Should I update? PT 11 vs 2020

[Mr. Kelly]

Hi all…

I have been using ProTools for nearly 20 years. Historically, I drag my feet in regards to updating. I was on PT 5 for probably the first 10 years, Then PT 10/11 for the rest.

I live on a shoestring budget, and I use PT mostly for home-based production... solo artists, small bands, live recording set ups, etc. So, my needs are not sophisticated.

I have the opportunity to update to PT 2020. I am weighing the options as to whether I should do this now, considering if I don’t, I may be out of money and not be able to do it in the near future.

My computer is aging, but it was top-notch when I built it probably 10 years ago. I have updated the ram, solid-state drives, and a slightly newer video card.

What are the main reasons that I would want to update at this time? What features or functionality might I benefit from?

I also get the impression that PT plays nicely with many more computers nowadays. Last time I updated, it still required very specific components for the thing to work properly. How is compatibility these days? Should I expect it to work on my aging system?

Any thoughts that you have, or info you can provide, would be extremely appreciated!

Thank you!

[Obsidian Dragon]

We'd love to answer your question but you haven't provided us much information on your system other than that it is about 10 years old. With so little information, we can only assume that it might not be suitable for the latest OS and Protools version, hence not worthwhile to upgrade to a newer version or protools. It sounds like your needs for protools are modest and the existing system is working for you. Therefore, unless you have a need for a new feature that does not exist in you version of protools, you should stay put. It would make sense to plan your upgrade along with a computer upgrade to reap the maximum benefit, otherwise you may experience frustration when things don't work as desired. Your budget can dictate when you should upgrade.

[Mr. Kelly]

Ok... I’ll go further...

I am presuming that needing to know more specifics about my computer indicates that ProTools 2020 isn’t any better at playing nice with different configurations. No?

Here are some specs:

W10 64
Gigabyte GAX58a udr3r Motherboard
Intel i7-930 Bloomfield Q4 2.8 GHz LGA 1366
OCZ DDR3 PC3- 12800 10GB
Corsair RM 650X 650W power supply
Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD OS drive

I am thinking that this computer should still have enough horsepower to drive basic basic ProTools sessions. It does with PT 10/11. PT 10 was pretty much flawless. PT 11 has a couple of quirks that are considerably undesirable. Hoping an update might resolve this.

I find no easy way to determine what new features have been developed since PT 11 that may be worthy of consideration.

Thoughts?

[sw rec]

10gb of ram isn’t enough, Avid’s recommended minimum is 16gb.
Having jumped from 12.4 to 2020.3, (I’m never in a hurry to upgrade either!) I have a few disappointments with this latest incarnation. Some people have gotten the video engine to work, but a lot of us have had zero success with it. If you never spot audio to video it’s a non-issue, but I’m running a 10.3.8 co-install for that particular function.
I tried 2020.9 and had the “more than 100 plugins” error, and didn’t have time or inclination to screw with it anymore, so I reverted to 2020.3 which still pretty much worked.
New features are all well and good, but there’s not a single thing I can do with 2020 that I couldn’t do with 12.4, and I have considered more than once reverting to it, because everything that I needed it to do, worked, and worked every time. And don’t get me started on Avid’s lousy excuse for tech support. Your results may vary, but if it’s working, why screw with it? Unless you really really need all the new features.

[Darryl Ramm]

PT 11 has a couple of quirks that are considerably undesirable. Hoping an update might resolve this.

And how do we guess what those "quirks" were and if they are resolved?

I suspect if you have to ask if you should upgrade, you don't need to.

But I hear you on the problem of trying to find out what's changed. I've suggested to Avid in the past that having a running list of changes in Pro Tools would be useful for folks. The best there is is here, https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/faq/en393795 the details in the list is getting better but still more would be better.

Useful changes for _me_ in Pro Tools since 11 have been.

The "HD" features set added to Pro Tools standard in 12.x
- Track input monitoring (finally!)
- Disk Cache
- VCA Groups

2019.5 Improvements in AAX Processing
2019.5 "Continuous playback" (for cough, maybe when system is stable enough to do that)
2020.3 Folder tracks

I'm sure there are others I'm missing but overall it's not been a great lot of feature improvements over the last half decade or so. I suspect not enough to stem the bleed of people slowly moving off Pro Tools.

But understand if you upgrade to 2020 you are realistically going to need to get on the treadmill of paying annual upgrade fees. Or moving to a subscription. Do not upgrade or crossgrade without understanding those implications.

[Obsidian Dragon]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

But understand if you upgrade to 2020 you are realistically going to need to get on the treadmill of paying annual upgrade fees. Or moving to a subscription. Do not upgrade or crossgrade without understanding those implications.

These are big considerations if you upgrade:
1) Annual upgrade fees (each and every year)
or
2) monthly subscription costs (each and every month)


These costs did not exist back in the days of PT10/11. You only paid for major upgrades when they came out if you wanted. On the new annual payment plan, if you decide you want to stop or skip a year, there is a higher reinstatement fee to get back on the program. If you stop on the subscription plan, you no longer have a perpetual license and can not use protools altogether as the license will expire.

[Mr. Kelly]

Thanks for the input, everyone…

I think the main reason that I am considering upgrading is to be more current with my plug-in updates. I have predominantly Waves plug-ins, and they haven’t been updated for a handful of years. Almost the same kind of situation. Although... If it ain’t broke why would I fix it…??

I have cash right now, but probably will not in the not too distant future. If I was going to update stuff, it will probably have to be now.

My motherboard can go as high as 24 GB of memory, so I can move closer in that area.

As far as the quirks of my PT 11… There is a lag upon hitting record, Maybe 3 to 5 seconds, which there wasn’t with PT 10… And the whole system stalls for about five seconds when I am editing, probably about every 4 or 5 minutes. It’s not the end of the world, but it slows down workflow and is quite annoying.

[Darryl Ramm]

Do you have a floppy drive in your system? Or does windows think you have even if you don't.... remove/disable in the BIOS. This was a well known issue causing frequent pauses on Windows.

[huzzam]

Originally Posted by sw rec

New features are all well and good, but there’s not a single thing I can do with 2020 that I couldn’t do with 12.4, and I have considered more than once reverting to it....

IMO 12.4 / 12.5.1 was the sweet spot of "recent" versions, and since then little of significant value has happened. Except Dark Mode, of course ;p

[ejinbc]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kelly

Any thoughts that you have, or info you can provide, would be extremely appreciated!

Thank you!

Mr K.

Well you asked. IMHO:

1) You will find most joy from a faster computer. You don't have to spend much, but your 930 is very slow by todays standards. The CPU Mark for an new i5 system is 10X your older system - CPU mark is a 'reasonable' surrogate for DAW performance.

2) The only major updates that have significantly impacted my workflow are the non real time export and the Commit function. Both are very useful and save significant time. Other than that, not so much in the truly useful category - though some other updates are nice to have (just nothing from 2020).

3) If you audio interface is also 10 years old that might be a great place to update. Converter performance on even low end models is pretty good now.

4) I would not worry too much about plugins. I do believe that all AAX Waves plugins will run on a Win 10 machine with PT 11. If not, you can find other vendors that likely will.

5) I would wait until the M1 thing settles down for Avid. I expect most of their development resources for the next year will be focused on getting an optimized M1 version out the door. Not so much new stuff for Win 10 people.

YMMV

ejinbc

PS

I agree with others we need a running list of new features. I made one for 2020 and was not so impressed.