Trust In Avid’s PT12 Technology

[Sam Bell 9]

Since the arrival of PT12 in 2015, Avid has done almost nothing that instills my faith in their ability to lead the revolution in audio technology.

Just a few years ago, there were great signs of progress. A new 64bit engine, a new plug-in format, Eleven Rack, HD hardware updates, Thunderbolt inclusions and even pro plug-ins. When the S6 line was announce, there was a glimmer of hope.

But then it all started to fall away since the announced release of PT12:

if you put the word “Technologies” in your company name, you would think that would be a priority. While Ideascale was full of feature requests, any number of which could have pushed Avid towards the pointy end of the stick, the major change in the PT12 release is a change to I/O configuration. Useful, but merely a utility upgrade. There has been a rash of copy/paste recently to duplicate features from PT12HD into PT12, but again no new features. The iPad app is just playing catchup with others. And for sake of argument, lets just say that anything “coming soon” is vaporware until released.

There are also a few issues that impact the perception of Avid as a technology leader when it’s own business management skills are in question. There’s the poor licensing management with the release of PT12. The only 2 stickies on the Pro Tools 12 Discussion Forum are “Where is my … upgrade”. Having to stagger customer releases and upgrade/updates over weeks does not indicate an adequate or stable infrastructure. Marketing and Communication since PT12 seems very haphazard. Are they on their 3rd or 4th version of PT12/PT12HD pricing? It’s difficult to keep track.

Many if these issues have been covered in detail in other threads here, but putting them all together reveals a surprising thought. If they can’t manage their customer licensing, marketing and update rollouts without constantly dropping the ball, how are we supposed to trust them with Cloud based anything?

[longname]

I dont trust this company (such a rip off company). I still have not paid a dime yet. I only pay if I see avid does more than talk.

[john1192]

the one good thing that Should come out of this is .. Avid is facing up to their customers .. they are changing upgrade plans after people stood up and said no .. they just need to fix the HD plans a little more and they will be good ..

now as far as technology .. Pro Tools has always been behind in features but they do catch up .. Avid / Digi has always been the slowest to make a computer hit the compatibility list .. either they ARE testing extensively or they have one person with the Top 4 Macs and a couple HP workstation PC's testing ..

would be nice to see the dept that is handling all this represented other than just the Team Leader .. maybe Tim can show us the behind the Scenes of Avid working for US .. the Customers .. maybe

just a couple cents

[@tention]

It's really in our hands.

If you are a PTHD customer at this moment I believe it's a wise move not to subscribe to their support plan and just stick with 11 HD.

By lowering the price of next year's subscription they almost admitted that.

If they manage to come up with stuff that seems relevant to you, you can still upgrade in 2016 and pay the same unbelievable $1000 dollars. If you are even more clever you can take the money and upgrade to Nuendo 7 now. This platform has been alive and kicking for years with active development and very competitive prices.

I'm through with AVID. They screwed my over once too often.

[jesele]

This comment from Dean Richard at PT expert is very true I think. Same thing with Sibelius. Nothing new since they outsourced 3 years ago.

"I think I understand what is happening at Avid. To me, it appears to be the result of a horrible, failed decision to outsource the development team for PT. The reason there is nothing new in PT is that software is not moving forward. With a typical corporate arrogance and ignorance, Avid failed to understand the value of the engineers who understand and can build a complex, powerful product like PT. It requires very specialized skills, and very talented people. You can't simply ship it off to a foreign consulting firm hiring cheap college graduates, and expect results. They don't understand the software, and it takes a long time before they do. Rumors are the outsourcing effort failed so badly that they are now moving development yet again, this time from the Ukraine to Poland. If true, expect little from Avid for some time."

Hope Dean is ok with my quoting him.

Jesper

[noiseboyuk]

Originally Posted by jesele

This comment from Dean Richard at PT expert is very true I think. Same thing with Sibelius. Nothing new since they outsourced 3 years ago.

"I think I understand what is happening at Avid. To me, it appears to be the result of a horrible, failed decision to outsource the development team for PT. The reason there is nothing new in PT is that software is not moving forward. With a typical corporate arrogance and ignorance, Avid failed to understand the value of the engineers who understand and can build a complex, powerful product like PT. It requires very specialized skills, and very talented people. You can't simply ship it off to a foreign consulting firm hiring cheap college graduates, and expect results. They don't understand the software, and it takes a long time before they do. Rumors are the outsourcing effort failed so badly that they are now moving development yet again, this time from the Ukraine to Poland. If true, expect little from Avid for some time."

Hope Dean is ok with my quoting him.

Jesper

Blimey... if that's true it's a very very sad and serious state of affairs. 12.3 will be the acid test for me. If this source is right we can expect nothing more than more software rentals, but I sincerely hope it's just the rumour machine.

[jesele]

Regarding Sibelius I know it's true, they fired the whole dev team in london, 20 people, replacing with a few in the Ukraine and since then no real progress. Sibelius 8 is just like PT 12, small update without any real new stuff.


Jesper

afaik the team were 90 people before Avid bought Sibelius, so from 90 to 20 to begin with.

[@tention]

Originally Posted by jesele

Regarding Sibelius I know it's true, they fired the whole dev team in london, 20 people, replacing with a few in the Ukraine and since then no real progress. Sibelius 8 is just like PT 12, small update without any real new stuff.


Jesper

afaik the team were 90 people before Avid bought Sibelius, so from 90 to 20 to begin with.

The London Sibelius team are sailing under a new flag now. They're part of Steinberg (Yamaha).

[jesele]

Yes, and we will all switch to the new notation standard once it's finished, Avid will lose most of it's professional customers I think.

Can't wait.

Jesper

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by @tention

The London Sibelius team are sailing under a new flag now. They're part of Steinberg (Yamaha).

Yes and most ex-sib users are waiting for Steinberg's release