Vienna Suite or Waves?

[clruwe]

Hope the people at vsl don't mind this post, but I always count on THIS forum for advice and info.

Waves are having a massive sale, nearly 50% off. That makes it almost half the price of the Vienna Suite. They are 64 bit, industry standard and no dongle! However....

Vienna Suite is designed for and comes with presets for the Vienna instruments, which is pretty much 90% of what I work with. It used to come with a jazz drum as well... Don't know if this is still the case, but would definitely tilt things in its favor. 

I already own some really, really old Waves plugins. I need to upgrade them because they crash constantly with the 64 bit bridge. And even though I've used them for years I can't say I'm used to them. I am not an engineer, I'm a musician. All the little knobs and sliders are just too complicated for me. A plugin that does most of the work for me would be an incredible bonus. I've looked at the Waves plugins and they seem to be the same GUI as the old ones, so no improvement there. Whereas Vienna looks very simple, big and intuitive to work with.

So... (apologies again to the vsl people)... could any of you lovely people, that have used both, give me their opinions? Are the Vienna Suite plugins easier to use (specially for technology-challenged people like myself) in comparison to Waves? How close do the presets bring you to the final product? And of course finally, do they still come with the jazz drums?

I understand that quality-wise Vienna plugins are as good as Waves, but if you have any comments on coloring, character, etc. They are also welcomed!

Thank you very much!

[andyjh]

 I have Waves and Vienna Suite, and I use them both. I always use the Vienna Convolution reverb, and the Vienna EQ and I find the Vienna compressor perfect for flattening over zealous dynamics in VSL sounds, when I want something flatter (in level that is - not pitch!).

If I were to compress a vocal line,  I would go the Waves CLA-76 or similar,  but the huge benefit of the Vienna Suite is that you get 3 licences,  so I have them on my master and slave PC.  If you had to own one,  I would go for the Vienna Suite - it is designed for orchestral sounds, and if that is what you will using it for, that is the one to go for.

and by the way,  it appears the Waves CLA-76 is not one that is on offer at the moment.

[cgernaey]

Is only my opinion but go for Vienna Suite.  Not only was it designed by the same minds of the products you use (and so free setups and templates are a freebie) but you also gain the ability to get definite technical support with your issues since you are mostly a complete VSL person like many of us.  Additionally most all of the training material and videos you will find are specific to that setup.

There are many people in the other companies such as LASS and Symphobia etc who also use Vienna Suite, because the presets are amazing starter points and they were designed with samples in mind.  I always use Vienna Suite first for my plug-ins and MIR Pro.  So far I have never needed anything more, but I am not a world class mastering engineer either.

Maestro2be

[Dietz]

Thanks fo your interest in Vienna Suite, clruwe. While I leave the actual comments to users of the plugins, I thought I should clarify one important point:

@clruwe said:

[...] if you have any comments on coloring, character, etc. [...]

Vienna Suite plugins don't try to mimic some old analog hardware (which seems to be a common approach today). They offer state-of-the-art, modern DSP-design. They won't provide a "color" of their own, but the color you chose by means of their parameter's individual settings. Ideally your signal won't change at all - except those aspects you were trying to shape.

Like mentioned in the previous postings, we have tried to make this process as convenient as possible for you by supplying literally hundreds of hand-made presets for specific Vienna Instruments as well as starting-points for your own creations.

Kind regards,