If you are growing in the digital domain I personally would get the waves bundle. Waves is awesome and getting better all the time.

You will need a mix system to compete though. I see a new update (3.0) with waves now and I bet like many other plugins coming on, a mix system it going to be needed to get the bandwith happening.

The less wires the better in my mind. The C4 is awesome by waves. A monster for mastering.

This is just the beginning for plugins. I have been in the digital domain for twenty years so I am truly bias.

From experience I believe as time goes on, companies will be using the mac or PC to route their circuits rather than spending all that extra time in designing the basic but redundant outboard circuts needed to make outboard gear turn on. Plugin's seem the logical way in the future.

A good example of how clean things are getting is hearing and using the Virus.....Awesome stuff!!!

If you get the C4 you can bin the BBE

If you follow the analog trend though then go with hardware. Hardware does hold it's value.

but it's also not as easy to update.

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audiokid

Marc,

IMO it depends on the way you like to work. Which is more important to you: Squish tracks on the way into PT, or record totally flat and squish in the mix?

If you didn't already have Drawmer and TC, I might lean a little more toward waves. Consider how much you need each little plug that comes with waves. Then consider how hard it will be to get a distressor (still made 1 at a time by hand), and how easy it will always be to get waves.

Seems like a toss-up. What kind of work are you doing?

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Angelo Quaglia
AQ Productions

Angelo,
still heavily learning the whole thing, I recently made some sounds/noises/loops for a friend whose occupation is making sites using Macromedia Flash5 .Now he wants me to make the sounds for his business own new site in Flash .
Both sound & vision have got to be really good .
So I'm currently not working on that many tracks, more soundscaping...
And, being budget-limited, I want to purchase maybe the Waves or a couple of Distressors (or the Dual-one) (Planning on certainly getting Soundblender -great!!)
You know, having this 24 Core system, an upgrade to Mix or Mixplus NOW would be difficult .Allright you get some plugs for free , but the DrDyn I allready have , and the rest are not exactly my must-haves !
(Digi should give us the choice within a budget!)
I'm looking for something better , also the TC/Megareverb is less than expected, not bad ,but....
So I thougt, all the positive news on DUC about the Distressor...
But audiokid you say " C4 a monster for mastering" - but with a 24 core ...?
What 's the price anyway of a C4 ?
And does it sounds AS GOOD as the Distressor ?
Difficult questions, but many thanks for yr time boys !

Sorry but I can't make a comment on the distressor, don't have it. Angelo, what does it do?

The C4 needs a mix system. It come with the bundle, I bought it seperatly for $700 Canadian.

I have done alot of flash and internet audio so I can comment on that part to help.

The L1 is very important for multimedia. To get your levels hot but clean and the sound files download speed barable for the web the L1 again is the best choice for level and dithering. The C4 makes the web audio big.
Internet audio is real tricky, it takes a lot of trial and error to figure it out. PT is awesome for internet audio and setting up loops etc.(long live PT)

I can't say enough about waves. I just read an update on the L1 version 3.0 It will be 48 bit and sweeter than ever.

hope this helps a bit more.

Angelo, good to have you here.

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audiokid

In that case, I'd go with waves. You want to maximize your special fx. Distressor is a very flexible, great sounding compressor, but it can't even do a multi-tap delay. Just compression.

I have no idea about the 24 system, whether you have access to take advantage of the whole waves bundle. Check the compatibility pages at digi.

You may also want to consider adding the wave mechanics bundle for special fx. Pure Pitch is the bomb for pitching vocals to ridiculous extremes. Pitch Blender can blow your mind with all the weird presets.

Hope that helps,

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Angelo Quaglia
AQ Productions

Yeah guys,
gonna purchase the GoldBundle .

Waves mailed me "Both C4 and Renaissance Reverb need the Mix boards. We will release later a
24 bit version of C4 that will run on the older 24 core systems."

Also the WaveMechanics - loved the demo...mmm Soundblender....or was it Scyscraper...?

Angelo, audiokid...thanks a lot

Marc