Will Uninstalling/Reinstalling my Waves Plugins Erase the Plugin Settings in my Logic Sessions?

[ew1]

 

Hello

 

 

Logic Pro X 10.4.4 keeps crashing and then giving me this error message 

 

 

Logic Pro X quit unexpectedly while using the WavesLib plug-in.

 

 

I am using Waves V11

 

 

I contacted Waves about this and they told me to uninstall all my Waves stuff and re-install it. The exact instructions I was given are at the end of this post. 

 

 

I am a bit concerned that this might:

 

• negatively affect compatibility of Waves plugins I have used in old Logic session

 

• reset the settings on Waves plugins that I have used in old Logic sessions

 

 

 

I have a lot of Logic sessions that use Waves plugins with specific settings to create certain sounds. I built up these sounds over the years and I often need to return to these sessions and use these sounds again. If the settings I used in these sessions were to be lost, I would lose years worth of sound design work.

 

 

For example, let's say one of my channels in a Logic session from 2019 uses:

 

• H Delay plugin with a 500 ms ping pong delay

 

• Puigtec EQP1A plugin with 8kHz boosted by 6dB

 

 

If I was to follow the re-installing instructions and then discover that the channel in question in that Logic session no longer has those plugins settings, that would be a massive disaster for me. 

 

 

I have asked the Waves assistant about this and they said that “this should not effect the sessions themselves.”  That doesn’t sound very confident to me so I thought I’d come here and ask for a second opinion.

 

 

Is there any cause for concern?

 

 

Here are the instructions I was given

 

 

 

Uninstall:

 

1. Launch Waves Central.
2. Go to the Settings page in the bottom left corner.
3. Under Maintenance, look for Uninstall and click the drop-down menu.
4. Checkmark all the available version entries and click Uninstall.
5. Once done, go to Applications and remove the Waves folder and the Waves Central application.
6. In Finder, click on the Go menu while holding down [Alt/Option], click on Library > Preferences and send the Waves Preferences to the trash.
7. In the same Library folder, go to Caches and send the Waves and Waves Audio folders to the trash.
8. Go to Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support and send the Waves folder to the trash.
9. Delete any WaveShell files you find in the following locations (if exist):
   • Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > Components
   • Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > VST
   • Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > VST3
   • Mac HD > Library > Application Support > Digidesign > Plugins
   • Mac HD > Library > Application Support > Avid > Audio > Plug-Ins
   • Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > WPAPI

 

 

Reinstall:

1. Download and install Central.
2. Run Central and log in.
3. Go to the Install Products page in the top left corner.
4. Under My Products, check mark the products you wish to install.
5. Click Install on the bottom right.

Once finished, rescan in Logic as per this article.

 

 

Many thanks

 

Edited May 18 by ew1

[des99]

It shouldn't be a problem, the plugins IDs don't change and so the settings should continue to work with updated versions of those plugins.

However, if you are worried, you might want to revise your backup and archival strategy - if you keep a mirror of your system as it is, then you've always got an option to go back to that system in case any software issues cause problems.

Secondly, if you are worried that third-party dependencies might one day not work, you'll need to assess what that will do to important projects, and archive out versions where you render processing to audiofiles so they will still sound as intended with that processing (keeping the raw recordings too, of course). This means you will always be able to go back and remix or rework that work without the loss of third-party plugins changing anything too much.

You might also want to take screen grabs of any important plugin settings too.

You don't have to do this for everything of course, but for important work where you want to be sure software issues don't cause the loss of something vital, steps like these may prove to be your saviour at some future time...

[ew1]

On 5/18/2022 at 9:33 AM, des99 said:

It shouldn't be a problem, the plugins IDs don't change and so the settings should continue to work with updated versions of those plugins.

However, if you are worried, you might want to revise your backup and archival strategy - if you keep a mirror of your system as it is, then you've always got an option to go back to that system in case any software issues cause problems.

Secondly, if you are worried that third-party dependencies might one day not work, you'll need to assess what that will do to important projects, and archive out versions where you render processing to audiofiles so they will still sound as intended with that processing (keeping the raw recordings too, of course). This means you will always be able to go back and remix or rework that work without the loss of third-party plugins changing anything too much.

You might also want to take screen grabs of any important plugin settings too.

You don't have to do this for everything of course, but for important work where you want to be sure software issues don't cause the loss of something vital, steps like these may prove to be your saviour at some future time...

Thanks. To confirm, I did the full re-install and it worked out fine.

[David Nahmani]

Great! Good to hear. 

[simon.a.billington]

Yeah, that kind of info is stored inside Logic's session data.  Waves in particular is very big on backwards compatibility, its part of their guarantee, so to speak.  So if for some reason it didn't workout you're allowed to hurl insults at them!!  🙃

The only time you really need to worry is when someone brings out a new plugin that doesn't actually assume the place of the old plugin.  You MAY be able to copy and paste the settings in that case, but its unlikely that would work out.  

But that's not the issue you're having here