Waves Gold Bundle Plug-Ins (rev. 2.8.1)

Worth Their Weight…

by Randy Alberts
July 18, 2000

Summing it Up The Waves Gold Bundle can handle an army's worth of audio marching orders -- yet the whole collection falls into tight formation, thanks to its consistent interface design and expansive compatibility. Moreover, each plug-in sounds terrific, and the included Pro-FX Bundle, plus the killer manual, further sweeten the deal. The package suffers from only a few glitches and a clunky dongle-key protection system. But forget about these quibbles: Waves Gold Bundle is a near-flawless, must-have plug-in suite -- and a bargain to boot.

Within the past decade, Waves has made it's name by bringing high-quality signal processing to the software realm -- and version 2.8.1 of their Gold Bundle will do their reputation no harm. This abundant plug-in suite is available in TDM format (for use with Digidesign's high-end versions of Pro Tools), as well as more widely compatible native flavors for Mac and PC, and includes enough tools to round out any plug-ins menu -- or replace it all together.

The Waves Q10-Paragraphic EQ -- just one of a score of plug-ins available with the Gold Bundle from Waves. see a larger image

Whether you've exhausted your old plug-ins or have simply been waiting for the right all-in-one audio toolbox to come along, the Gold Bundle delivers the goods. True, at first gander, its price tag may appear steep (US$1,200 native version, $2,300 TDM version). But when you consider that you get some of the best-sounding and easy-to-use processing anywhere -- including reverb, compression, limiting, gating, equalization, de-essing, delay, flanging, stereo imaging, and more -- suddenly the price seems more than fair.

The Gold Bundle comes with 14 plug-ins, which are also available individually and in other Waves bundle options. The four most conventionally useful plug-ins include the Q10-Paragraphic EQ, the L1-Ultramaximizer limiter, the C1-Compressor/Gate, and TrueVerb reverb -- all of which we'll cover in detail. And don't overlook the Gold Bundle's 10 other plug-ins, which, as a special bonus, include all the plug-ins in Waves' Pro-FX Bundle, a US$400 (native) or $700 (TDM) value on its own. They may not be as universally useful, but they're still impressive complements to the Big Four.

Getting Going

I tested the VST version of Gold Bundle on a 350MHz blue & white Apple G3, while taking a look at the PC version on a 200MHz Pentium. Both were running Steinberg Cubase VST/24. (Although Steinberg is the creator of VST, this plug-in standard is supported by a variety of digital audio sequencers, including Emagic's Logic Audio and Opcode's Vision; for more, see Supported Platforms & System Requirements.)

Installing Waves Gold Bundle couldn't be any easier, though PC users must first click on Add/Remove to clear out any previous versions of the plug-ins before beginning (the Mac version does this automatically). The Install CD-ROM also includes a 2.5 version of Gold Bundle for Mac users on aging NuBus systems.

Each bundle comes with a WaveKey, a programmable authorization "dongle" that plugs into the ADB port on a Mac and the parallel port on a PC. Any copy protection system can be a pain, and there's something about a dongle that seems especially klugey. But while I used to shudder to think of stacks of potentially incompatible piggy-backed dongles, fortunately few other software manufacturers have adopted them. Of course, maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon -- since the WaveKey worked on both platforms without any apparent problems or conflicts. Furthermore, Mac G4 and iMac users will be happy to know that Griffin Technologies (www.griffintechnology.com) offers the iMate, a US$39 compatible USB-to-ADB converter.

After easily installing Gold Bundle and launching the host program, a prompt asks for the location of the Waves plug-ins. Waves keeps all of its plug-ins in a separate "Waves Plug-ins" folder, and therein lies the organized beauty of the Waves system…

Next Page: User Interface; Performance; Beyond the Basics....

Randy Alberts is a freelance musician, engineer and writer who has been on staff with Keyboard, Electronic Musician, Mix, EQ, and Radio & Records.