Waves silly iLok policy

[shadowbox]

I have Waves Platinum 4. I bought it in May 2003 so my WUP expired in May 2004. I tried to transfer my authorization to an iLok but it wouldn't let me because my WUP has expired. Huh? So I called and the sales guy confirmed that this was their policy. If I had transferred the authrizations a couple months ago it would be free. But now I have to upgrade in order to transfer my authrizations to an iLok? That is a stupid policy.

The Waves rep said managing iLoks cost Waves money and they have to get paid for it somehow. I told him that I had paid for it when I upgraded to Waves 4. But he didn't seem to understand that logic. So now in order to authorize my new G5 I have to use Challenge/response instead of iLok. Unless I upgrade to 5. No biggie. But its annoying. And the version 5 features don't seem worth the $480 it would cost to upgrade. And you know if I do upgrade to 5 that version 6 will come out in August next year, right after my WUP expires. Ugh!!!

[roberts]

Considering that Waves wants to charge for the cost of a new plug-in for a lame upgrade it's a liitle out of line but not surprizing. Most Protools upgrades are in the 100-200 range. But 400-500 for a plug in upgrade smells like PURE GREED.

[ripple FX]

Same thing happened to me 3 months ago...WUP had recently expired, needed to migrate from C/R to iLok. I spoke with Idan at Waves. I was very pleasant, not hostile in any way. He and his supervisor waived the WUP update rule and did the iLok auth. Sometimes it helps to remain polite. Tech support folks have it really rough IMO, especially the Waves guys these days.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Chris

[Jeff Ulmer]

But 400-500 for a plug in upgrade smells like PURE GREED.

Except when you consider that this is an upgrade to over 40 plugins.

Also, no offense intended, but you had to know your WUP was expiring, so why not find out about moving to an ilok while the policy was in effect?

[1150Post]

Jeff,

With all due respect, I know that it would never occur to me that I would not be allowed to transfer any license to an iLok from a hard drive for any reason... Huh! I'm glad I threw mine on an iLok first chance I got.

Boy, Waves is really getting beat up for all of this stuff. Do you think they believe it will all blow over? I remember when Sonic Solutions went from their original hardware/software to their PCI hardware/software... Didn't go too well, primarily because of management issues regarding taking clients money and then way under delivering on the software. You would have to pay each year for Sonic Care, depending on how much hardware you owned and what software options you had. Then, the software took almost another year to get working correctly.... And you couldn't use the new hardware until the software worked. But you had to return your roriginal hardware to get the trade in credit. And no software updates without Sonic Care. Where is Sonic now? Not the same company it was then, that's for sure.

Anything sound familiar? And I'm talking about what was considered to be one of the finest sounding DAW's made. It had some marvelous features, some incredible technology as well. But they over promised, under delivered, and always seemed to be taking money... There is still a niche market using the product (BTW... I can still fly one pretty well if there happens to be anyone in a tropical region of the world looking to hire me in for a few weeks! (ie... South Pacific, Hawaii, anywhere warm and wavy... ) )

Anyway, I think Waves makes great stuff, and I enjoy using it. But I can'f believe any of this mismanagement of consumer expectations or their appearances of being greedy are going to do anything but harm them as a company. And that is truly a shame.

FWIW.

Brad McIlvaine
Sr. Mixer/Designer
Henninger Media Services
Washington, DC 20036

[shadowbox]

Same thing happened to me 3 months ago...WUP had recently expired, needed to migrate from C/R to iLok. I spoke with Idan at Waves. I was very pleasant, not hostile in any way. He and his supervisor waived the WUP update rule and did the iLok auth. Sometimes it helps to remain polite. s

I was never hostile. And I was polite, at first. It wasn't until the end of the phone call when I said calmly," this policy doesn't make any sense, and you should let your supervisors know that it's not good customer service." He said if I wanted to I could e-mail a complaint. I said I would.

This is such a small insignificant problem, but it is very frustrating at the same time. I do wish I had upgraded my iLok a couple of months ago. When I originally got v4, iLoks were not supported. I never thought to change my authorization until I got a new computer yesterday. And like someone else said, I would have never thought in a million years that there would be an expiration date on when I could transfer the auth. It just makes no sense.

[Infa]

I agree,,, makes no sence.............

But on the real,,,,,,,,, PLEASE SEND THAT E-MAIL,,,, and every one else do the same thing !!! Just like VOTES,,, it WILL make a difference guys.... And do it 3-5 times a week !!! PLEASE------- do not hesitate.....

[Duardo]

Just like VOTES,,, it WILL make a difference guys.... And do it 3-5 times a week !!!

I don't think that doing it 3-5 times a week will necessarily help. Seems like all that would do would be to irrate the people at Waves. That's not the way voting works anyhow (other than for American Idol)...but if everyone could get 3-5 new people to send an email every week, that might make a difference...

-Duardo

[markjohn]

Just responded to the other WAVES thread and I'll just reiterate here what I posted there.

I’m also DONE with WAVES, FINISHED.

Absurd, I almost by the nick of time was in the same predicament. Just as I upgraded to PT6.4 I got around to downloading the WAVES plugs and noticed that my WUP was nearly expired (which I’ve upgraded three time now that I can remember, probably more) In just five days I would be going through the same BS that shadowbox is going through.

Man my Blood Pressure would go through the roof.

I feel we need to support this thread. Any one even remotely thinking that they need/want to respond to this thread should do so.

Good luck shadow box.
mm

[markjohn]

Jeff,

I don’t know where you’re coming from and I too, mean no disrespect, but I disagree. I was lucky, as I explained with the above post I was in the middle of my PT6.4 upgrade when I noticed that my WUP was nearly expired.

As stated above I really don’t know where you are coming from. Any major appointment, Doctor, Dentist etc… I get a phone call a few days prior confirming the appointment, don’t you?

500 + dollars aint no chump change, (sorry aint isn’t a word is it).

I personally don’t feel that’s it’s any of my business to delegate how much anyone should charge for their products/services but, I’m of the same opinion as shadowbox, WAVES V4 was full of bugs.

Now let me make it very clear I didn’t pay for my upgrade to V5 as promised in my WUP agreement. But shadowboxes predicament is a little to close for comfort for me. Also, I clearly recall last year that after paying for V4 from V3 I had the same feelings of the $400.00 didn’t get me my moneys worth and I promised my self that that was the last of my money I was willing to give to WAVES.

I can rationalize an upgrade fee (reasonable fee, $500.00 is phunken ridiculous) for an upgrade of major purpose. ADC probably would have made me eventually pay the V5 upgrade but, I would have called a whole lot of people complaining about it.

Ohh, just remembered WUP (doing this from memory so I could be wrong), promised that I would receive any plug-in for free for the duration of my contract if I was with in my year of WUP. How I remember it, from V3 to V4 and now V5 waves has developed a boat load of plug-ins, but they package them in other bundles and that justifies them to charge more instead of doing the right thing and going with what they promised. Now they want $7000.00 instead of the $4800.00 (TDM platinum) plus a lot more not including all of the upgrade fees.

Anyway WAVES better get ready to pucker up and plant a nice wet one to where the sun don’t shine cause they will also go by the way of New England Digital, Sonic, Bomb Factory etc… to bad...

Cheers.
mm