Another paid update?

[Jaylaca]

Dear Digi,

You've got to be kidding. But you're not. Another paid update from 7.3 to 7.4? This is complete B.S.! $299/$79 again. and for what? A loop feature that your competitors have included for two years?

I'm not adverse to paid upgrades and I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. It has seemed to make sense in the past when doing major version changes 5.x to 6.x to 7.x.

What happened, did you change your business model to truly charge for beta testers? If this is what you're going to do then I want a $50 refund PER cs update. If you're going to pull this every decimal point you can prove it's worth it with a money back guarantee.

You hear me? $50 refund per CS update.

Sigh,
Jason Lord

[roberts]

Protools 7.3 to 7.4 is $80 and 6.x, 7.0, 7.1 , 7.2 to 7.4 is $199

If you can't afford $80 then how in the world did you afford $10,000.00 for HD rig?
My up date was paid for in 1 hour plus all the time is saves me it pays for itself everyday.
Since updating from Protools 6 to 7 I no longer need one of our studio assistants due to all the shortcuts.
That saves me about $25K every year. So those little updates are worth it. (for me)
Waves charges $200 for WUP for every Bundle so SSL and Mercury cost $400.00 a year - That is real crime IMO

[JFreak]

It has seemed to make sense in the past when doing major version changes 5.x to 6.x to 7.x.

And 6.4 too! There was not much new features during the different 6.x versions. Or - just for an example - what do you think about this comment: "Pro Tools TDM 6.3 is for use only with AVoption|V10, and offers NO NEW FEATURES OR BUG FIXES that are useful without AVoption|V10 hardware." which is first thing Digidesign says about the 6.3 release. The reason 6.4 was paid upgrade was because ADC was a significant new feature — think about going from 7.0 to 7.1 (free) to 7.2 (HD-only, paid upgrade).

Not much has changed. There used to be free upgrades from 6.0 to 6.3 and 6.4 to 6.9 because OSX was a moving target and Digi was forced to release software on a very fast pace. But currently there's for example 7.3 to 7.3.1 to 7.3.1cs5 which means just the same compatibility releases but different names as OS changes have slowed down significantly (which is good). I don't want to ever again go through the mess PT6 was before 6.4 version!

So what's in a name? Sure, it "felt more" when you got free 6.x releases. Currently 7.x releases are paid upgrades but those are more worthy upgrades than during PT6-era. Every 7.x release is like going from PT5 to 6.0 to 6.4 to 7.0 and I love it!

I guess if they wanted to they could have called them:

6.0 => 6.0 (initial release — OSX Jaguar)
6.0.1 => 6.0cs1
6.0.2 => 6.0cs2
6.1 => 6.0.1
6.1.1 => 6.0.1cs1
6.1.2 => 6.0.1cs2
6.2 => 6.0.2
6.2.1 => 6.0.2cs1
6.2.2 => 6.0.2cs2
6.2.3 => 6.0.2cs3
6.3 => 6.0.3
6.4 => 6.1 (paid upgrade for HD — OSX Panther)
6.4.1 => 6.1cs1
6.5 => 6.1.1
6.5.1 => 6.1.1cs1
6.5.2 => 6.1.1cs2
6.6 => 6.1.2
6.7 => 6.2 (paid upgrade for LE)
6.8 => 6.2.1
6.9 => 6.2.2
6.9.1 => 6.2.2cs1
6.9.2 => 6.2.2cs2
6.9.2 => 6.2.2cs3 (OSX Tiger)

This would put them on the same page with PT7 upgrades. Notice how PT6-era saw multitude of OSX version changes (total 20 versions, 9 for Jaguar, 10 for Panther and initial Tiger version was supported) and everyone had to upgrade once whether using HD or LE, to get support from Jaguar to Tiger. What an accomplishment by Digidesign!

[Barry Johns]

I'm telling, this paid update is worth every penny. Elastic Audio rocks, I'll pay for that R&D any time. No one is going to make anyone update.

Now, I'll tell where I think it sucks, I had to pay to update my HD rig and my Mpowered version as well that I make edits with. I should not ever have to do that. One update should cover all your registered versions.

[tj_davies]

I had to pay to update my HD rig and my Mpowered version as well that I make edits with. I should not ever have to do that. One update should cover all your registered versions.

Now why should that be? If you buy a mixing console for one studio you don't get the second one for your other studio for free, do you.

Timothy

[thin ice]

It's not compulsory to upgrade. In fact I will only update occasionally if my system is working well.

[narcoman]

exactly. You dont HAVE to upgrade! Anyway - elastic audio is WAAAY better than what the competition is offering in this front. Its a very useful STP tool.....

[25ghosts]

I'd rather have a company making continuous development to an existing software and paying for that than a company that sleeps. Look at Logic 8 - A sheep in a wolf's clothing. Elastic audio is a NEW feature and I am gladly paying for that. Maybe the principle of Elastic Audio does not derive from digidesign but they sure implemented it better than anyone else this far... Ableton's is more of a toy and the quality lacks completely. Not so with PT 7.4

In addition once you get 7.4 I dont think they'll charge you extra for Leopard support...


Digidesign PT is one of the only softwares out there where I DONT feel like a BETA tester.


I would agree with you if digi would charge for an upgrade that would contain merely bug fixes for a prior release but that aint the case with PT 7.4 - the graphic freeze was a free of charge cs5 update....

[Alio 45]

I work on 2 TDM systems, 1 HD system and I own 3 Le systems.

Last week I upgraded (paid for) one of my LE systems to 7.4.

I've had major issues with the instruments (ref: LE forum PT7.4 & RMX). I've spent countless hour talking on the Forum and waiting in line on the phone to Digi support. Still not resolved.

Not only do I feel like I'm paying to be a beta tester but what about the amount of working hours I've lost trying to resolve this issue.

PT is not a hobby to me it's my job and I'm losing money!!

Alan

[Frank Kruse]

exactly. You dont HAVE to upgrade!

Unless you want bugs fixed. Wich was the intention of the initioal posting I guess.

Some people don´t need the features so for them the release is a "payed bug-fix". Others don´t care about the bugs and love the new features so for them it´s less painfull to upgrade.

;-)

frank.