Hi,

I installed the latest Waves Complete by R2R from the sister site and I am absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of effect plugins. This leads me to two questions:

1. What is the best way to find out about plugins I will actually use?

- is there a list of plugins that are commonly known as "the best" for beatmakers (for example, I don't record instruments or vocals...)
- Forgive me being a newbie but I don't even know what some plugins do by just reading their names. What is the best way to educate myself apart from googling every single plugin?​

2. On the sister site someone mentioned the possibility to delete plugins per hand using the VST Wrapper Builder. Is there a step-by-step tutorial how to do this or would somebody mind to explain?

As always, I am very thankful in advance for all the help!

 

Welcome to the Waves jungle.

On this page you will find categories of waves:
www.waves.com/plugins#sort:path~type~order=.default-order~number~asc|views:view=grid-view|paging:currentPage=0|paging:number=20

Best Waves plugins 2023 www.musicradar.com/news/best-waves-plugins
10 Best Waves Plugins: www.stockmusicmusician.com/blog/best-waves-plugins
20 of the Top Waves Plugins for Mixing: https://producelikeapro.com/blog/20-top-waves-plugins/

Top 10 WAVES Plugins - HOW I USE THEM

I would not delete plugins, but rather know in advance which one you want to use.
With waves you are prepared for every recording situation.

 

1. the best way to find out about the plugins is the waves website!

2. go to your vst folder and delete all the waveshellVST.dll,
then create a folder named "waves" in your vst folder.
Now go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves\WaveShells V14 and use the dll's from there as source in the vst wrapper builder. as destination folder use the created "waves" folder in your vst folder. after you have created the single plugins you can delete the ones you dont want per hand ,and also the belonging data in the programfiles folder.

i hope that helps!

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2023

Thanks for your reply Beat16!

So, as long as I don't have any problems with disk space (which I currently have in abundance), it's best to categorize the usable ones inside the DAW and store the bloat somewhere where it doesn't bother or overwhelm me. For this undertaking, I will use the links you've generously provided.

Sounds like a plan?

@Xenon Thank you also! That is exaclty what I was looking for. If I feel like deleting the bloat, I will follow your step-by-step tutorial. Thank you for taking the time to posting your guide!

 

Uninstall unused individual plugins manually:

1. Quit all audio apps.
2. Navigate to the relevant plugin version folder:
   • Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Waves\Plug-Ins V14 (or whichever version is installed on your device).
   • Mac: Macintosh HD > Applications > Waves > Plug-Ins V14 (or whichever version is installed on your device).
3. The plugin file you wish to remove will be named after the plugin, in this format: [PluginName].bundle. For example, the plugin file for Reel ADT will be named Reel ADT.bundle.
4. Delete the plugin file/s you wish to remove (or move to a backup folder).
5. Clear Waves preferences:
   Windows:
   • Click the Windows key + ‘R’ and enter %appdata%, click Enter.
   • Delete the Waves folder inside the 'Roaming' folder that appears.
   Mac: Delete the "Waves Preferences" folder located at HD > Users > Current user > Library > Preferences (this folder is accessed by going to the Go menu and holding down the Alt\option key. This will reveal the Library option).

Please note: Manually removing a plugin will not be reflected in Waves Central’s ‘Install Status’ for that plugin. For correct reflection of the installed plugins in Waves Central, uninstall the entire version and re-install just the plugins that you need.

Source: www.waves.com/support/uninstall-waves-products

 

Last edited: Jan 27, 2023

No! Don't delete the whole folder!!!
Only the data belonging to the single plugins you don't want!

 

This might sound funny, but I sorted the plugins on their website by price. So I first tried the most expensive ones.
At the end I kept just a few. And the only ones I use often are the One Knob series that are really practical for my experiments.

 

Just try them one by one just like i did it's pretty fun, depending on your DAW you can hide the one you don't like since I'm not aware of any way you can uninstall individual waves plugins since they install in a cumulative shell file.

 

Waves has a full suite to cover every need you could have, but there are definitely some tools that handle applications better/easier than some waves plugins. I definitely recommend what KuteAce1307 said and trying them all out as you never know what could fit into your workflow where. Plugins some profess to never use and tell others never to use, others use faithfully (CLA Vocals). All just comes down to what you can do with them though. I will give you suggestions based off what I find value in though:

Aphex Vintage Exciter
Berzerk Distortion
Center
CLA-76
Clarity VX
dbx-160
Doubler4
Enigma
H-Delay
J37
Kaleidoscopes
L1 limiter
LoAir
MaxxBass
MDMX OverDrive/Screamer
MetaFlanger
MondoMod
Morphoder
RVox
RBass
Scheps Parallel Particles
Smack Attack
SoundShifter
Vitamin
Vocal Bender

 

Last edited: Jan 27, 2023

I wasted dozens of hours sifting through those turds. There's nothing in there unique enough to keep the bloated mess installed. I kept it around quite a while just for Vocal Rider until I found a better version of what it did somewhere else.

Waves was king of the hill back in the day. Not anymore. They can take their garbage business model and shove it. The best thing you can do for yourself is uninstall that junk.

 

The VSTShells only return the plugins you have licenses for, and the .WLE file that contains the license is simple XML, therefore you may simply remove the licenses for plugins you want to hide, and the waveshells will stop reporting that plugin as being present. Just make sure you remove the correct amount of XML for each license you want to end. ie, the matching <License> to </License> block.

 

None of these replies are answering the question of how to remove individual plugins DATA that is taking unnecessary space.

On sister site, someone suggested using this tool:
http://hypercube-software.duckdns.org/softwares/vstwrapper

But i haven't tried it. Has anyone used this to remove unwanted Waves plugs while keeping the ones you want?

 

Yes

 

Where can I find the .WLE file? I tried searching for it but no luck.
Ta, hoffy.