Yes setting up the list and maintaining it takes a little while, but it takes less time than uninstalling everything and re-installing it again via a couple installers.
But for the moment, I install things on an individual basis and never let the installer blindly install everything. I'm sure it will all go pear shaped, if I ever try and re-install my V10s. I believe the path to joy with Waves is to be slow and know exactly what you are doing, preferably with a list that tells you what items will work in what installer. So I still have a few V9 plugins (I think about 6) on my machine and a load of V10 plugins and a handful of V11s.
Having got my V9 and V10 and 1 V11 plugin working fine, last night I did upgrade and re-install my "in WUP" V10s to V11. I have a handful of items still in WUP that I have bought in the last year. When I install, I only install items per version from the spreadsheet.Īll of those V9 and V10 bundles are now out of WUP. Then in a sale, I converted a load of my plugins to some bundles, then upgraded some of those bundles to bigger bundles over the next few sales. Then re-installed the V9 licences and plugins using the offline installer, only installing those marked V9 in my spreadsheet. Sent every licence back to the webserverĭid a clean install of all my V10 licences and installed only the plugins marked V10 from my spreadsheet. I then uninstalled every wavesshell I could find on my machine. When I got my first V10 plugin, I didn't install it, until I had a few more. When V10 came out, I saw all the issues people were having and made a google spreadsheet of all my plugins and what version they were on. But in the meantime, I'm happy using the Waves plugins I have, and won't be buying any new ones. and they still expect me to pay for an update!!? I mean it's 2020, and Waves still doesn't have a scalable UI.
Not only is there far more competition nowadays from developers who sell superior plugins at very reasonable prices (with no costly update policies), but Waves barely touches their plugins with each update, except for occasional OS compatibility. Where Waves is being thick-headed is in retaining their update policy. But it didn't take long for home studios to explode into a huge market that was largely unwilling, or unable, to pay high prices for plugins, so Waves wisely started lowering their prices to appeal to this large emerging market (I never would've thought I'd see the day their SSL console sold for $29, but it happened). Waves' update/maintenance policy made sense in that professional context, especially since their plugins were extremely expensive. 15-20 years ago, Waves was the gold standard for plugins, and at the time, nearly every professional studio used them.