whats so special about Waves plugins???

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StudioMxpx

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I heard that Waves are a pretty good plugin and what are the things that waves has that other plugins dont have? once you process music through them does it make your music sound more clearer or better then the normal plugins you get with cakewalk or any recording/editing software...I Know it takes a good engineer to get a great sound from any plugins but i just wanna know what does waves have that other plugins dont have?
 
I don't rate any of the plugins, waves included very highly. Someone once said the best plugin can be beat by the worst hardwear device. Not sure if I agree with that but it's a close call. I mix back from the PC to a mixer and use outboard gear. If I was gonna go the software route I'd probably have the UAD-1 card at the top of the my shopping list followed by the TC Powercore

Alec
 
some one told me that the UAD-1 plugins actully make the tracks sound great!!! it's probally true :D i have some psp plugins they work great also!
 
The UAD-1 has a spotty record with some recording software, such as Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition. I read somewhere that Adobe didn't do anything to make Audition compatible, and that Universal doesn't recommend using it with their software.
 
Let's get it out of the way that *no* plugin will "make a track sound great."

A plugin is only as good as the sound going into it and the skill of the engineer manipulating it.

That being said, UAD's are my personal favorite suite of plugins. Waves are also very nice, but IMHO, overpriced around threefold and really aren't all that exceptional in the first place. Of course, different strokes and all - YMMV.
 
Wave's plugins are all really useful. None of them are necessarily the very best at what they do ... but they're all pretty much in the top 2 or 3 in their respective categories.

Waves Rverb is probably the most useful plugin verb besides the convolution-based ones. The RenEQ and the Linear phase stuff might not be as good as the Sony Oxford or Sonalksis, but it hangs with them. The L-1 and L2 limiters are outstanding in moderation. A lot of their stuf is pretty blue collar, rather than "special" as you put it. I don't think they try to be special. As far as plugins go, they're always going to have their uses in the world of recording to get certain things done.
 
For the money that you'd spend on the Waves plugins, I'd put it into recording equipment and books that will help you get those sounds to begin with. Seriously, all the talk about using the right gear during the recording to get the sound you're looking for is right. I didn't believe it when I was using Mackies, but now that I've dropped a bunch of money on better recording equipment, I'm not reaching for EQ plugs nearly as often.
 
As Chess mentioned the Waves Rverb is outstanding. I don't know what I would do without it. I also find the C1 compressor and Req extremely useful as well.
 
Linear phase EQ is brilliant as you can compress frequencies like a multi band compressor. Using compression on the lo end can really help out a mix.
THe noise reduction plugins can be really good sometimes.
Truverb is a really great reverb plugin with loads of variables so loads of reverb posibilities.
L2 is good for boosting levels, but watch out for a vibrato effect that can happen if you boost too much. Also the more L2 you use the worse the sound gets, kinda distorts and kills the clearness.
 
Its basically because of the mathematics involved behind the programming of the plug in.

Im my opinion, they can do almost what outboard gear can, with some advantages and setbacks.

But in this digital world, why not use the 4grand piece of software? :D
 
Most of us are not stressing over spending +10KUSD vs +1KUSD. We're voting with our bucks. So it's not perfect!

Oh no!

Well, speaking for myself, most things are not perfect, except my wife. I just have to deal with what I've got, and make it as good as I can. It's music, folks, not some sort of aiutomated counter that records how much money you spent. Or is that too avant-garde?
 
I also use waves

I'm not all that experienced, but I like what I can do with waves. I find I get the most use out of the 10 band eq, C1, C2, C3, C4, RCL and Audiotrack. I'm not fond of the delays I have, tho.
 
One thing about the Waves plugs that may seem trivial but is pretty important IMHO, is that they are very user-friendly. Most of the plugs have easy-to-read graphs and meters that show you in an immediately-understandable way what you're doing to your sound. Personally, I hate it when plug-ins are made to look like an actual piece of hardware and I'm stuck reading virtual VU meters and twisting virtual knobs with a mouse. You've got a huge graphical display in the computer monitor, why not use it?

Obviously that has nothing to do with sound quality, but I very much appreciate that the Waves plugins are for the most part written with computer use in mind rather than being an attempt to simply mimic pieces of hardware as literally as possible.
 
Amen on that. I've been wondering... is there any discernable difference between say the Rverb in waves version 3 and the Rverb in version 5? Same question for the other core waves plugins.
 
bdemenil said:
Amen on that. I've been wondering... is there any discernable difference between say the Rverb in waves version 3 and the Rverb in version 5? Same question for the other core waves plugins.
Click to expand...

I'd like to know that myself.

Rverb is pretty amazing. It's probably one of my top 5 favorite plugins.
 
Nothing I've tried is even close to being as uselful to me as the Waves Lin EQ, Lin multiband comp and L2, all of which come in their Masters Bundle.
To my ear they give uncolored, un-veiled, un-muddied control of the sound, as long as I don't get carried away.

Tim
 
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