Can I still use Waves 4.0 plugins in Reaper?

Reason I ask, is I found some of my old VST software from 2003! Things like Edirol Orchestral, Arturia Moog, Emagic Rhodes, Pro-53 etc. I just got a new MIDI keyboard and wanted to play around with some synth sounds and stumbled upon Waves again. Those golden oldies 32-bit VSTs all work fine in Reaper (in x86 bridged mode - my Windows laptop is 64 bit). I've installed Waves 4.0 into x86 vst folder, Reaper is picking up the path in preferences, but doesnt recognise any of them in the FX menu. What am I doing wrong? You see them pop on the splash screen upon initial Reaper start up post install. Apologies if this has already been asked - but a lot of people on the forums have queried having issues with more recent versions of Waves (e.g v9 >) whereas I'm going back nearly 20 years to try and use their plugin! Any advice would be great Cheers

The current way to reinstall your waves stuff is to download Waves Central from their website, run it & log onto your Waves account. With luck, waves Central will do the rest. MUCH easier to manage a waves setup now than it used to be. You can keep your authorisation details on a regular USB stick or in the waves cloud or on one specific computer. I have mine in an old 8gb USB stick & it works fine.

They will work, Reaper runs everything, even old ass DirectX plugins..

If they're properly installed, and there's no Windows issue.. (last time I used a DX plugin I had Windows XP installed..) They should appear when you click on "Rescan all DX plug-ins", on the "Preferences/Plug-ins/Rewire/DX" section..

Waves plugins... This applies to all Waves installs from way back to current: Completely remove the old install. All traces from the Application folder to the Library to Plug-ins to Preferences. Missing one or two is a show stopper. You have to clean house. Then follow the install instructions to the letter for the install you are going for. Miss one uninstall or skip/alter one install instruction and Waves will sit there silently mocking you. The Waves Central business might work... But it will probably get confused by the old version at some point and give you a hard time. I'd go straight to manually uninstalling/installing.

Think I'm going to admit defeat here. Completely agree with everyones comments - there is so much freeware out there that does a smashing job, and alongside the software I've purchased over the years I've definitely got enough in my arsenal. I did have fond memories of using Waves 4.0. But then again, this was back in 2003 when I had an old Dell XP laptop and was using Cubase SX 2.0! Times have changed. Since we are all in isolation I've been going all my old cr*p and installing software I owned into Reaper. Some of it is still compatible and great to use 15+ years later. Some of it... not so much.

Be sure to bring lunch. That thread is one heck of a ride!

So do you use Directx version or VST?

The way I've gotten old waves plugs to work is by installing 32 bit reaper. They show up then. However, I do notice that the L1 limiter doesn't seem to actually brick wall and contain overs, so it's really best to just purchase the new versions- they're usually super cheap lately. I opted for the stillwell horizon paid reaper version and WOW, no looking back for that- limiter/clipper solved!