Darn it I just love Pro Tools 12 SO MUCH - a bit of an essay!

[TNM]

I will reiterate my gearslutz post:
Pro tools is the daw that keeps on giving.. In 20 years I have never been so impressed with a daw the more I learn it. (totally self taught so far, haven't read a thing).

Honestly logic 3 was the first time that happened to me, where everything my brain wanted to do, logic somehow had a function for. I remember laughing back in 98 thinking "no wonder they call it logic audio". I was completely self taught but decided to become a certified apple pro, just because.

I am finding Pro Tools much the same way.. there is always a way to do something, and the functions in general are just a logical extension of the brain. Like the brilliant automatic timeline loop selection when you click on a clip. In logic it's highlight clip, then key command (now command U in Logic X or U for "rounded" to the nearest bar). Pro tools it's just click on clip and play. And if i don't want that functionality, i can turn it off. Easy. I love how we get the envelope gain clips with visual compensation. I love the ultra easy fades with curves and again, visual compensation. VCA's are the way they should be. Groups are the best, and you can even pick what parameters get ganged per group. I love the INLINE midi, all on the main page.. who says pro tools can't do solid midi? I love the beat clock delay in SAMPLES *per* midi port.. gives me best possible timing with my hardware synths than any DAW.. NO other daw i know of has sample delay per port.. they are usually milliseconds or ticks and usually global. With pro tools you can actually get hardware to all line up dramatically well together (of course there is jitter, but it's not noticeably bad with a good midi interface and it's unavoidable in *any* daw without an expensive external clock anyway.. personally i don't mind the natural humanization!) The GUI is simply the best, without contest.. Colour selection is the right balance of easy on the eye and usable. I am so sick of ultra bright or this new trend of pitch dark.. PT gets it just right. Pt shows latency per track as an option, without having to open another floating window.. just one click in the mixer..And so on. Just wonderful workflow.

Anyway, due to logic's severe automation pdc timing issues, (which never bothered me but now I have invested everything into apollos and uad satellites, so there is pdc required all over my projects), I have been vigilantly searching for a new daw. I tried every single thing on Mac, even Trackion7 (the most abysmally buggy daw I have ever experienced to this day, it just disappears with no crash message constantly, when using its own functions and has been doing that since version 2 on Windows.. It's actually a shameful disgrace), which surprisingly had the tightest pdc automation timing of the lot but sucked in midi editing, GUI ergonomics, and crash bugs. (Will hand it to them though in that, even with 1400 ms worth of linear phase eqs on a channel, tracktion automated the high latency plugins themselves, 100% in time, the only daw of all that could do that. Pro tools automates out of time (early) with heavily latent plugins, but they don't affect the automation timing of non or low latent plugins, which automate bang on time. That's good enough for me, as i tend not to need to automate linear phase EQ's or UAD fx in general lol. Logic is all over the place with it's automation, when there are latent effects ANYWHERE..ie it can't even automate the zero latency effects on time, hence, UAD causes a disaster for automation of non uad native plugins. Cubase is just out of time with any automation at all! Pro Tools is a great compromise).

Cubase 8 is a great daw with sloppy all over the place automation timing in general(therefore nuendo would likely be the same), regardless of latent effects or not, Creaper is just well, creepy, Studio One has terrible low buffer Mac performance, and needs artificially enhanced eyesight to make sense of the crowded GUI in a project (with even just a few tracks), DP9 does not fit into my workflow paradigm at all, Ableton Live has the worst overall pdc of any major daw in existence, Bitwig is just Bit****, and with hundreds of missing fundamental features as well as awful time stretch, Reason can't use my uad plugins nor has any pdc of any kind (but is incredibly stable), and finally, Harrison has no demo policy, therefore I have no idea whether I would enjoy the workflow, and how well it would even run on my my system with CPU performance, automation timing, uad compatibility and general stability. Since I'd rather give charity to those in need rather than a developer who refuses to provide a normal demo, Mixbus is not an option.

So enter Pro Tools. My only experience with it was when we owned a mix cube TDM system many, many years back, but used logic as a front end for the DAE and TDM plugins, which worked great by the way. I tried demos of PT software a couple of times over the years but some things annoyed me, basically that it really IS the only daw without a screen scrolling on/off key command, and the only daw that doesn't even let you change the status of scroll follow on/off during playback. Also the fact that when you solo a mix bus, it mutes the source tracks going into it unless you manually solo them too, well, I just was not used to that. (I'm using PT 12 vanilla btw). But of course, where there's a will there's a way.....

.. And so, this time, giving it a real go, and realising just how damn deep this wonderful daw goes, and how the workflow can be made to fit any situation (like the mix bus solo issue above for example, hey, just use groups!), I started to realise what a wonderful daw it actually is. It's audio editing is just super smooth and lightning quick (best of any mac daw for sure), the performance is great, pdc is excellent both visually and audibly, and the GUI is just sublime. Sure I have feature requests, but they are the smallest amount I've ever had of any daw.

All I would ever want is traditional folder tracks, a scroll on/off during playback, some extra key commands in general rather than menu diving or mouse clicking, melodyne ARA support or Avid developed vari pitch (including harmonizer/audio to midi), and a few more advanced midi editing functions (basically midifx like an arp, and some of the fancier midi transform functions of Logic and Cubase). Honesty, I wouldn't change a single other thing about it. It's the closest to daw nirvana I have ever been.
Once you discover the Pro Tools organic workflow, it's too addictive to even consider another daw. That said, it does indeed seem that every single post I read about users jumping ship, is always because they are upset about an Avid business decision ,not about the daw itself.

So why did I feel the need to share this WAY tl;dr post with you?
Because I see a lot of negative topics about avid, and I wanted to express my profuse support for them and say just how much I hope and pray they are successful, and become hugely profitable once again. They have made music *enjoyable* for me again. I WANT them to stay relevant, and in business. Pro Tools is still THE standard. I honestly don't think I could ever bear to lose this daw, after finally finding it.

Ps what's with the subscription hate? I see perpetual licenses for sale just as they have always been.. So why not just buy one of those if you don't want to subscribe? Personally I'll be paying the 200 a year for as long as I and Avid are alive ( i decided i might as well go for the full support plan annually rather than just the program update one at $99, plus i get quite a few nice extra plugins.. the TL space is a VERY good convo verb).
Yes, I realise HD subs are $400 a year to stay current, but if one can afford the 20 plus thousand dollars for such a system, or even the 10 thousand plus dollars for a HD native system (with a couple of interfaces), one would presume that those customers are professionals, ie producing audio for money. Otherwise they'd be using the vanilla version. $400 a year to stay up to date for all time is not that much for a professional. Heck, I know of single plugins that cost more than that. Ahem, cough, altiverb anyone?

Anyway, PLEASE Avid, keep making pro tools shine.. and for future releases, please just fix bugs first and foremost.. that will give those who are worried, some real motivation to feel positive again:) Plus, who doesn't want a perfect bug free pro tools? Oh btw, fwiw, I haven't had a single crash yet. It seems much more stable than 90% of other DAWs.
I'm going to put my few FR's in the relevant sub area in another topic for anyone who's interested. There really aren't that many, just some workflow improvements.

No need to discuss unless you really feel like it, but with all the negative topics here, can you do me the courtesy of reserving this one for pro tools love only?
:)