A Little Bit Underwhelmed?

[cboyer1951]

I'd like to say... that I agree within a year to pay $250 upgrade and then another $299 upgrade to pay the programmers and 'managers' is a bit steep for low end users. Paying for clip based gain and real time fades and multiple concurrent audiosuite instances is understandable for higher end users. The time savings for high end production houses is obvious and tremendous. Wow what a savings, and basically just a $1k upgrade price, and a little more for the hardware upgrade to HDX. (a little more compared to the original hardware purchases).

Basically we're paying them to do incremental upgrades along the path to the 64 bit version.

But what is also a little scary for low end users is the incompatability of some of the 3rd party plugins. I'm really a low end user, it takes me 2 years to save for the $299 price. So I have to think really carefully. Also after upgrading the PT I bought a Waves plugin. Now I find that if I went 64 bit Windows 7 then the plugin won't work in PT at all. So I've gone back to PT 8 for that functionality.

Of course I could load Windows 7 32 bit and have the functionality of the expensive 3rd party plugin. But when PT upgrades to 64 bit then it will definately leave behind any 3rd party plugins that users have purchased. Imagine bouncing to disk and then firing up the 32 bit version of Win7 and processing the effects and then firing up the 64 bit version of PT and Win7 and doing the mixdown. And now with PT10 and 32 bit floating processing and wider head room.... shaking head. I'm just a home user (writing midi songs... wish they had more upgrades in this area,grins)... I would be scared if I were a professional sound engineer or a manager of a studio.
But then again if this were your way of making a living I suppose you'd gladly pay the upgrade prices for PT10 HDX 2 or 3 card system, and have a different computer for each version (to cover clients different versions). I imagine a computer with PT7.2, one with PT8.4, PT9.3 and PT10. Not too much to maintain I imagine. But what an expense for 3rd party plugins.

I know Waves is onboard for the new version of PT plugins AAX, which will replace TDM/RTAS.

Well, it is an exciting ride, laughs.

Chuck

[Dism]

Originally Posted by dreamslide720

another point we are failing to realize is, pt10 session cnat work in older version of pt. . . whos idea was that?

Just like a PT7 session won't work in PT6... All you have to do is save the session as a .ptf when you do a save. Just like in previous versions, you have to enforce backwards compatibility if you need it. No big deal.

[matthias.matthias]

Originally Posted by cboyer1951

Basically we're paying them to do incremental upgrades along the path to the 64 bit version.

I kind of agree. For what's on offer I find the upgrade price way to high.

There certainly are some really exciting new features in Pro Tools 10. Some of them have been on my personal wishlist for a while. Albeit they are only "new" as in "new to Pro Tools", since a lot of the stuff has been around for years in other DAWs. I don't see that as a problem in itself though, why not adapt good ideas. It just seems it is taking a bit long.

I was really hoping for 64-bit in Pro Tools 10 (since I use a lot of VIs), they can't wait forever so I expect the next "big" upgrade in about a year again.

[Philthy]

Originally Posted by raqcoon

The FAQ says it all.
http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/self...p?DocId=419131

Avid is trying to be fair to their top-notch patrons who have invested tens of thousands of u.s. dollars and will be able to squeeze one more year out of their TDM systems. Ditto with Mbox 2 and others, although that's not as much dough. And it seems like RTAS could be flying out the door, too.

Publicizing their game plan is a lot better than abruptly dropping the ball, like Apple did with FCPX (hopefully Tim Cook will open up more on Apple's intent).

Conversely, it'll be hard to avoid buying PT10 depending on operating system, especially Lion. A few more crucial revisions of Lion might not run PT9 anymore.

I don't know what kind of facilities you guys have, but in my small market music studio, my clients' concern over what operating system I'm running is right up there with the brand of toilet paper in the bathroom. My philosophy is buy a stable legacy ProTools system cheap and run it into the ground, until the next stable legacy systems are available. So I'm running an HD2 with PT 7.4 on a dual 2.0 G5, and will never waste an instant or a dollar on "upgrading" the software. Every 5 years or so Digi gets it right with a stable version of ProTools. Before 7.4 it was 5.1.3. In between it's just a lot of wasted time and effort for the end user. I figure I should be able to pick up a new system with the new cards in around 2014, for about half the price they will ask out of the gate. There should be a stable 64-bit version of PT around by then. Upgrading before then, for my kind of business, is all loss and no gain. None of my clients care, at all. Instead of blowing $1000 on some incremental nonsense I think I'll stick an accel card in there... way more fun and way more bang for the buck, now that they're like $400. Ahhh, my gratitude to all you folks that pay full price so I can pick it up for a fraction later on...

[cboyer1951]

...actually Philthy... that is about the standard procedure I would think any shop for money would take in their view of their bread winner, money making business tool.

What you're missing in PT10 is probably having more than one instance of audio suite up at once, and the clip based gain features.

... and those you will pick up when you purchase PT12 or so..
Only things you're missing from PT8 and 9 are mostly midi and hardware upgrades, aren't they? Mostly those were upgrades of things for non HD users.

I would think that I'd go the same route as you if I were making money at my studio using Pro Tools. Good to hear it.

Chuck