Dear Avid, Innovation will save your business.

[BasketCase]

Hi Avid,

I started using protools in 1999. I love using protools. One of the things that sold me on it was literally the fact that the TDM system could achieve things that no native systems could. It set the benchmark so to speak. It doesn't matter if it was in a music studio or post environment.

Over a decade later and I still use protools. i still enjoy protools, but boy has the situation changed. It appears that while other daw manufacturers are surging forward with new and spiffy features, avid is playing catch up. I can appreciate the predicament that old tdm technology presented when it comes to software... But I can't help but sigh when I read the "new features" guide for protools 11. It seems the term "new" can be replaced with "remodelled" or "about flippin' time" for a lot of things... Though there are one or two new features that are heading in the right direction.

I want to see nothing more than for avid and protools to thrive and prosper as the industry standard, but the general morale of users on the duc doesn't seem all that crash hot. It appears many existing users feel as though the financial future of avid is dependant on how much avid can gouge its original user base... Rather than generating new customers.

It can be done better. It has been done better. You have this fancy new platform which currently only conquers the requirements that have appeared in the cries of the existing user base for years. Use it to conquer the world. Innovate. Create features that will drag other users into the protools world. Re-appeal to the music industry again, rather than just post production.


Two things I would love to see:

You have a lovely hardware insert plugin. Why not use the empty plugin window for something useful like storing my hardware outboard settings? Perhaps a place where I can upload a photo of the piece of gear so my settings are stored with the session, all i need to do is click the plugin, look at the photo and twist the knobs on my compressor or eq to match? Or perhaps a simple GUI with an online catalogue of equipment faceplates so that I can set and store my knob positions on a GUI via mouse? Or via the artist series? Or via an icon? Allow those settings to be printed to file, or paper.

Why not go a step further for digital hardware effects? Incorporate a sysex dump/load feature, or midi implementation to allow me to store the settings of a hardware reverb so when I open the session in 6 months time, my settings are recalled and easily dumped back to my reverb unit?

[YYR123]

Nice I like it