How to Try or Demo Waves Plugins

Mar 26, 2023

Learn about the two options to evaluate Waves plugins for free, before paying for a Waves Ultimate or Waves Essential subscription.

Option 1: Waves Creative Access 7-day free period

Subscribe to the Waves Creative Access subscription of your choice with your payment details. The first charge will occur only after 7 days.

If you decide to cancel during this free period, the subscription will be canceled and you will not be charged.

  1. Subscribe to the Waves Creative Access option of your choice on this page, and fill in your payment details.
  2. Once the signup process is done – you will be presented with an action button to ‘Install & Activate your products’ (or you can install later with these instructions). Clicking this link will launch Waves Central, if installed on your system. If Waves Central is not installed, a download page will open.
  3. Waves Central will open on an installation pop-up
    • Choose where you wish to activate your licenses to (your computer or a USB flash drive).
    • Choose if you wish to install Virtual Instrument samples (and where to).
    • Click Continue.
  4. Once done, your Waves plugins will be fully functional for 7 days.
  5. At the end of this free period, you will be charged for the first time, unless your subscription is canceled via your account, payments will be initiated on your payment method.
  6. If you decide to cancel your subscription, the plugins will remain installed on your computer, in Demo Mode. This means that they will still be available in your DAW, but periodically will introduce a short audio mute (synchronized across all plugin instances).

Note: Once you have used the 7-day free period, then canceled a Waves Creative Access subscription (Waves Essential or Waves Ultimate), the 7-day free period will not be available again to you on the same subscription.

Option 2: Demo Mode (with mutes)

To install the plugins in demo mode, follow these steps:

  1. Download Waves Central for | .
    If you already have Waves Central installed, skip to step #2.
  2. Launch Waves Central
    Windows: via the desktop shortcut or Start Menu > All Programs > Waves Central.
    Mac: Applications > Waves Central.
  3. Log in to your account.
  4. Click the Waves Creative Access page.
  5. Click Install Demo.
  6. In the pop-up window, choose whether you want to install sample libraries for Waves Instruments and for Cosmos Sample Finder, and whether to install the SD or HD samples.
  7. Click Install Demo.

Your products are now ready to use.

Remember, when loaded on audio tracks, Waves Creative Access plugins running in Demo Mode will periodically introduce audio mutes.

To unlock demo mode, activate licenses.

If you need any further assistance, please contact Technical Support.