[ddots-l] Re: Fwd: Introducing Waves Abbey Road - The King's Microphones
- From: Bryan Smart <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 03:22:51 -0400
Waves is funny. A lot of people swear by there stuff, but most of those people,
I often find, have no idea how any of the processing actually works.
Here is an example.
Most plug in manufacturers will try to give you lots of features and bang for
the buck. Great Plug-ins, Inc. might give you their Great Plug-ins Compressor.
It would have the standard compressor features like settings for threshold,
ratio, attack, release, and gain. They might also provide a side-chain input,
provide a mode selector (digital, analog, optical, etc). That all fits on one
screen. You can do a lot with it.
Waves, on the other hand, will make a compressor, and will repackage it a
zillion different ways to mess with the newbie mind.
For example, they'll make the Waves digital compressor, the Waves analog
compressor, and the Waves Optical compressor. The digital one will talk about
how exact its processing is, but digital compressors have been around for over
30 years, and are no big processing deal. They'll talk about the completely
different Waves Analog Compressor, and how it contains code that exactly models
vintage analog compressors from the golden days before everything supposedly
sucked. These are silly marketing buzz terms. Their analog compressor would
simply add a saturation dithering algorithm to the output stage, so that the
output signal is smoothed when you over-drive it. Their Optical Compressor will
include references to 60's and 70's rock that was mixed with it, and will
probably talk about Joe Meek at least once. The only difference between their
Optical Compressor and the earlier Analog Compressor is that the Optical
Compressor will have an off set applied to its response time, and will use a
slightly different curve for the ratio. You could dial up any of that with the
Great Plug-ins Compressor, but, hey, Waves just sold you three plug-ins, where
Great Plug-ins, Inc. only managed to sell you one. Man, those people at Great
Plug-ins, Inc are really missing out on all of the suckers.
Waves won't stop there, though. They'll make a version of the plug-in with the
ratio set to maximum, and call it the Waves Limiter Pro. They'll be really nice
people and not let you set negative ratios on their main compressor plug-ins,
so that they can sell the same plug-in that supports negative ratios, and call
it the Waves Digital Expander, the Waves Analog Expander, and the Waves Optical
Expander. A special version supporting side-chaining will be called the Waves
Ducker. Another version of the Compressor, with negative max ratio will be
produced, and they'll call it the Waves Noise Gate Pro Platinum. Oh, and
they'll also include both mono and stereo versions of all of these plugs, where
as the Great Plug-ins, Inc. people just put a mono/stereo button on their
compressor.
So, yeah. Great Plug-ins wants $50 for just their one compressor plug-in, when
I can pay $300 and get over two dozen plug-ins from Waves, including mono and
stereo versions of the digital, analog, and optical versions of Waves's
compressors, limiters, expanders, gates, duckers, and more.
Now, just multiply that by every other effect that you can imagine, and you'll
understand why the Waves bundles contain hundreds of effects. They have dozens
of delays, and it's probably obvious why, by now: one tap delay mono, one tap
delay stereo, two tap delay mono, two tap delay stereo, tape delay (one-tap
delay with added hiss and an EQ curve applied), blah blah blah. In Sonar, the
Modulator effect, in Waves world, would be separate chorus, flanger, phaser,
tremolo, auto-panner, and other effects, complete with mono and stereo
versions, and as many "analog", "modeled", and other buzz that they can throw
in. When they're finished, they can make all seem more cool by adding one of
the following to the end of each plug's name: pro, ultimate, silver, gold,
platinum, extreme, mega, classic, studio, etc.
Cakewalk has started doing this, also. The Transient Shaper is a compressor
with relabeled controls. The Tube Leveler is the same saturation stage found in
many of their other plugs, but packed up all by itself to get attention.
In most cases, these plugs are all the same, if you understand how to use them.
Unless it's missing controls, a compressor is a compressor, a chorus is a
chorus, etc. I can't fault their marketing smarts, but don't get caught up in
it.
Bryan
On May 28, 2011, at 4:50 PM, Chris Smart wrote:
> *LOL* The ability of Waves to market their stuff astonishes me.
> We've all seen the movie the King's Speech, maybe more than once.
> And, here comes this plug-in. *LOL*
>
> Don't forget that soon after the South Africa World Cup coverage
> and those annoying swarms of vuvuzelas, Waves rushed out a special
> plug-in just to filter that noise out for broadcasters. Of course,
> said broadcasters probably had more than enough equalization
> available already. I wonder how many copies Waves sold?
>
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>> From: "Waves Audio" <return@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: "csmart8@xxxxxxxxx" <csmart8@xxxxxxxxx>
>> Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 18:36:41 +0300
>> Subject: Introducing Waves Abbey Road - The King's Microphones
>>
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>> exclusively by the royal family for speeches on momentous
>> occasions, each of these three priceless microphones dating back
>> to the 1920s and 1930s was tailored and tuned especially for its
>> specific user: King George V, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth.
>> Beautifully designed and decorated with gold, silver, and chrome
>> adornments bearing the royal coats of arms, each is a
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