Waves Ultimate 17

About this release

This is the full collection rather than a bundle of highlights. Waves plug-ins have been on more mixes than almost anything else in the field, and the reason is coverage. Everything a mix needs is here, from the workhorse equalisers and compressors that go on every channel to the specialist tools you reach for twice a year and are extremely glad to own when you do. They install once, register with your recording software, and show up in the plug-in list the next time it scans.

The dynamics and equalisation side is the part that gets used daily. Channel strips modelled on the desks that shaped the sound of decades of records, transparent digital equalisers with surgical control, bus compressors for glue, multiband processing for anything that needs frequency dependent control, de-essers, gates and transient shapers. Alongside those sit the reverbs and delays, covering plate, hall, chamber, spring and convolution approaches, plus the modulation and saturation tools that make a sterile recording sound like it happened somewhere.

Then there are the repair and correction tools, which are the ones that save sessions. Pitch correction that runs from subtle to obvious, noise and hum removal, click and crackle repair, restoration for old recordings, and vocal separation that pulls a performance out of a mixed track. The mastering end of the collection covers loudness metering to the current delivery standards, limiting, stereo imaging and dithering, so a mix can be finished to a deliverable without leaving the session.

What it does

• Complete plug-in collection covering the full mixing and mastering chain
• Channel strips modelled on classic recording desks
• Transparent and coloured equalisers from surgical to broad stroke
• Compressors, limiters, gates, de-essers and transient shapers
• Reverbs covering plate, hall, chamber, spring and convolution approaches
• Delays, modulation, saturation and amplifier simulation
• Pitch correction from transparent to deliberately obvious
• Noise, hum, click and crackle removal for restoration work
• Loudness metering to the current delivery standards
• Runs in any recording software that hosts the standard plug-in formats

Changes in this version

• Several plug-ins rebuilt with lower processing latency
• Improved oversampling quality on the saturation and limiting tools
• Reworked interface scaling on high density displays
• Faster scanning on first launch of the host software
• Fixed a preset browser hang with very large custom preset folders

What the package contains

• Waves Ultimate 17 full offline installer
• Complete plug-in collection in the standard host formats
• Factory preset library for every plug-in
• Plug-in manager for enabling and disabling individual components
• Readme with the install order written out step by step

Installation notes

Follow these in order. Most reports of a failed install come from skipping a step rather than from the package itself.

1. Close any recording software before you begin.
2. Disconnect from the network.
3. Extract the archive to a short path such as C:\Setup.
4. Run setup as administrator and confirm the plug-in folder locations.
5. Let the install finish, it is slow because of the number of components.
6. Open your recording software, let it rescan, then reconnect the network.

System requirements

Things worth knowing

• Confirm the plug-in folder path during setup, a wrong path is the usual reason nothing appears in the host afterwards.
• The first scan in your recording software takes a long time because of the sheer number of components.
• Disable the components you never use in the plug-in manager, it shortens every future scan.

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Listing information

This entry is catalogued under Audio & Music and carries the tags below. Language coverage is English, and the supported platform list is Windows 10, Windows 11. Version 17.0.0.221 is the current catalogued build, last checked 3 days ago, and the entry has been in the index since it was added 2 years ago.