Waves launches Waves Creative Access, a new subscription-only pricing model with monthly and annual subscriptions.
As with many of you, I awoke this morning to find an email from Waves explaining their removal of all perpetual licensing. Best Service and Audio Deluxe both had heralded that something was amiss, but I suppose the other shoe has finally dropped.
Waves Creative Access is the current plan of action from Waves, and the subscription comes in two separate flavours.
Users have access to Waves Essential at $14.99 a month or $149.99 per year. This gives access to 110 plugins from the company, which I suppose isn’t a bad deal – all things considered.
Waves Ultimate comes across at $24.99 a month or $249.99 per year, giving subscribers access to 220 plugins. This includes all updates, all future plugins, and so on and so forth. It also includes StudioVerse, an AI mixing assistant to help you “break the knowledge barrier in mixing,” per Waves’ website.
Also up for grabs are two free months of Splice, which might be of use for sample-heavy producers. Waves Creative Access comes with a free 7-day trial.
This certainly comes as an interesting business move from Waves. Certain companies like Plugin Alliance and Slate Digital have long-established subscriptions. Some of these pack extra value, like the PA MEGA XXL which gives you ten plugins a year every year without fail.
Waves’ subscription plan has proven to be rather controversial, for lack of a better word. This comes in the wake of the also controversial Waves Update Plan, and representatives from Waves have kept tight-lipped in regard to the future of perpetual licenses, but all indicators seem to point to needing to sub to get the latest and greatest from the developer.
Software-as-a-service does pose certain benefits for companies, by providing a constant revenue stream. It doesn’t necessarily work for the bedroom producer, however.
Hobbyists who aren’t seeking to spend a lot to get a premium plugin are probably going to look elsewhere, and given the impressions seen on social media and web forums, they already are.
Waves Audio plugins are available for Mac and Windows machines. Supported plugin formats are AAX, VST, VST3, and AU. Apple Silicon compatibility was added recently.
What are your thoughts about the new Waves Creative Access subscription? Please share your opinion in your comments section below.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The current subscription prices in the music production marketplace are too high for hobbyist musicians and music producers.
We are used to subscribing to services like Netflix and Disney+ for entertainment, so we would probably also spare a portion of our monthly budget on plugins. But the current asking prices, including the new subscription model from Waves Audio, are too high for the average bedroom producer, resulting in negative opinions about the subscription model itself.
Paying $3-$5 per month and having the ability to choose 10-20 plugins that you really need (instead of 100+ plugins you’ll never use) would be something that bedroom producers would find more useful, in my opinion.
More info: Waves Creative Access
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