Open letter - confessions of a infidelity

[KARLITOSUK]

I write this open letter to confess that for the last month I’ve been unfaithful to you, my DAW for the last 22 years, Protools.

We started together back in 1996, I barely knew anything about the audio world, but they presented you as the industry standard. I hardly listened you, I was more into live sound and you did not exist for that field yet.

Years passed and slowly I was getting more interested in music production, soon I met Logic Pro, S3000XL, Juno 106, JV1080, XP-80 and many others who died along the way. Those were wonderful years of learning a lot and tons of creativity. I still remember how it cost me to learn Logic, what a nightmare ...

In 2001 I jumped from live sound to the studio world and there we met again, that was love at first sight. So I set about to learn absolutely everything about you, from head to toes. I ended up falling deeply in love with you and the TDM systems. Those were your glory days, you did not stop growing, I remember the first day they brought Control 24 to studio C at the facility I was working, you were the perfect couple. So it was ProControl and his 5.1 joysticks.

I grew up with you and I went from music to film postproduction. During all these years, some of my mates complained about you, but I never wanted to see your mistakes, for me you were perfect. I jumped from studio to studio until I got to my last one, we were also plugin developers for you and official distributors for your products. I would scowl every time a client complained about you, I’d convinced myself thinking that clients did not know you as well as I did, they did not understand you.

Finally they freed you from your hardware, it was time to personally acquired you, in my computer. I could not believe it, after so many years and finally I had you, you were mine, of my property and for so little money. I was so used to work with those expensive systems for so long and now I could have you. You weren’t perfect, some days you would crashed, others you wouldn’t stop complaining with your DAE errors but even thou I was happy, even with the damn iLok thing. Sometimes I would question myself why you did not have some of the virtues that other new DAW’s were having but I was faithful to you and I refused to meet another.

We had our ups and downs but we were still together, your creator changed his policies leaving the client unprotected, but I did not care, you could never fail and we would always be together, at least that's what I thought ...

A month ago I was convinced for you to go through the operating room so you could improve from version 10 to 11, giving up all the plugins that I bought you, but I did not care. For my surprise, once you were installed in my new computer and I opened a new session, you weren’t able to talk properly with the rest of my external synths. You couldn’t show me the patches from my synths from each midi track. Was I supposed to fiddle around on each synth seeking for the wanted patch? Really?. I spoke with your creator, the worst fears, you have an error. A known error with no solution. You would have to go through the operating room again to fix that error. Since you were not under warranty and I did not have the technical support plan (one you have to pay yearly) there was not too much I could do. I spent two days angry with you and your creator.

It was time to move forward, to meet other DAW's to open my mind and see with my own eyes all those virtues people spoke about it, virtues that you, Protools, still don’t have nowadays.

I must confess you, Protools, I have met another. I will not tell her name, that doesn’t matter. But I will tell you, I have taken a step into the future, I have seen attributes and virtues that I could never have imagined with you, it only took me 3 weeks to know almost everything about her, and she even comes with a friend to touch, push buttons and twist knobs. It makes things much easier for me, it is very easy to work with, and it has even made my creativity to come back at levels as back years when everything was practically hardware. I feel inspired, happy every time I open a session, not a glitch, not a crashed, no DAE errors, nothing ... soft as silk. I'm back in love!!


The reason I’m writing this open letter is to tell you that I am afraid that our days together have ended. First I thought I would keep you at least for mixing purposes but as days go by I doubt it. I don’t know if I will sell you (even thou I will have to pay to be able to sell you) or I'll let you die in my applications folder, but let me give you one last advice, stop worrying about your aesthetics and start to practice more improvements, you're no longer the one you used to be, there are better DAW’s out there, DAW’s that offer tones more that you do, DAW’s that features advance technology and for a cheaper price and a way better customer service. Wake up AVID!!

[musicman691]

Lemme guess: Ableton?

[KARLITOSUK]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Lemme guess: Ableton?

I tell the deed, not the doer but I'll tell you that I love when I "Push" her buttons!!!!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by KARLITOSUK

I tell the deed, not the doer but I'll tell you that I love when I "Push" her buttons!!!!

So I got it right then - why so reticent about coming right out with it? Plenty of people here use more than one daw; for instance my other daw is Digital Performer. But my main one is PT.

[its2loud]

If it wasn’t for competition in DAW’s there wouldn’t be much growth in the market. Congratulations on finding your soul mate. May you live happily ever after for many years to come. Just remember, cheaters will always cheat if they think the flashing lights and soft buttons are prettier someplace else.

[Tweakhead]

Karl, sorry to hear about your life partner's surgical problems. Fixing these kind of things can be expensive, as one fix can lead to yet further horrific surgeries. You should submit her as a candidate to the doctors on the TV show "Botched". https://www.eonline.com/shows/botched

Dr. Paul Nassif, and Dr. Terry J. Dubrow can pretty much fix any "improvements" that have gone horribly wrong. They might be able to remove or streamline some of these truly botched appendages. At the worst, they might just use the "love of your life" as an example of what not to do.

Even if your darling dies while under general anaesthetic, at least you will know that you have tried your best to save her - before you move on and share your love elsewhere.

[Southsidemusic]

I don’t understand any of this swapping DAW’s comparisons to cheating

We use Ableton Live10 Suite with PUSH2 and PT Ultimate 2018 everyday as they are both GREAT at diffenrent workflows and features. I would never ”stop” using PT and go over to a new DAW just because something is not working in one of them right now. I would know that a fix would come and keep working until it does. All this surgery talk and whatever is just waffle and no one here knows what the heck you are on About!!!

If PT doesn’t work at all on your system then your system is what need surgery, not PT !!

And for the record, Live10 w/Push2 is the best production DAW out there today and even though we had some good features added to PTU 2018 the midi side of PT has a way too long road ahead to catch up to a DAW like Live10, hence we use both.

Ableton is a SheetShow to mix in and I would never ever even at gunpoint start trying mixing and editing audio in Live10 as PT is FAR FAR more superior in that regard and I would never start a production for any major artist that require lots of VI and midi programming in PT as Live10 is just way too good for that so 2 DAW’s ...

2 different workflows and one massive outcome when sessions are finished up in PTU and sent off to mastering!! No cheating or other weird comparisons and secrecy. Just the right tool for the job at hand ...

[Tweakhead]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

I don’t understand any of this swapping DAW’s comparisons to cheating

Here are several answers

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by Tweakhead

Here are several answers

I understand what the OP was trying to convey but still seem a pretty big bit far fetched as an audio forum ...

[cwsand]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

I understand what the OP was trying to convey but still seem a pretty big bit far fetched as an audio forum ...

Yep. I'm sure this letter will "guilt" Avid into adding all the features the OP is lacking. ProTools works great for me. If another DAW works for you, then go for it. No need for all the drama.