Waves Gold for $55

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, the devaluing continues at a simply staggering pace at Waves. Deal at Audiodeluxe for the Waves Gold bundle - $99 with $20 in cart and another 30% off with the Waves Anniversary code ANN30 = $55.

https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/waves-gold-bundle

By Black Friday i'm expecting Mercury to be $9.99 with a free T shirt and a year's supply of Ben & Jerrys thrown in.

[tack]

That'd be a great price for Ben & Jerry's.

If I may implore the Lazyweb, are there any standouts in the bundle? For someone who already has everything from FabFilter, Relayer, the Kush Omegas and Clariphonic, Lexicon PCM, and the Sly-Fi suite, is there anything in there I'd get my 55 bucks' worth from?

Or should I hold out for the Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia?

[Lawrence]

I had Waves Gold and Renaissance bundles, then they wanted to charge me some price I wouldn't pay for 64 bit, so it's been a while. I do remember I was fond of the Renaissance compressor and the de-esser at the time, but I'm sure they've been surpassed. The L1 limiter, which I used, definitely has.

[Piet De Ridder]

It's a great collection though. Not all that long ago — a decade? —, seeing these plugins on someone's computer instantly told you that you were in the presence of one who was very serious about sound and quality mixing (or, at least, pretended to be) and was willing spend money on it.
For someone short on good plugins, starting out today, this $55 deal is manna from heaven.

_

[Lawrence]

Especially since the early DAW plug ins (for Cubase, in my case), were particularly rudimentary.

[Guy Rowland]

If I may implore the Lazyweb, are there any standouts in the bundle? For someone who already has everything from FabFilter, Relayer, the Kush Omegas and Clariphonic, Lexicon PCM, and the Sly-Fi suite, is there anything in there I'd get my 55 bucks' worth from?

Well probably not. But what Peit says is absolutely correct, and indeed - a trade secret here - there's a staggering amount of UK TV shows that still to this day end up through an L1. Not because its the best - it absolutely isn't - but its still a staple everywhere (I can personally attest to the fact that a VERY high profile UK light entertainment show ended up through it on three weeks ago, even though it had something nicer in the studio before the dub but I DIGRESS).

But I still use many plugs in Gold to this day out of choice - the C1, Renaissance Reverb, the S1, PS22, IR1-L. The main reasons are 1) for the majority of tasks they do a very good job without any fuss; 2) I know them well and 3) they are all very resource-light. Vitamin is pretty cool, I tend to use that for frequency selective spatialisation. MaxBass, MetaFlanger and MondoMod get occasional use too.

The de-esser I tend not to use often, but that's because I really do like having a graphical frequency display and it doesn't have one. Similar thoughts about their Q EQ, and that one is really annoying in Pro Tools as it insists on different plugins for mono and stereo, so I can't keep just one open in AudioSuite that I can whack onto anything as it comes up.

As Larry hints, its sort of a solid stock toolbox, no best in class but all respectable workhorses - crucially - with low CPU. DAW stock plugs have improved a lot over the decade though, so it might not be as useful there as it once was.

Only other comment - do be careful if updating / adding any V10 plugins (as any new Waves purchase would be) that you make sure you do NOT check the "update existing plugins" if you have other Waves plugins. The system isn't clever enough to know you don't have v10 licenses (even though it should) and it will break your rig and require a helluva lot unpicking.

[wst3]

It ain't often that I feel stung by a discount. I buy the tools I need when I need them.

I've owned that amounts to the Gold bundle since the mid 1990s, when they still employed a parallel port dongle. I've more than gotten my money's worth. But the upgrade from the Native Power Pack 1 & 2 to the Gold bundle (I think that was it) was significantly more than $55!

Ouch!

There are quite a few Waves plugins I find useful, I don't regret the purchases at all, but I do worry that they are digging themselves a deeper grade with each level of discount.