If you're a channel strip whore like me, you'll probably love RenChannel (one of my favorite plugins ever) and the SSL channel strips. Actually, the entire Renaissance bundle is an excellent buy. The RenBass and MaxxBass plugins are really excellent and unmatched plugins. I won't go through all of them, but a few things that jump out at me are the some of their specialty effects, like MondoMod, Doppler, Enigma, and MetaFlanger, and some of their color/vintage-style compressors and EQs (e.g., V-series and H-series). On the flip side, Waves has a ton of products that FabFilter doesn't offer (yet). FabFilter Twin2 is a great synth and, obviously, Waves does not offer any synths. Waves SuperTap or H-Delay are better in that respect IMO. Timeless (delay) is a very flexible delay with a ton of modulation capabilites - it's a bit overkill for basic delay needs, though, and is better as a sound design effect, rather than a bread-n-butter delay IMO. Same goes for FabFilter Volcano (modular filter effect) and Simplon (basic filter plugin). Between Pro-Q and Waves Q10, there is no contest IMO - Pro-Q is a far superior EQ, but Waves H-EQ is a nice alternative to Pro-Q and has more filter types and better 'color' options.Р”Р‡abFilter Saturn (multiband saturation/distortion) is unmatched by any Waves products IMO. My go-to EQ, compressor, gate, and limiter are Pro-Q, Pro-C, Pro-G, and Pro-L, but the Waves L1 and C1 are excellent as well and get a lot of use. I highly recommend that you watch some of the product videos and tutorials on their website to really get a good feel for how deep these plugins are. Two things that really set FabFilter apart from Waves and the rest of the pack is their (1) really intuitive and nice-looking interfaces, and (2) implementation of m/s processing. I also have several Waves plugins/bundles (Gold, Renaissance Maxx, SSL 4000, Maserati, and H-EQ). I think I've purchased every one of them as soon as they were released because they give great loyalty discounts and because they make some of the best plugins on the market IMO. I have all of the FabFilter plugins except Micro and FabFilter One. It's a tough question to answer without knowing the Waves plugins/bundles that you are considering, but these are two of my favorite plugin developers, so I'll give you my perspective. Just wanted to see if you guys preferred comparable waves plugs, or the fabfilter stuff. I can get the total bundle, every plug fabfilter makes, for $900. Good luck, and thanks for bringing the FF stuff to my attention.

I think I agree with some of the other folks who posted, FF first for everyday stuff, Waves (and others) for specific things. For most of my everyday, workhorse tasks they'd certainly be near the top of my list. So, shorter answer, after an admittedly short demo period I really like what I've seen so far on the FF stuff and may be buying shortly. The FF will not replace my hardware or some of my 'character' compressors, but if I do buy it it would see lots of use. Even if you're just still trying to figure out stuff like 'how does 2db of compression with a medium attack sound as compared to whatever other setting', being able to see what the compressor is doing and then correlating that with what you're hearing is very valuable. If you have any lingering questions about how compressors affect sound, the display will help tremendously.

The functional dynamics control aspects of the FF are really very nice and the display that shows both the dynamics domain and time domain effects is really really good. The compressor: I am a bit of a compressor nerd.I own lots of plugs and a fair amount of hardware and I know my way around compression pretty well. I don't think I own any Waves products that do what the FF does, and while I'll still use the UAD Manley, Pultec and my hardware, if I do pick up the FF it will see a lot of use. The FF built-in analyzer is really cool in this regard, as is the control set.I really like the ability to easily bypass and solo bands and the shelves and filters are nice and functional. To my ears most of them sound pretty much the same (with very few notable exceptions) and the real difference is how quickly and easily I can get them to do what I want. Regarding the EQ, let me start by saying I'm not a big EQ guy. I've only demod the EQ and Compressor so far from FF, but I do own a bunch of other stuff.Waves, UAD, IKMM, PSP, and a bunch of hardware (UA, SSL, Empirical Labs etc). I figured I'd give you a quick comparative review since the original point of this thread was to compare the FF stuff and the Waves stuff.

Fabfilter total bundle buy