Pro Tools LE to HD upgrade special: Open discussion

[TOM@METRO]

From the Windows thread.

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

Well Tony, I'm not here to be part of the reason that you may not sell a ton of new HD rigs, so I'm going to stop for now. I care about the survival of Avid and encourage all who have the spare cash lying around to spend it with you.

Please though, if that happens, invest in the future, develop and then deliver an un-crippled full-featured Native system, I/O and all. Then put a price tag on it that will keep you happy and fat.

Peace

[Tony Cariddi]

Originally Posted by The Dougfather

Guys, the current line of Pro Tools HD is over 7 years old and even with 54% off and a free interface it's still way too overpriced, all that cash for 2 pci-e cards.

Hi Dougfather,

Thank you for joining the discussion. I hear your concern over the price of the LE to HD exchange and think it is important to look at the value of the offer.

To calculate something's value you measure its cost against its benefits. When you look at what it costs to build a native workstation that delivers the track count and high quality I/O included in the HD exchange, their total costs are similar. Among the benefits of Pro Tools|HD are: consistent peak performance regardless of CPU load; consistent near-zero latency; automatic delay compensation on both hardware and software inserts; the availability of two DSP engines (TDM and native) allowing for simultaneous high buffer settings and near zero latency on audio tracks; and the many benefits of Pro Tools|HD software.

If your demands and expectations are satisfied by the performance of native workstations then this exchange does not hold enough value for you. That is understandable. We made this offer available to make Pro Tools|HD more accessible for those who have the highest demands and expectations of a tightly integrated hardware/software solution.

Best regards,
Tony

[WilliamDC]

Tony, no disrespect to you or Avid but I think a point is being missed. Many Pro Tools users seem to keep looking for a package that delivers somewhere in between what we currently have with LE and HD. To make an analogy, I feel like we're given the choice between a nice family sedan or a high performance sports car.

I feel that the gap between the two products is rather great and that's why people keep looking to sources such as Blacklion Audio. They have proven that your hardware alone could stand some improvements and that people are willing to pay the extra money to get them. While this is the case, they are not willing to pay several thousands of dollars to get a bit more quality out of what they like to use.

Now, let's take a look at the Eleven Rack. Maybe that's a step in the right direction. I could certainly see that idea expanded on to a system that could hold more than just a single plugin, as it were. I personally am not looking for a single package to fit my needs. Some of us don't need a unit with preamps in them. I just think that there's a better mouse trap out there in all of this that is somewhere between LE and HD.

[getz76]

Tony,

I will echo what William said.

I like Pro Tools as my DAW. Mainly I like it for its mixing and editing, though.

For someone like me that mainly tracks audio and does not use many (if any) plug-ins during tracking, I am less concerned with offerings of Pro Tools HD other than ADC.

If I needed more than my 003 Rack offers and I had a $15,000 budget, I would look towards something like Logic and a rack of Apogee converters. I could easily track on that and move to something like an Mbox 2 to edit and mix.

Avid/Digidesign are not offering anything that competes with what I am looking for at the moment.

[Tony Cariddi]

Originally Posted by spicemix

I guess they think everyone who they don't want to piss off already has HD or knows what's coming. This is about quarterlies. Suffer the little children.

Hi Peter,

I understand your concern about the future of an investment into Pro Tools|HD. The nature of technology is that there will always be new products that take the place of existing ones. This promotion offers an amazing value that will continue to offer benefits for years to come. For example, Pro Tools Mix was released over 10 years ago and is still supported by the latest software version Pro Tools 8.

We won't make any children suffer.

Tony

[devkerr]

Originally Posted by WilliamDC

Tony, no disrespect to you or Avid but I think a point is being missed. Many Pro Tools users seem to keep looking for a package that delivers somewhere in between what we currently have with LE and HD. To make an analogy, I feel like we're given the choice between a nice family sedan or a high performance sports car.

I think one of the even bigger issues is that HD is no longer the "high performance sports car" it used to be.

Truth is, I can do more processing on my LE system with and 8-core MacPro than I ever could with an HD 3—plain and simple.

I would happily upgrade to an HD system if it were actually an upgrade for me.

[Tony Cariddi]

Originally Posted by youngas75

No prices on the UK page. Is the offer only available in the US?

Hi youngas75,

The LE to HD promotion is available worldwide. The UK site, as well as the sites for all other regions will be updated with prices shortly. You can find prices immediately by calling your reseller.

Thank you,
Tony

[getz76]

Originally Posted by Tony Cariddi

We won't make any children suffer.

Something we can all agree on!

[TOM@METRO]

From the Windows thread.

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

Tony,

I just wanted too say thank you to you and Avid for coming here to engage in conversation. We feel all to often that Avid moves without regard to needs of its own customer base.

Hopefully this is signaling the beginning of the end of Avid turning a blind eye to our critical needs (ADC, 64bit and RTAS issues) that year after year go completely ignored.

Again, Thanks.

[stainless]

I looked at the upgrade offer and even spoke with Sweetwater, then the more I thought about it, the more it became difficult to justify. I still have a PPC G5 (just out of warranty this year... probably one of the last to buy before the Intel machines were announced)

then I look at my Control 24, which has a host of "features" that have never been implemented ... and never will... so there's already an existing level of disappointment in my $10K mouse

Because of what I do (home/project studio) while unlimited track count sounds impressive, in reality I seldom hit the 32 track limit before the jump to 48. monitoring Latency and ADC are the big points

and as someone mentioned, a "pre-free" interface- with good converters and enough routing capabilities to rival a nice old analog board and leave the rest to me! hell from the front of the rack it could look like a standard patchbay!