I have been using Universal Audio plugins for about a year,andi was about to buy their
Fairchild 667 compressor.

However I have heard that Waves do the same compressor,and i wondered which
One would be the best to get?

I suppose the question is,which are the best,Waves or UA.

Your comments appreciated

Thanks

Alan

You can demo them both, so you should really play and see what you like.

For me, where UA and Waves has a similar product offering, I mostly usually prefer the UAD version.

However, there are a few Waves plugins that are still goto's for me, including some of the quite old ones.

You also have to factor in the native vs dsp consideration too.

As to the specifics, I can't really say which is "better", but I do own, use and like the UAD Fairchild a lot...

I'll chime in. UAD are much better. Nothing wrong with Waves but the tech research at UAD is ahead of the guys at Waves. Anything modelling harmonic content - channel strips, tapes, boutique compression - then UAD win and win decisively. however, Waves make some very nice tools ( although I wouldn't touch them) for taking the decision making out of mixes. I DO, however, find myself using the SSL channel strip from time to time as well as the API EQ. the only other one I use much is the Q eq, it's great for chipping out ropey frequencies.

I'm a big, big fan of Waves (from my first experiences of an, um, "illicit" v4 right through to my current legit - and pricey - bundle), but then I've never used UAD stuff (although I'm planning to get an Apollo, so then I'll find out...), but I'm aware that there're a lot of people who don't - largely, it seems, because of their customer service and the vagaries of their sales/licensing setup.

The more I use them, the more I find it's their less "flagship" and impressive problem-solving tools I go for (the Puig/Maserati/Kramer multi-fx bundles didn't pump my nads at all). I do like the PuigChild comps, though. Also the Kramer PIE on lead vox, although the modelled noise is far too loud to actually leave switched on.

All I can say is "try the demos" - you may find something you like.

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"We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chambers..." But no-one answered, so we went to the pub instead.

Waves are still WUPing your ass and asking you to pay for your plug in time and time again. Yes they are good tools but they don't care less about their customers.

I've pulled the plug and I'm going with hardware from now on.

Outside of the political reasons to not support Waves there is the PITA that is the installation system. Once they're in there its hard to get em out. I've stopped demoing stuff as every demo fucks up the few waves plugins I do use.

Even then, just on sonics I feel they're way behind UAD, Softtube, Brainworx and a couple of others. Waves and URS just don't sound as good as many of the others!!

Quote Guitarman:

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I have been using Universal Audio plugins for about a year,andi was about to buy their Fairchild 667 compressor.

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TBH, you are now invested in a DSP based platform and UAD seem to be good guys - both in terms of product support and the product development. Waves ... erm ... aren't so much .... (as noted in postings previously - they are not untypical comments here) Whilst I can understand not putting all your eggs in one basket, after seeing many years of people's comments about dealing with your alternative, I'd be going with the nice guys..



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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Trashed my Waves plugs years ago in favor of UAD and never looked back.

The Fairchild is one of my favorite compressors and I often use it on the mastering buss along with the Manley.

Actually maybe I should be grateful to Waves, if they hadn't been such a bunch of miserable bastards, I probably wouldn't have looked for an alternative - so thank you Waves! Keep up the bad work!

Bob

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www.bickerton.co.nz

I use both, but one thing to think about is the limited DSP usage.

If both plugins are similar, and you've got a powerful PC, I'd go with Waves, purely 'cause you're then freeing up your UAD card for other plugins.

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www.thediplomatz.com

UAD plug ins sound pretty good but the nature of DSP is that it runs out sooner rather than later in relation to native. Of course, you always have to assess how many plug ins you actually need, when deciding if that's an issue. It's also a relatively expensive option when you look at the deals that Waves and others now do in order to pique our interest.

Waves also make some good products. Personally I gravitate towards certain things and I don't like them all. But they're solid.

In reality I think the best approach is to develop a set of tools from multiple sources. I wouldn't want to be without my Valhallas, certain Soundtoys things, channel strip, the Massey limiter and DRT, Waves CLA 76, mpressor, fab filter gate. I'd love to add a couple of UAD things to that list but it'd get expensive because I wouldn't want to be without the native things that I also have.

J

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www.jackruston.com

The Waves corrective and linear phase tools are decent enough but it's agony dealing with them so I don't use them.
I'm not a massive fan of Sonalksis as a company either but they have some decent gear as do URS.
I'm getting into a couple of the SSL Native gear right now.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Well I'm glad I asked the question,the answers are pretty conclusive.

Thanks to everyone for their honest answers,I will be sticking with
Universal Audio from now on,and I will definately be getting the Fairchild,I
think it is excellent,as are all the other UA plugins I have.

Thanks

Alan

Yeah I've got the native channel strip. It's good.

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www.jackruston.com

I like the UA one, and used to use it a lot. But note that it's one of the older UA plug-ins, and IMO not up to the standard of their latest models. I was bowled over by the new 1176s they did, whereas the old versions weren't bad but were nowhere near that standard.

Waves and UA aren't the only game in town when it comes to modeling plug-ins though. Eg there's a Fairchild emulation by IK Multimedia, and while I've not tried that one I've been impressed by their other stuff — the 1176s sound way better than the Waves one. As someone said, if you already have a UAD, demo all these plug-ins and make your own mind up.

Quote Jack Ruston:

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UAD plug ins sound pretty good but the nature of DSP is that it runs out sooner rather than later in relation to native.

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You given up on Avid's DSP stuff yet then Jack?

There's only one waves plug-in I own and use regularly. Dealing with them and their arcane website and authorisation systems and blah blah blah is a pain in the ass.

Their restoration plugins were nowhere near as good as Izotope's.

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Quote Mixedup:

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I like the UA one, and used to use it a lot. But note that it's one of the older UA plug-ins, and IMO not up to the standard of their latest models. I was bowled over by the new 1176s they did, whereas the old versions weren't bad but were nowhere near that standard.

Waves and UA aren't the only game in town when it comes to modeling plug-ins though. Eg there's a Fairchild emulation by IK Multimedia, and while I've not tried that one I've been impressed by their other stuff — the 1176s sound way better than the Waves one. As someone said, if you already have a UAD, demo all these plug-ins and make your own mind up.

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Yes, I can vouch for IK Multimedia's version of the Fairchild - it's top notch, and won't use up your UAD's DSP. It's comparable (although, not identical) to the UAD version.

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www.thediplomatz.com

I can't answer for UAD, but I have Waves Platinum, a Focusrite Liquid Mix, all the Logic Plug-ins, and a couple of other things.

Waves are best at all the shiney sparkly stuff or technical stuff, and they are leagues ahead of the Logic Built-in effects. However I rely on the Focusrite for anything requiring more character. I realize that the emulations are not in the same league as UAD, but the hardware costs around £200 and all the plug-ins are free - one of the best bang-for-buck investments I have every made. UAD is going to cost you sorely for the hardware and then again for every plug-in. Waves will cost you up front, and they really want you to pay a yearly subscription as well.

There are, as people have mentioned, plenty of political reasons to avoid waves - I don't think you'd be missing much if you went elsewhere, but what they do, they do very well.

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Daniel Davis
Edinburgh Recording Studio Windmill Sound

Edited by Daniel Davis (07/08/12 10:18 AM)

Quote Mixedup:

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Quote Jack Ruston:

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UAD plug ins sound pretty good but the nature of DSP is that it runs out sooner rather than later in relation to native.

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You given up on Avid's DSP stuff yet then Jack?

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Yeah, I'm using HD Native 9 on a 2010 Westmere. When I first got it I thought I'd just see how many plug ins I could instanciate into a 192 track session with the fastest buffer. I used Waves SSL Channel strips for no particular reason. I filled all of the first 5 slots on every channel (so 960 plug ins) with about 75% CPU. You can't do that with DSP. Not that you NEED 960 of anything, but you have to watch your ammo with DSP, whereas with this new system I don't. Obviously the new HDX thing is very powerful, but I can't really see a reason to spend money on it yet.

J

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www.jackruston.com

Quote Daniel Davis:

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I rely on the Focusrite for anything requiring more character. I realize that the emulations are not in the same league as UAD

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Not true IMO. Some of the LM stuff is excellent. The trouble is that (a) the quality is varied - some are great, some less so; (b) plenty of users have stability issues; and (c) while they're great for imparting sonic character (in some cases better than UA to my ears, particularly where tubes and transformers are concerned), they don't always do so well at actually delivering the gain reduction on the compressors/limiters; and the EQs while pleasant-sounding are less versatile than algorithmic models - but actually rather good at eg adding air to vox. It's in the nature of the way it works that there are disadvantages (as with Nebula), but don't deceive yourself: you have way more than £200 worth of plug-in there!

The Waves celebrity plugins are quite embarrassing really. Compressor presets?

Well on the one hand I totally agree that compressor presets are a poor substitute for working out how to get a sound that you want, but in fact most of those guys are in fact doing just that. Because they need to be able to recall their analogue it often gets left permanently set. So they might have four pairs of say 1176's with different settings, and it'll be a question of one or the other. That way the recall works.

J

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www.jackruston.com

Nowt wrong with having go-to settings as a quick starting point for compression. Often quicker doing that and tweaking than setting everything from scratch if you know what you're doing. Just remember not to pay particular attention to the gain/threshold

Quote Matt Houghton:

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Nowt wrong with having go-to settings as a quick starting point for compression. Often quicker doing that and tweaking than setting everything from scratch if you know what you're doing. Just remember not to pay particular attention to the gain/threshold

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So you think its reasonable to pay for a big name producer's endorsement to store attack/release/ratio settings? In marketing terms, perhaps.

Quote Daniel Davis:

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Waves will cost you up front, and they really want you to pay a yearly subscription as well.

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I routinely go years between paying the WUP on my Renaissance bundle and they never say boo about it. With VST 3 and 64 bit taken care of there's not much reason to upgrade the older plug-ins anyway. All their effort seems to go into developing new products. So, apart from changes to their system, you don't get much value for staying current. Maybe Win 8 will be worth an upgrade. Or maybe it wont.

Not defending the policy, just saying.

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"To upgrade a computer, physically hardwarewise, is easier than making a lego dog kennel." Tex

Do you think there will be a Thunderbolt version of the UAD Quad?

and

Does anyone know if the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter works with UAD?

Lastly

Do you think a USB3 version of the UAD will ever be made?

Quote twotoedsloth:

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Do you think there will be a Thunderbolt version of the UAD Quad?

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Yes.

Quote twotoedsloth:

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Does anyone know if the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter works with UAD?

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Dunno.

Quote twotoedsloth:

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Do you think a USB3 version of the UAD will ever be made?

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No.

There's a lot of great Waves Plugins... the API Eq's are awesome, the CLA76 is a fav of mine, and the Enigma plugin is sweet

Besides the L2 I can't say I use much of anything else Waves has in the product range. Some of their old stuff like the delay and Renaissance compressor are nice but not sure worth the dip in the bank account, our studio ahs them though so I use them. I like the UA stuff better as it is more musical, especially when it comes to doing emulations.

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www.descentintomadness.com

I used to use to the L2 allot, until I upgraded my workstation to one of the new Pentium core i-7 processors and found that the L2 caused strange glitches, latency and performance spikes in Nuendo.

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http://www.launchpadmusicservices.com

Purely from a technical/sound approach, sure some of them are good I tried a few demo's some on par with the best developers IMO and some which cannot be purchased from other developers. Problem is (for Waves at least) is I can live without them because other tools do as good a job and I am not up for the plugin maintenance after a year unless you pay. Thats not good value so I have abstained thus far.

Cheers

SafeandSound Mastering
Mastering studio