Waves Plugins Alternatives: The Ultimate List

Waves H-EQ, I haven’t found an alternative, I love the sound, if anyone knows something similar pls recommend

Waves Audio updated they're website for Subscription and perpetual license about 7 months ago. The problem no longer exists.

So good...Thank you! I was hoping you might have replacement ideas for Vitamin (might be another vid?). All the best...

Replacement for waves MV2 izotope nectar4 with new feature auto gain.

Hi, Which would you replace the Waves NLS?

They can keep their stupid plugins. Bye bye waves!

A lot of engineer swear by CLA Vocals 🙄🙄🙄

Highly recommend checking out Howard Benson vocals as a replacement. When it dropped I called it the CLA Killer (before all that subscription stuff even happened), and man with every update it gets better.
I love using it for tracking (cue mix channel strip for artist) and BGV in mixing

Loves the positive attitude man!

_// Thanks for sharing the video! Let me tell you something important:
God loves you! God loves us !
He is no respecter of persons! because God wants us all to be saved! and let us go to the knowledge of the "Truth"
God wants to save us from eternal damnation,
which we all deserve because of sin,
Who entered the world through Adam, and through sin entered into death,
and thus death passed to all human beings,
therefore, we are all "Sinners"
But God's Love was so great for us, that he sent his only Son (Jesus Christ), gave him to this world, to die and rise again for all of us! No respect of persons!
so that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ does not go to eternal punishment, but rather has “Eternal Life! “
Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures;
and he was buried, and he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures
Jesus Christ came to call sinners to “Repent! “
and, whoever believes in Him, has “Eternal Life! “But whoever refuses to believe in Jesus Christ, the wrath of God abides on him.
Then, as by Adam's transgression, condemnation came to all human beings, in the same way, by the justice of Jesus Christ, justification of life came to all human beings!
for all of us who believe in “The Only Savior of the world!
The Only Mediator between God and us! The Lord Jesus Christ! “
All of us who trust in Him; we have “Eternal Life! “
Let's all read the Word of God! mainly the Gospels;
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
and let us pray to God, our Heavenly Father, every day…
God loves you! God loves us! Only to Him be the Glory Forever! Amen!

Biblical Source:
Acts 10:34-35 / 1 Timothy 2:3-6 / Romans 5:12 /
John 3:16 / 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 / Luke 5:32 / Matthew 16:21 /
1 Corinthians 15:20-22 / John 3:36 /
Romans 5:18 / Acts 4:12 / John 6:47 /¶|

Alternative plugin for Vitamin ?

I kinda skipped around in the video, I didn’t see any covering of the X-Noise one, what could replace that?

I have that effect from waves and I have it installed but it’s not activating for some reason, and I’m on a time crunch to use that type effect right now, I am not looking to go through a long process of waves customer support…

I still use my Waves plug-ins that I bought before all the foolishness.

I shan't be buying more, or subscribing.

So I recently bought the horizon bundle at the beginning of this year. I recently switched to PC from a laptop. I have downloaded everything the same way but my waves plugins aren’t showing up on my PC but they’re still on my laptop. Would I have to buy the subscription for the plugins to work on my PC ?

You will eat ze bugs

are these free alternatives?

Unfiltered Audio Bass Mint is a pretty good alternative to (and even better than) RBass and MaxBass

When we think about it, John Mayer's album "Continuum" has been mixed with Waves plugins and hardware. These are still freaking good and so inexpensive.

UAD has released several of their plug ins Native.. LA 3A/API 2500/ Studer A800/Pure Plate Reverb/API vision Channel Strip/Lexicon 224/ 1176 classic limiter collection/LA 2A/Hitsville EQ coll/Fairchild/Pultec

I replaced all my waves neve style stuff with golden age premiere and projects hardware or console one. I also use uad but I'm happy with console 1

Airwindows, brah

Hi! Did you do an alternative to the Paz frequency analyzer? I think I watched the whole video and didn’t see one. I know it’s not a processor but it quite useful!

Don’t use WAVES They rip off their customers. Greedy.

Obviously, this is old news now but the subscription debacle made me think about what Waves plugs I actually use often and it wasn't much (and a lot of them that I once used have been replaced by things I like better) but I feel like the writing is on the wall and I'm looking for replacements for the last few that I do use.

This was valuable info even though Waves backpedaled.

Thank you so much for this video! CAN YOU PLEASE (if possible) find the best FREE alternatives for the following:

1. Smack Attack (transient shaper)

2. F6 RTA (dynamic EQ)

3. Center (M/S)

Hopefully you can find these and let me know the best free available options closest to these plugins! It will definitely help my mixes.

This is a huge help for everyone, been gravitating away from their stuff for a while now. This will help complete the job. Any thoughts on an alternative to NLS?

Thanks or the video. You haven't included Scheps Omni Channel though which is one of the best Waves plugins which has cherry picked and customized effects available

FUK WAVES

Thanks for this video David.....For years there was a time when you could only get waves plugins as a necessity because there were no alternatives. Now three are so many alternatives ,and many plugins you have covered on your show in recent years. ITs unfortunate that with all the competition waves doesn't' make there plugs more accessible. For years I had the mercury bundle then I would buy other plugins individually.

Over a decade ago I used to drool over waves plugins, but when this information came out I realized I can't think of anything of theirs that I honestly NEED. I was phasing them out without even realizing it lol

Softube tla 100A is a good replacement for cla 2a and 3a aswell I think, depending on how you set the attack and release. Not exactly the same, but it sounds great

There is also Panagement by Auburn Sounds

In my humble opinion, there are many new innovators in digital signal processing and many of them are even leveraging artificial intelligence. I think waves lost their edge sometime ago and are just kind of resting on your laurels. One should be able to find replacements, and for that matter superior replacements.

their owners are two israelis.... need i say more?

Replacement of the RS 149 could be the Cream or Cream2 compressor section from Acustica Audio.

Thank you so much for doing this. I understand that you are in the position to keep on the Waves train and that is totally okay and respectable; anyone who wants to stay is still a friend to me. Good news is that they've decided not to 100% go through with it. People like myself on the low-budget side, with consistent enough work but have to plan the finances months in advance were not in the position to keep our loyalty; I will be abandoning Waves based on principle from their initial intent and will not risk losing all the work I was in the middle of just due to the handful yet key plugins I was using from them. I'm taking this as a huge learning experience and have already began browsing for alternatives. Landed on a lot of the ones you have shown here prior to watching which is comforting, but they are pricey. This is teaching me to push myself harder and has also shed light on how not to be super dependent on certain tools, as well as treat my investments a lot smarter. I am more of a musician than a mixer but mixing and recording are like a second job for me so I tend to look for these sorts of tools rather than more musical based rigs and plugins or hardware.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

Gotta check out Kiive audio. Just got their tape emulation. Their pultec is great And free. And they have a great distressor emulation.

I've made a few suggestion and asked a question, but I have to appreciate that was a lot of work, very informative.

MV2 / UrsaDSP Boost is recommended, anything else?

What would you recommend to replace R bass and CLA vocal plug-in

MaxxBass -> Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint

Wow you know your shit man

I agree brother waves stepped over the line, they knew it.. We as the pay masters can lock THEM out of the matrix by just not buying anymore and adding to that making videos as you have to show new people coming that they don't need them, but I think this 'We have the chain that will make you a success' is what will get the new addicts for their OXY...

I think Leapwing's RootOne should cover your bass enhancement/synthesizing needs. In fact I would be surprised if it doesn't completely slaughter those Waves bass enhancer plugins. Leapwing don't play around.

Hey David, did you ever checked on the Italian company , Overloud ? I thought their compressors (gem series) were pretty good

After updating my studio computer over 15 months ago, I stopped using any Waves plugins and found lots of alternatives (reason was I didn't like their business model). Mostly started using UAD plugins run on satellites, which for EQs, Compressors and plate reverbs works well for me. I was already using Fabfilter and Sonible stuff prior to the upgrade as my go-to mixing plugins. Other stuff I use is Softube plugins (especially the Weiss plugins, which are fantastic for mastering), Leapwing Multiband parallel compressor is fantastic (in fact their other plugins are great too) and they do Root-One which does sub harmonics for bass. Kush Audio plugins (Omega series saturators are lovely), they have some very nice EQs like Clariphonic and some fantastic character compressors. Waves MV2 I replaced with another low level compressor : Ra2 by Dave Hill (Cranesong) which only works in Pro-Tools, and his Phoenix 2 plugin is a mind blowing tape saturator (well it just saturates in a way that makes literally anything sound better - for me it's the ultimate "Betterizer"). I use a few Soundtoys plugins (Love the Echoboy for delay). These replace anything that Waves stuff did. Recently I've been looking into Acustica "Character" Eqs and Saturators. Jam is mind blowing, and they have another few worth looking at. Their Fire Clipper is very simple and transparent to use. These sound amazing, but because they use convolution to get the sound, they can be laggy if you're mixing with them (I tend to freeze tracks with these on them). Vitamin was one I found hard to replace, but I do use WavesFactory Spectre, which isn't exactly the same, but works. A really good bundle I've started using is Elevate by New Fangled Audio, this is excellent and can do a lot of Mastering and mixing duties, and a lot of the stuff in this is quite different to Waves plugins. This is definitely not a detailed list like you've done in the video, but maybe a few interesting plugins here worth looking at.