PT 11 Webcast

[Carl Kolchak]

A lot of food for thought during the webcast :

Seems like interfaces as old as the Mbox 2 line, and 003's will officially be supported, and the 002 line, as well as the blueface I/O's (192's 96's) should work - though not be officially supported.

In spite of all the seemingly amazing optimisations, the minimum system requirements are pretty hefty (I thought the minimum amount of RAM had doubled in the space of a couple of minutes, until I realised I had flipped from the non-HD page to the HD spec page )

Another odd thing was that when the subject of doing a faster than realtime bounce on an HDX system, using HEAT, was mentioned - it turns out that everything gets rendered out through a Native version, away from the DSP cards (obviously).

I don't know if that was a slip-up, and admission that at some point they will make HEAT available as a Native plugin (as it clearly has to work that way now), or if it's going to turn in to the ugly old debate about artificially restricting non-HD software...

Anyway, this is generally very encouraging, and there are some great offers to be had with PT LE, and PT9 to 10 cross-grades, which would ensure a complimentary PT11 upgrade at a great price.

For me it all boils down to whether the "not officially supported, but should work" legacy hardware will play nicely with PT11, certain plugin manufacturers biting the bullet on AAX, others deciding if their AAX upgrades will be chargeable, ponying up for the latest McDSP updates, and finally buying an iLok2 (I'm still on PT9).

I guess I've got a lot of homework to do, to decide if it's really worth the hassle, as much as the accumulating expense, as I'm definitely not in the market for a bunch of new audio interfaces quite yet.

This is mighty tempting, but there are a lot of variables to be addressed...