Waves introduces Creative Access – new plugin subscription service
Image Credit: KVR
Waves have changed their business model and now you can only get plugins from the developer through their new subscription service.
Waves are notorious for their endless plugin sales and continuous feed of email newsletters, right? Well, whether the newsletters are going to end is anyone’s guess, but it’s safe to say that the endless sales are coming to a hard end.
Waves Creative Access
As of yesterday, March 27th, Waves has changed its business model to a subscription-based service only. It comes after big brands like Avid changed the payment model for Pro Tools to a subscription-service, Roland offer all of their plugins in Roland Cloud and Plugin Alliance offer different subscription packages for plugins on their site.
Now, the only way for you to get your hands on any Waves plugins is through Creative Access, the developers new plugin subscription service. Consequently, Waves has ended their seemingly never-ending plugin sales so as of now you cannot buy a perpetual license for any of their plugins.
In other words, you must subscribe to Waves Creative Access to get any Waves plugin. With that said, any Waves plugins you owned before Creative Access went live is still yours.
Furthermore, the developer has removed the Waves Update Plan from their business model too. Now, all updates, features, and new products are included with the Waves Creative Access subscription plan. As reported, Synth Anatomy, you have the choice of two Waves Creative Access plans to choose from.
Waves Essential ($14.99 month / $149 year)
- 110 industry-leading plugins including Waves Tune RT, Clarity Vx, Vocal Bender, and many more!
- All plugin updates included at no extra cost
- Select new plugins added at no extra cost
- Limited time bonus: 2 free months of Splice Sounds+ included
- NEW! StudioVerse – the AI-powered community for plugin chains: Thousands of mixing chains with AI search.
Waves Ultimate – $24.99 month / $249 year
- Over 220 industry-leading plugins—All Waves plugins in one subscription!
- All plugin updates are included at no extra cost
- New plugins added regularly at no extra cost
- Limited time bonus: 2 free months of Splice Sounds+ included
- NEW! StudioVerse – the AI-powered community for plugin chains: Thousands of mixing chains with AI search.
Synth Anatomy also notes that Waves Creative Access doesn’t include Waves live sound applications like eMotion LV1, SuperRack, SoundGrid Rack for Venue, and Dugan Speech.
Waves StudioVerse
Waves has introduced StudioVerse in addition to the new subscription models. StudioVerse includes thousands of plugin chains, though the number is growing, that are created by a community of hundreds of producers and engineers and accessible inside your DAW.
In practice, StudioVerse opens from the Waves StudioRack plugin chainer which allows you to use a Musical AI search that recommends the best mixing chains for your tracks in real-time. You’ll only need to hit the ‘Scan Audio’ button and StudioVerse’s machine learning engine will learn the “Audio ID” of your track and recommend mixing chains, each with 8 macros, that match the sonic character of the project.