are you sure you are in the right forum

But thats the point I'm making, you ARE paying for the next year of maintenance when you pay for the new features. If you weren't paying for it then they'll be able to sell it for less, maybe $30-50.

That's odd though, because thats how much you'd spend on a new Waves plugin that DOES have new features. They just seperate the payment scheme as they rarely add new features. $50 new plugin + $50 maintenance = $100 which is roughly the price of a plugin upgrade from another developer.

Like I said the Waves model is seldom understood, but it works out. Even more cheaply in some cases when you consider the cap.

But more importantly... the CLA bundle and Omni Channel are definitely worth owning for those into Waves.

using CLA Epic on my vocal bus and i like it. My question is does it have anything baked inside like the input/output state?

Based on another thread here (the infamous test aliasing of plugins) the only thing this has got baked inside is unwanted aliasing.

Lol

The ones I use on a regular basis are:

Waves Tune (full version, not the gimped LE)
Maxx Bass
Brauer Motion
H Reverb
H Delay (my fav!)

Why?

Hi, all (?) Waves plugins are now 29 dollars (for Cyber Monday)!

I'll post about it in a new thread.

can anyone chime in on the New SSL plugin vs the CLA mix hub?

Just wanted to throw out there I work with a producer who is very well regarded and commercially successful, with his music generating tens of millions of streams monthly, and he pretty much uses the Waves One Knob series as his go to plugins for most basic mixing stuff!

This is not an endorsement, just another example of Waves getting used out there in the real world.

Or is it just another example of why we have to listen to so many bad mixes nowadays.

Honestly even if his mixes were bad (which I don't think they are) it would then be an example of both!

In the end as much as I love having 100's of plugins and obsessing about the differences between them, for a lot of tasks such as compression / reverb / eq, the choice of tool becomes primary stylistic and you can achieve the same basic effect for basic mixing tasks with most options including stock tools.

Agreed, it's just that I know those one-knob plugins. I have a couple of them, they were included in some of the bundles. Honestly, they're crap - and I say that with the highest respect.

Somewhere Waves evidently learned they made more money at $29 than at $299 per pop. Paying the wup as often as I get another computer ain’ no thing.

I like the compressors most. Puigchild for bass, H-comp on drums, C6 for problem frequencies, API comp on all kinds of things— they’re all good!

I don't know how many Waves Audio users here are using Presonus Studio One or have any clients that may be, but the "Splitter" tool in Presonus Studio one doesn't seem to maintain consistent volume when integrating Waves Audio plug-ins.

More info on the Presonus Studio One "Splitter" effect here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg0CT4lFcM8

A feature update request has been entered to resolve the issue with third party / 3rd party plug-in integration for the "Splitter". Please help make this request a reality by voting for the revision here:
https://answers.presonus.com/72409/s...w=72409#q72409

jeez what BS. it's a very good plugin that sounds good and is very useful in many situations.

Wow, certainly hope most would agree with this?

Let's say for example you have a track you're polishing up just prior to sending it out for mastering. Per Gearspace, you obsess over the small nuisances, re-check the tool comparisons and review the shoot-outs again to make sure something isn't missing. So...you get to a point where it sounded perfect for you on Saturday, but its now Monday, and your not quite so sure or begin to 2nd guess yourself.

So now you reach out to your mix friends, and even if some can't really distinguish a sonic difference they will proclaim they do, perhaps even using verbal adjectives to describe sound differences you have never heard.

But that one quiet guy who hasn't said much, maybe because he doesn't know what "creamy dark hi hats on every 4th beat," even mean hesitates, but finally and politely suggests changing the C major chord by adding an A on the bottom instead of a C.

It's composition. It just changed everything, and going beyond the freshness aspect, just transformed your track to a better level. Decisions that should have been made weeks ago, perhaps all in the midi realm. Sure, there are a few good tools like Scaler2, but I often sense not enough focus at this stage. Check out the Gearspace composition forum? 😄 No. Just crank out the over-used chord progressions, and then obsess about what Soothe2 is doing to your $400 Hans Zimmer Piano.

Even in pure pop, bands like Abba have proved what is lasting instead of forgetful.

Abbey Road collection on sale for $164. I consider one (King's Mic) completely forgettable and another (Vinyl) so so. The remaining 10 plugins though are fantastic. I use them all the time. I wish I was just starting out so I could get them at 14 bucks each.

Buy one, get one sale is here. I don't have that many gaps in my plug-in folders but it's one of the better deals they offer all year.

Aphex Exciter - is there any reason to get it if you already have the flagship iZotope suites with their exciters? I tried Slate Fresh Air earlier this year and even at the lowest setting I wanted to turn it off immediately.

C6 - is anyone still using this over FabFilter MB and iZotope?

Aphex exciter is one of my most used Waves plugins, really comes in handy, not all exciters are equal! this one is probably my overall favorite.

You know, I haven't tried the Izotope ones, which is silly, since I own the suite.

What is the difference between a saturator and an exciter? Never really understood the distinction.

I'm not an expert on this either, but I think "exciters" generally enhance or increase the high end and/or upper mids of the signal.

Where a saturator, in general, is just an overdrive or distortion, a flat frequency clipper (unless it has tone controls, etc.)

Some people use the term "exciters" for bass boosting processors also.

And besides clipping, sometimes, in a few instances, exciters use some unusual circuitry to get the effect, rather than a simple clipper.

The BBE famously uses some sort of phase shifting thing to get part of the "effect" and the SPL Vitalizer also has some kind of weird/novel filter circuit as part of its effect. And you've got the Dolby A multiband compressor effect or whatever that is. Brings out the high end in quieter signals.

It's been forever since I used the Waves Aphex. Do you find it suffers from the common complaint of it completely numbing your ears to frequencies over 12K after short period of time? What situations do you find yourself using it in?

My understanding is you just have to use it subtly.

Oh hey, I forgot to ask in my earlier post: is anyone still using NLS?

I had access to it in the past when I was piling on as many plugins as possible for "color" but it's been a long time. My mixing philosophy these days is the bare minimum that's needed. (EQ, Comp, DeEss, 1 virtual pre for color.)

From what I hear these days it's a distortion box that really mucks up the quality of your raw tracks, but I always thought the idea of slightly different channels for glue was cool, and strangely they're still only one of a couple of plugs claiming to model the SSL console path instead of just the Channel strip or bus compressor.

*Added* I was looking at my plugin folder, and it seems like Front DAW is a modern version of the NLS concept, with oversampling and more current saturation algos.

For me the Aphex Exciter, and the Slate, etc, come out when I need to "Go To Eleven."

Sometimes a HF EQ boost isn't enough, saturation and compression aren't enough. When I need to go over the top, I reach for the exciters.

Typically these would be used in dense rock / punk etc style of music, for me. When I need them, it's like "Thank god I have this," rather than not knowing where to turn for that extra boost to the front of the mix.

Regarding HF fatigue, some mixes are just in that territory. If you're tired of that stuff just listen to some jazz or something. It's like Bud Light vs. tequila or whatever, depends on the mood/intention.

I actually tried the Exciter presets in Ozone, and I wasn't disappointed. The more subtle ones do a good job of adding lift without it being obvious or having that strange white noise "air" sound that you get from some high-end enhancers.

I've come to realize that if most Waves plugins are the sound of ailasing, then aliasing still *is* the sound of a lot of modern pop music, especially hip-hop vocals. Mike Dean's standard vocal chain alone is Waves RVox, Doubler, DeEsser, Puigtech [edit: I take that back- he’s using Acustica Purple these days], into L1 on the vocal bus.

I find the Waves Exciter is brilliant at bringing instruments to the front of a mix. You have to use it sparingly, though, and only on one voice/instrument at a time - unless you absolutely must have that nasal 80s sound, in which case you’ll slap it across the entire mix.

NLS, Fuse 2C and Big Al are the three plugins I use to add weight to live bass recordings. I think they all work so well for this.

I don't use the NLS as a track by track glue cause I'm too lazy to put this on 20+ tracks and keep track of what its doing.

Well, the last few posts prompted me to do a little research... I had assumed that an exciter was basically a very targeted EQ boost for specific frequencies, and that's true, but apparently there's a bit more to it than that. Here's a handy article. In addition to a targeted EQ boost, an exciter will add some harmonic saturation and even additional harmonic information to an audio signal, which would distinguish it from a passive EQ or filter.

The only exciter I've ever used is the stock one in Logic and it's always done whatever I need it to.