Anyone use Waves Tune in Pro Tools 2019 (aka 12) successfully?

[digitaldrummer]

just wondering if anyone has ever gotten Waves Tune to actually work in Pro Tools 2019 (aka 12)? If so, what's the trick?

I have rewire in the session, try to tune a bit of a track (vocal, nothing to difficult) and I ALWAYS get weird pops/crackles/distortion and other artifacts. I don't think I've ever had it work properly so I just stopped using it. Oh, and I am on Windows but should not really matter. Every once in awhile I need to tune something (that I did not record). Since my Waves Tune is out of the Waves maintenance I may have to renew it (to get support - and my past experience with Waves support has not been great) or get something else instead. And Anatares AutoTune seems way overpriced. When you can't just say "run it again", what do you use?

Mike

[kslight]

I have Pro Tools 2019.5 installed, and I have Waves Tune Lite...I threw it on a vocal track and seemed to work as expected, no tricks. I'm on a Mac.

[digitaldrummer]

which version of Tune? I think I'm back on the v9.

[kslight]

9.6.0.155 Build 57323 (Cocoa)

Its a 64 bit version, but its not new by any stretch.

[digitaldrummer]

ok, thanks. Looks like I can update mine to the latest for about $25, or update my Melodyne essentials (really old version) for $49 right now. checking with Waves support to see what they say... btw, I thought mine was working initially, but when I listened back closely I noticed the artifacts - which are sometimes really bad or sometimes barely noticeable.

[kslight]

Yeah I was just about to say with black friday sales it looks like it wouldn't be that much to get the latest...they sent me an offer to buy it for $30 something..but I don't really need it so I didn't.

I only noticed pops/clicks if I was looping a clip....it would pop at the end of the clip, but only if I looped it.

On a side note, here's a free Waves plugin for today only: https://www.waves.com/lpn/black-friday-2019/free-plugin

[losthighway]

It's kind of a RAM hog. Take what I say with a grain of salt, because I use very few plugins (more hardware) and the ones I have were made ten years ago+ (Waves renaissance eq mostly) and my computer was state of the art Intel processing back in 2010. I bought Waves Tune to clean up a couple of horn/strings things that were sloppy and there was no time to get the people back. Anyhow, it doesn't work well with big multitrack projects; glitchy, jams up, freezes and sputters. My work around was to copy the file I needed to process, open it as a single track on a new project, process it, bounce it, open it back up in the original. Kind of annoying, but not the worst thing.

I'm assuming when I do my every-decade-or-so computer upgrade it will play nice, but we'll see sometime in 2020.

[digitaldrummer]

so I spent more than a week going back and forth with Waves support. They eventually had me send a session to them - I cut it down to a very small section of vocal that would produce the artifacts about 80% of the time I processed it (but mind you, not every time...). The support dude came back and said yeah, I can reproduce it too, just like you described...but sometimes this just happens with some audio.

I asked if there was a newer version or some fix coming. Not that he was aware of he says... "Waves Tune and Tune LT can sometimes cause unwanted artifacts or pops due to it detecting very small fragments of pitch changes. For this reason this can happen with some audio files."

and that is a direct quote. Unbelievable.

so I happened to have a very old copy of Melodyne that did not support AAX for Pro Tools 2019. I purchased an "upgrade" for $49, but then when I went to register it, the Celemony support guy had to send me a new key since the very old version I had was not supported. So actually I could have saved the $49 and probably got a free upgraded to a current version of Essentials, but I updated to "Assistant" anyway. And of course it works fine without weird pops and clicks. And Celemony's support was super quick too.

so the moral of the story is that Waves Tune appears to only be a hoax. I mean if it can't correct "very small fragments of pitch change" then what does it do? Then again, if you want to inject pops and clicks and other weird artifacts into a track I know a great way.

[kslight]

so I spent more than a week going back and forth with Waves support. They eventually had me send a session to them - I cut it down to a very small section of vocal that would produce the artifacts about 80% of the time I processed it (but mind you, not every time...). The support dude came back and said yeah, I can reproduce it too, just like you described...but sometimes this just happens with some audio.

I asked if there was a newer version or some fix coming. Not that he was aware of he says... "Waves Tune and Tune LT can sometimes cause unwanted artifacts or pops due to it detecting very small fragments of pitch changes. For this reason this can happen with some audio files."

and that is a direct quote. Unbelievable.

so I happened to have a very old copy of Melodyne that did not support AAX for Pro Tools 2019. I purchased an "upgrade" for $49, but then when I went to register it, the Celemony support guy had to send me a new key since the very old version I had was not supported. So actually I could have saved the $49 and probably got a free upgraded to a current version of Essentials, but I updated to "Assistant" anyway. And of course it works fine without weird pops and clicks. And Celemony's support was super quick too.

so the moral of the story is that Waves Tune appears to only be a hoax. I mean if it can't correct "very small fragments of pitch change" then what does it do? Then again, if you want to inject pops and clicks and other weird artifacts into a track I know a great way.

I know waves is one of those “classic” plugin brands from the days before we had so many awesome choices, many of them do “just work” and in TDM days they were the cat’s pjs and all that. But my opinion of them and their “support and update program” is that they have a huge collection of plugins that have never been updated internally beyond possibly a GUI refresh, sometimes. And unless you need a GUI refresh or compatibility with a new Mac OS version that their annual updates are not worth it.

It’s disappointing that you got bad support from them, but confirms my thoughts. I almost did update all my plugins this last BF to 11 since it was relatively inexpensive, but I hesitated because of my thoughts deep down, and also my “don’t fix what isn’t broken” perspective when it comes to computer stuff.

So I own a lot of Waves plugins, but to say I buy my plugins elsewhere these days would be an understatement.

[digitaldrummer]

I'm in the same boat. I still have many Waves plugins that work just fine and still do what I need them to do (Ren EQ and the SSL set). But slowly I am finding other plugins that do the same or similar and don't require me to pay more money to get bug fixes (or sometimes other updates). And many times, I end up liking the sound or workflow better, so I have no intention of getting the Waves update plans. if I really have to update I'll wait until they put it on sale for $29 and buy it again.