Enduring the painful PT Ultimate and PT renewal fee, any tips?

[Justin1524]

So I have (and use) Pro Tools Ultimate Perpetual on my studio Mac. Have been renewing for year and years. The cost for a year $399 OUCH!

I also have a work laptop and a educational renewal PT vanilla that I use. The renewal cost? $99 OUCH but not nearly as bad.

So given that this year with COVID-19 has been hard on everyone (except maybe CEOs who shall remain nameless) and given that there probably hasn't been a lot of new product features for Pro Tools, how about cutting your loyal customers a discount AVID?

Is anyone at AVID listening? Thanks!

Justin

[Benny_Cha_Cha]

You can check Vintage King or other stores for a discount. There’s usually one when I have to renew in December.

Also if you buy if from VK and have a VK credit card you can spread the payments out over a period of time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Justin1524]

Thanks Ben - I think Sweetwater knocked $100 off the price last year. It's something.

BTW, wouldn't it be nice if we had some communication from Avid about upcoming releases so we get some sense of what we're paying for (as opposed to zero).

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by Justin1524

Thanks Ben - I think Sweetwater knocked $100 off the price last year. It's something.

BTW, wouldn't it be nice if we had some communication from Avid about upcoming releases so we get some sense of what we're paying for (as opposed to zero).

This statement is very valid as users are really buying a cat in a bag not knowing if the $400 / €568 (taxes taxes) is going to be worth it and for non industry guys and gals it is a lot of doe going out yearly for features (or lack of) that doesn’t even apply to them so I would very much endorse the userbase standing together to get change from Avids (so far non disclosure) of their roadmaps and upcoming releases. I personally can’t seem to find any harm in letting their userbase k ow what the heck they are paying for and paying in advance too.

Rant hat on, Mod hat off : It’s not like PT has any new earthshattering features bekng implemented that hasn’t been out for years and years in other DAW’s so by releasing some basic info on where PT is going prolly won’t risk any ”IP” being ”stolen” or implemented in other DAW’s if we look at the history of Avid and features the past 10yrs

Rant Hat Off! Mod Hat .... Half On

[Justin1524]

Last year at about this time Sweetwater charged me $339 for the Pro Tools Ultimate Perpetual Renewal. Avid you should at least match that deal? What say you?

[Justin1524]

Here's what I have to show for my $339 + $99 investment in Pro Tools in the year 2020:

Pro Tools 2020.3 - Folder Tracks, Resources section added in System Usage, H.264 performance improvements extended; bug fixes and stability improvements. Support for Pro Tools | MTRX Studio

Pro Tools 2020.5 - optimizations for session storage on cloud services; bug fixes and stability improvements


Here's what I have to show for my $149 upgrade to Presonus Studio One 5:

Score Editing, Show Page, Clip Gain Envelopes, Keyswitch support -editing, and mapping, Poly pressure and MPE support, Melodyne 5 integration (long overdue for Pro Tools), Timestretch mode: Tape-Resample, Marker Track Inspector, Extended Mixer Scenes (would be great if PT had this), Aux Channels, Independent Listen Bus, Recording and playback in 64-bit float WAV format, External MTC/MMC Sync, VST2/VST3/AU plug-in support, Rewire support, FLAC, M4A import/export.

There's a striking difference in features. I will give Avid credit for Folder Tracks - this is a great new feature - kudos Avid.

It is with great reluctance I will pay the exorbitant $399 + 99 fee so I don't lose my perpetual license upgrade support. But Avid staff and management - you need to do A LOT more to EARN that money. Be advised I'm working on a plan to ween myself off Pro Tools. It's also a huge shame and missed opportunity you don't recognize and provide deals during the pandemic. I understand everybody needs to make a dollar, but gouging is not OK.

[Benny_Cha_Cha]

But at least it’s super crashy and unstable.

[Justin1524]

Today I bit the bullet and swallowed the exorbitant $399 renewal for PT Ultimate (my studio mac iLok) + $99 renewal for PT Educator's (my laptop iLok).

I think for all the money I've shoveled into Avid's coffers over the years, I should receive a personal phone call from Avid CEO Jeff Rosica to thank me and to explain what fantastic new plans for Pro Tools my hard earned greenbacks will pay for in 2020-21. Fat chance of that happening!

Wish list items off the top of my head would be:
- Melodyne ARA support
- Ability to open multiple sessions at the same time
- VST/AU plugin support
- FLAC, m4a support
- All new stock plugins OR cut a deal with Waves or Slate to make their plugins STOCK (meaning included).
- An affordable interface meaning $1000 max., zero latency and tons of analog, ADAT, SP/DIF and AES/EBU I/O that supports Thunderbolt 3 and makes the Mac Mini an affordable powerhouse option. I think 32 tracks is in order.