PT 11 HDX upgrade Too Expensive right now

[Avgerinos]

Greetings fellow audio pros,

I've been running a pro studio for 28 years now Studio Unicorn
with a great HD3 excel system and a HUGE plug in arsenal .
Looking at around $15,000 to have ALMOST everything I have right now crossgrading to PT 11 HDX.

Can I charge more - No Way . Already at the top rate in CT.
Have any clients mentioned any of this - No Way -

Hard to justify from a business point of view.
If it comes to 8-$10,000 in a few years, maybe then it MIGHT make sense.
Early adopters always pay TOP dollar and suffer all the bugs and glitches.

All the technical improvements are completely INCREMENTAL so I consider this a Crossgrade, not an upgrade,
and 15K for a Crossgrade is real rich.
Its not going to make you a better musician, composer or producer.

It reminds of the time when we went from Mix 24 to HD.
Very painful for a lot of folks . . .

How do you other professionals feel about this ?

Paul Avgerinos
Studio Unicorn / Round Sky Music
Redding, CT

[Philthy]

Hi Paul, we're right around the corner from you in Manchester, CT. Still running an HD system with PT 7.4. When we get around to upgrading I think it will be to v10 with a hackintosh. There is nothing compelling about HDX for a small music studio in this market. And you are right; the clients don't care. If I bothered to ask them, I bet 100% would prefer we keep our prices lower rather than upgrade our DAW for $5 figures.

[Avgerinos]

Hi Phil,

Sounds wise to me. A major focus of mine these days is doing background music for TV around the world and they certainly won't pay a penny above their current miserly rates, in fact, they are always looking for ways to pay us less !

Cheers

[Emcha_audio]

Just out of curiosity really, what is it beside the card that you need to upgrade? Considering that you would only need 1 card to equal and surpase in some cases the hd3 system that you have now, and that you can use the blue interfaces you already have (as long as they are blue interfaces), most of the plugin vendors have made the upgrade as very low price if not free for the plugins.

[Bookerv12]

Hi,

We ended up getting a lot of sessions sent done in 10 and 11.
While the HD4 setup was really fine, there started to be a lot of annoyances.

We still run a dedicated TDM system, PT7.3 on whatever G4 or G5 hasn't broken down.

Having said that, we also "upgraded" to a PT 10 and 11 setup using HD Native.
It has a lot more power than the TDM and was not too terribly expensive.
It's worth a look.
The switch to AAX and all is kind of inevitable.

If you don't really need to, I wouldn't worry too much about upgrading in the near future.

[Avgerinos]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Just out of curiosity really, what is it beside the card that you need to upgrade? Considering that you would only need 1 card to equal and surpass in some cases the hd3 system that you have now, and that you can use the blue interfaces you already have (as long as they are blue interfaces), most of the plugin vendors have made the upgrade as very low price if not free for the plugins.

Actually, I would need to upgrade the Mac Pro and Ram, ( $4,000 ) the disk drive system which is now outside of the mac pro ( $1,000 ) , one of the analog interfaces to get the improved conversion fidelity ( $8,000 with the trade in ) , the Magma chassis ( $1,000 ) , all the plug ins ( $1,000 ) which leads to this -
I use a TON of Waves TDM. There is no and will not be any Waves AAX / DSP because as Waves told me directly, it would take one programer 50 years to re-write all the code for all the waves plugs. This is 50 programers working for a year - at least $3,000,000 of cost . If I were Waves, I would say NO as well .
So, that leaves me running TONS of waves native and all your great native power used up and with me no better off than I am now - for $15,000 ? ? ?

Waves has a AAX DSP Hardware / software solution coming in about 3 months but it will cost close to $3,000 . So now I am up to $18,000 for a CROSSGRADE !

No thanks .

[Avgerinos]

Originally Posted by Bookerv12

Hi,

We ended up getting a lot of sessions sent done in 10 and 11.
While the HD4 setup was really fine, there started to be a lot of annoyances.

We still run a dedicated TDM system, PT7.3 on whatever G4 or G5 hasn't broken down.

Having said that, we also "upgraded" to a PT 10 and 11 setup using HD Native.
It has a lot more power than the TDM and was not too terribly expensive.
It's worth a look.
The switch to AAX and all is kind of inevitable.

If you don't really need to, I wouldn't worry too much about upgrading in the near future.

Yes, I agree - AAX may be inevitable, but it is wiser to wait until prices and solutions settle down and the smoke and mirrors clears up

[guitardom]

Originally Posted by Avgerinos

Yes, I agree - AAX may be inevitable, but it is wiser to wait until prices and solutions settle down and the smoke and mirrors clears up

I know this don't help and won't change much but I must say that plugin prices and deals have been the lowest I have ever seen in my 15 years of running Pro Tools "professionally". The sales and discounts have been hard to resist for things that I have wanted but don't necessarily need. It's been crazy this last year or so.

[Avgerinos]

Originally Posted by guitardom

I know this don't help and won't change much but I must say that plugin prices and deals have been the lowest I have ever seen in my 15 years of running Pro Tools "professionally". The sales and discounts have been hard to resist for things that I have wanted but don't necessarily need. It's been crazy this last year or so.

Yes, I have noticed this as well . We appear to have reached a market saturation point where price must fall to entice new buyers. After you have 27 different plug in compressors, a new plug has to be pretty darn appealing to buy #28

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Avgerinos

Actually, I would need to upgrade the Mac Pro and Ram, ( $4,000 ) the disk drive system which is now outside of the mac pro ( $1,000 ) , one of the analog interfaces to get the improved conversion fidelity ( $8,000 with the trade in ) , the Magma chassis ( $1,000 ) , all the plug ins ( $1,000 ) which leads to this -
I use a TON of Waves TDM. There is no and will not be any Waves AAX / DSP because as Waves told me directly, it would take one programer 50 years to re-write all the code for all the waves plugs. This is 50 programers working for a year - at least $3,000,000 of cost . If I were Waves, I would say NO as well .
So, that leaves me running TONS of waves native and all your great native power used up and with me no better off than I am now - for $15,000 ? ? ?

Waves has a AAX DSP Hardware / software solution coming in about 3 months but it will cost close to $3,000 . So now I am up to $18,000 for a CROSSGRADE !

No thanks .

If you went the hack route your upgrading cost would go down significantly for the pc.

Yes we've heard the x many years line, but the numbers vary from people you talk to at waves, some have even went down to 24 man years, and others up to 70 man years. At this moment we may well see waves changes their mind, since from the contacts I have, their digigrid system is not really gaining traction and it's not even out almost 2 years after it was revealed. The longer it takes, the more money and market segment they lose, so they surely will have a decision to make very soon. And I haven't heard any release date either from my contacts. There's also the option of trying new plugins from other vendors. With 130+ aax dsp plugs available now I'm sure you can find things that might even be better than what you have. This would be the time to try them out, while you keep a secondary system for archiving and compatibility sake until you decide what to do. But again, it's dependent on your needs and more importantly you wants. Being able to do more than you can do now, in term of processing, speed and overall capabilities (think no more memory restrictions for VI's) would be appreciated by your clients even if it meant you raise your price by 2 or 3 dollars an hour if you're ready to place the recoup period on a longer time frame. But that's your decision