of the TRUE essentials are gonna be held back for the more expensive option.
Still great value?
I think it's clear, given the types of plugins and the way they've been promoted, that they've been going after the bedroom-producer 'Beats' market. It makes sense for these artists to stock up on plugins with the always-on sales, and 'Buy 2 Get One Free' deals, but I doubt this sector of the market is prepared to drop $25 a year...especially if they're already $12 in on Splice and another $10 in on ARCADE. Add in the aforementioned Netflix, Spotify etc. and things get messy.
I think Waves missed a trick here (well, other than not to fukk over their loyal customers). My suggestion would be a $10-Choose-any-15-Plugs option. Those who pay upfront, get it cheaper, but their choices remain for the duration of the sub. And those who pay monthly, get to change plugins on a monthly basis. Waves would take in less money per sub, but I'd imagine it would be more than made up for in people subscribed.
I'm on Arcade at the moment (and love it) and even there I can stop and start again whenever I want to or when I actually need it for the things I'm working on. It's like a companion that's just there for you if you need it and very inspirational.
ah there it is... the oh so annoying ‘school teacher schtick’ .. basically “ I don’t care who started it I’m giving you both a cuff around the ear “ which equates with - I absolutely don’t care about justice or fairness i just want the noise to stop ... pure selfishness in all it’s glory ... it’s not a worthy stance for you Capn.. i’m surprised , especially as you’ve been here long enough to know who the characters are who wade in with aggressive nonsense for no real reason and seem to love getting a rise out of misinterpreting statements. Monzoids terse one word categorisation of those so called “characters” seems entirely appropriate if a little unsubtle ..
I haven’t engaged in the dialogue on AB for a number of years now and this has reminded me why .. there is no sound analysis of communications here and more importantly no one makes any effort to observe, identify and call out the clique of abusers that bully individuals into a strong reaction then castigate them for it.
yes it takes some effort of memory and a bit of digging through threads but it’s worth it in the end. I’ll head back to my dusty attic now and leave you all to it... keep on keeping on folks .. your all looking simply fabulous darlings!!
Ok goodbye
Is there someone out there that really pay for legit Waves plugins?
I’ve bought several. I also use them daily so I felt it was worth the investment.
I bought some a long while back, but had some real issues using them on an older computer, in between then and now owning a newer computer I've tended back towards DAW 'stock' plugins, along with a handful of certain 'special sauce' plugs, and the Izotope mixing stuff.
More recently, I bought the CR8/COSMOS bundle, but have yet to set it up (Wanted to pre-sort my samples, first). But now I won't bother, as there's no current deal that makes sense to keep two plugins maintained and current.
After some mid-20s salad days pirating them, I purchased a few on sale that I liked - GTR3 comes to mind. (It's far from the best guitar sim on the market, but at the time I preferred its cheapo aliased sound to more halfway-there/uncanny alternatives like Amplitube.)
That said: I barely used most of Waves' plugins even when I had the full ill-gotten suite, and when I started paying for plug-ins circa my early 30s, I immediately skipped most of the brand's dead-end bloatware. I did consider ponying up for Renaissance Bass, which is the best kind of Waves plug-in: a good idea with a simple-to-understand UI that makes a task convenient without dumbing it down. But most of their other products skew towards novelties and "pro"-branded clones - Puig, Vig, Kramer, Abbey Road, etc. - and, in my experience, there has always been a better, more robust option available. Why use PuigTec when NoiseAsh's Pultec is infinitely better? Why buy their API 2500 rip when DMG includes an equally good version as one of its many TrackComp 2 options? Why use their IR loader when Convology is free and the monsterpiece that is Reverberate 3 can be had for $70 around Black Friday? Even their bigger draws, like Abbey Road Chambers, have been met and/or superseded by stuff like UAD Hitsville and IK Sunset Sound. (Heck, RBass itself has found an equivalent in Black Salt's Low Control.)
Honestly, that's the main thing that confuses me about this debacle. Does Waves really feel it has this much market power? Is it really that confident in its new AI (or whatever) products? Even framed by other subscriptions, why would anyone jump on this brand's decades-old bandwagon when better-quality subs like PA, UAD, and Slate exist? In terms of industry-wide adoption, Waves isn't exactly ProTools - for most engineers, it will be unbelievably easy to just drop their stuff and move on. So what's the point of all this?
Well said. Modding has been a bit sloppy here recently. If it had been a bit tighter, a certain dev who recently got banned would have been reined in a lot quicker than he was, with much less damage to all concerned. When genuine bullying is going on, sides and measures need to be taken, and in a timely fashion. Win was straight up abusive earlier and Monzo was well within his rights to call him out for it.
With the exception of PA who have gone to extreme lengths to get their products into user's DAW, I'd say it's Waves who've done the most to directly target bedroom (perhaps even specifically) Hip-Hop producers, both in product design and execution and marketing. And with their constant sales and BOGOF offers, I imagine they managed to convert huge swathes of previous pirate-users to legit users. It's just a shame they seem to have effed it up in the final act
Don’t forget the other half…
Fwiw, a few people here seem to like trashing the mods here. That seems unfair. They aren’t being paid. They do their best. Insulting them is likely to be dispiriting.
The community can do better. There is no need to insult people. If someone insults you, don’t insult them back. No matter how much of a jerk someone is to you, don’t return the favor.
Definitely, I bought the Diamond bundle, the SSL bundle, the classics compressors and Abby road bundle and at least 15 others that weren’t part of bundles. I opened Waves central and it’s already some weirdness going on, I’m not liking it one bit 🤔
Best post I’ve read here all day. Definitely agree with this 100%.
Maybe the subscription means they’ll actually start using oversampling lol. I’m glad I’ve only purchased a slight few of their plug-ins
I don't think the Internet works like that.
I classify subscription models in two types.
1-The models that provides consumables like Netflix. That makes sense because I don't want to rewatch the same content.
2-The model were you are given acces to something. That is the model I am mostly against.
Another aspect that really affect your views of subscription is the type of spender you are. Conservative vs big spender.
There is also the history. Netflix evolved out of the Blockbuster model, renting movies. Then there was eventually enough content that subscription made more sense than renting individual movie titles. Then it eventually began to produce original content, so it became more like an HBO. None of this is similar to music software.
Music software evolved out of music hardware, a tangible piece of gear that you owned. Even though there has always been this shadowy thing called a "license" and some tiny mouse type that supposedly the end user "agrees" to but that nobody has ever read, the experience for the user was essentially like the hardware gear that musicians have always owned. This is on my computer, I own this. Trying to convert that experience to renting is never going to feel right.
The other historical subscription model was magazines and newspapers. But in that case you care getting something completely new every month. This is also not in any way similar to music software. Nor is it like a utility like your gas or electric bill.
Renting software may work for some users and some companies, but renting music software is always going to be massively unpopular.
Until we’re forced into it and adapt. Because we’re humans and that’s what we do…and the corporations know it. Buckle up! 😂
There are a few of their plug ins I use, mostly the Chris Lord Alge stuff and one or two others
I bought them for a fair price with the intent to use them when ever I so desired.
My big problems with “subscription” type software are:
They sell it as $25 a month it’s not, it’s $300 a year you can’t just subscribe monthly I travel and work a lot out of the country sometimes I’m gone for nine months out of the year and unable to work on music production I’m paying for things that I cannot use. I would be more likely to do it if I could pay for a month use it for a month then not use it for three and not pay for it for three and so on.
It’s not really a subscription like a magazine or a food subscription where you get something new every month and you get to keep all the ones you already had from the prior months this actually isn’t a subscription at all it’s just a yearly licensing fee it’s like buying the software over and over again every year I think if they charge a fair price for their products so that they recoup their R&D and make some profit then come out with new products that people want and they will make money don’t charge us for the same thing over and over and over again.
I bought ProTools three times anywhere from $500-$750 each time I did this when there were huge upgrades in the software and to me it was worth it then they went subscription and there was no big upgrade in the software so I was out.
It is not unlike old cable or satellite subscription services if you wanted to have the premium movie channels you had to pay for the local channels for tier one, you had to pay for tier 2 which gave you the sports channels and cooking channels and then you had to pay for tier 3 which gave you the ability to buy the premium movie channels. I called them because I did not want tier one or two or three I just wanted the premium movie channels and they told Me it was not possible, l in order to get those i have to pay for the first two so my $120 a month bill was because I was paying $80 a month for the first two tears that I did not even want but at least there was new content every week to month. At least they were not selling the same movie over and over like software developers are trying to do! Then along came Netflix and I just got DVDs mailed to me.
Adam Steele mentioned that it was a generational thing if you were over 30 you have a problem with subscriptions because you want to own things, if you’re under 30 you don’t because it’s always been this way, I don’t agree. Some corporations and yes even some people in charge of things within our government and other governments in the rest of world do not want individuals to own things anymore, corporations can own them but individuals can’t. Somethings That have happened recently, housing prices are really overinflated they’ve come down a little bit since interest rates went up but still they’re over priced and if you go to buy a house you would be trying to buy against people that are walking in paying up to $100,000 or more in cash over asking price I ask you who has that kind of money laying around when you’re buying an $800,000 house and somebody walks in with 900,000 in cash and it’s happening very often. Banks yes banks are buying homes in order to lease them out or turn them into Airbnb rental properties also corporations other than banks have gotten in on this Uber has even Discussed a subscription service for ride share this way you will rent your home your apartment you will not own a car but have a subscription to a car service giving a certain amount of rides a month you will have a subscription for your food that gets delivered to you, you will have a subscription for your entertainment you will have a subscription yes for your clothes even, you will not really own anything ever. In essence you rent everything!
I was working in Vancouver Canada there was a new law being voted on I don’t know which way it went but it basically was if you gave up your right to own property you could get supplemental housing and a living wage of course you would still have to pay some rent out of that living wage that you were receiving and then you’d have all your other subscriptions so you’d have to work in order to pay for those but you really had to sign away your right to own any property ever.
I was working in China and you cannot own property in China in fact if You build a brand new house you have a 75 year lease once that lease is up that house and the land goes back to the government also there is no inheritance so you cannot leave that house to your children I believe they would have to then lease it from the government once you’ve passed away if they wanted to stay there. Although the strange thing was there were very rich businessmen that own skyscrapers I don’t know how that works, Perhaps it’s actually the corporation that owns them.
I just see these yearly licensings fees as a greedy grab for money not unlike the music industry when new formats came out like cassette and CD and they were able to resell the same recordings the same product to us again at higher prices on a new format, they didn’t have to pay to re-record it. They just spent $1.50 for each new unit to sell what used to be an LP for 9.99 now on CD for 18.99 or 24.99 and then on cassette for 6.99 they were making money hand over fist and Now we have Spotify and other streaming services paying huge licensing fees to these record companies and paying less and less to the musicians that create the music. Those record companies are still making money off of the song they recorded once 50 years ago that’s how these old record companies are still in business.
I see this as a slippery slope for all of society
No too dissimilar to China, You have your WeChat app once again owned by the government through that app you do all your banking you order your car service you buy your food get your movie tickets even have somebody come by to give you a manicure at home all on your phone. It’s very convenient but everything in your life is consumable there’s nothing to build upon nothing to grow
The ability to own things gives us the ability to collect and curate, it’s often how museums get started and libraries most of these things are donated by private people, people of means. They got that Way by owning and accumulating things and building up on it and creating generational wealth, well some of it was by exploitation of corruption but that’s another story.
I have a decent musical instrument collection some of these things I have owned for over 30 years I still use them. If I had to pay for them monthly for 30 years I would’ve spent 1000 times the amount of money that I did to actually own them or more. I would be broke. Heck now because I own them, if I went broke I could sell them and recoup most of my money back. You cannot do that with the software licensing fee.
I started this thread mainly as humor and hadn't intended it to turn into a lengthy academic debate about subscriptions, much less wade into such a debate, but since the humor seems to have been sucked out of it, a few thoughts...
I own a couple dozen Waves plugins, and I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the company. The WUP program was one of the most customer-hostile things the industry has ever seen, and I tried for years to get them to see that. Waves would not update their plugins like other companies and release bug fixes and enhancements as v 1.04, v 1.06, etc. Instead, once a year they would just change the NAME for all of their plugins and call them ALL version 9, 10, 11, etc., add NO improvements or features, and then try to get you to play a fee JUST for ensured compatibility with OS updates. I don’t think companies should charge the customer just for OS compatibility updates, because that is something they have to do anyway, even for themselves to be able to keep running their own products. In all the years, none of my Waves products was ever updated, other than the change of name from 9 to 10, etc. A couple of them got an updated graphics skin change. WUP was basically an insurance racket that was always wildly unpopular. I’m happy to say I never paid a WUP fee.
When I heard there was a big change coming to Waves this month, I had hoped/prayed they would finally come to their senses and ditch WUP. Instead they have gone from bad to worse. A subscription model for music software has always been wildly unpopular, but I understand it may work for some users with some companies. If they had continued to offer the traditional model (minus WUP!) along side a sub/cloud option, I don’t think customers would be so pissed.
I hope that the overwhelmingly negative customer reaction to this might eventually force them to offer some sort of non-sub option (like it did when Roland and Reason tried to get people to sign on to sub-only). If not, I will be joining the majority of their customers for the exit door. I have alternatives for most of my Waves collection, but a few of their products are pretty unique and I will miss them.
The other angle on this that I haven’t heard anyone else mention is that I think Waves did one good thing for customers over the years, which was help drive down the price of desktop plugins with their constant $29 plugin deals. Even high end companies like Eventide now offer occasional sales in the $20-40 range. Hopefully the exit of Waves from the market won’t slow the falling pricing of desktop software, which is still badly needed in an industry that is now made up of mostly under-monetized independent artists.
To quote Moe from The Simpsons, “That was a scary couple of hours!”
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/waves-announce-reinstatement-of-perpetual-and-wup
Btw, Waves has relented to customer dissatisfaction over the new policy:
Guess they didn’t like the possibility of going out of business over this. A sensible conclusion to the controversy.
Hallelujah!
Still, shows how bafflingly out of touch they must be to have not foreseen such a reaction. Now kill WUP and we’ll all love you again.
https://www.waves.com/news/perpetual-waves-licenses-are-back