Is Pro Tools behind the curve?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Sonopolis

Anyone remembers QuarkXPress?

Yes I do. Thanks for asking I co-lead the team that wrote the Adobe InDesign high level go to market/business plan, and helped on the pre-launch. Lots of other folks did all the hard work to launch the product and grow it over time (I left to help get VMware started). A good analogy about how industry leaders fall. I spent a lot of time with large prospects... where we deliberately decided to focus to disrupt the industry at the high-end around magazine publishers, but the idea to do that was already clear in the core product team that traced back to Aldus. In the case of Quark Express I cannot emphasize enough how many of their customers hated how they were treated and how, especially in Europe, Quark customers perceived they were being price gouged (and forced to use hardware license dongles) and how lack of roadmap and assurances on things worried quark customers. That was especially true over concerns about things like localization and dictionary packs for smaller countries (and price gouging on them or threatening users they may not be supported in future) to the looming threat of what happens if Steve Jobs does not turn around Apple and publishers need to switch to PCs.... and what commitments we could give about ongoing PC and Mac parity. Amaziingly we went and talked to users, and promised them what they wanted, and then delivered, with an amazing technical team... but that did take Time. But in the end was actually successful faster than I had expected.

I expect Quark may be an analogy for Avid. Not totally fair, but still good points there.

[Bob Olhsson]

There is one big difference between Avid and other developers.

Avid's steadiest customers are teams of users as opposed to individuals. They use a wide variety of computers with different versions of Media Composer and Pro Tools. Backward/forward compatibility is a big deal because most of the projects being worked on cost far more than any audio or video software.

[saptezsapte]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

And Nokia isn’t dead, just made a SMART move selling off the mobile section to Microsoft and made billions so they could streamline a bit!

Of course Nokia is not dead as a company, but they became irrelevant in smartphone market. I will have all my updates until 2026 for PT, I hope they will change something in 6 years.

[fourthtunz]

Originally Posted by DontLetMeDrown

Yea PT is behind the curve but it still does some things the best like grouping and quickpunch.

That said, reading the sentence, “I've personally been using PT for over 18 years now and learning something new just wouldn't make sense“, makes me want to puke. I think we should all have the attitude that learning something new always makes sense. Artists, musicians, and producers have a constant need to always be learning new skills and techniques, so why not invest the time to learn a backup DAW? It will expand your skillset and it may even save you if you run into a show stopping problem with Pro Tools. With so many free and paid tutorials available online, there really is no excuse.

I guess it would depend how busy you are and what you're not getting in protools.
Once you've learned a daw it allows you to focus on the music and not the interface, kinda like a tape machine.
I think I've used protools since '92 or so but I also have Logic and Ableton but even with groove tutorials and youtube its still a lot of work.
If I were still recording bands every day I would not have time to learn a new DAW..just my .02.

[Bob Olhsson]

It really comes down to if a feature is worth the effort to learn a new DAW. I learned Sound Tools to do digital mastering. I learned Pro Tools to do post production. I learned Samplitude to do mastering on a PC while still recording and mixing music with Pro Tools. Each DAW has its own unique features and limitations. Since every project I work on is more expensive than any DAW, I take the ability to open older projects very seriously.

[JFreak]

Of course total recall is not possible without Waves DSP so need to maintain decade old backup systems, but if you mean plugins disabled then PT is very backwards compatible.

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Since every project I work on is more expensive than any DAW, I take the ability to open older projects very seriously.

Same here.

[Bob Olhsson]

Waves native plugs work just fine on old TDM sessions.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Waves native plugs work just fine on old TDM sessions.

Unless you have on principle stopped paying WUP after they broke their promise, which is my case. DigiDesign/Avid DSP is a major platform, of which they promised to support since I dont even remember how long ago.

But let's not go there again, have ranted about this in so many threads already.

Also have promised to re-WUP as son as Avid DSP is supported again.

[Bob Olhsson]

That's your choice. I dumped Apple behind them orphaning SCSI and NuBus. I've run into problems with VST and DX compatibility where there simply isn't any short of maintaining an old computer.