New Licensing

[Righty27]

Originally Posted by noiseboyuk

Again, I conclude that all that would be required is to publicly drop the idea that once subscription is lapsed, it can't be rejoined. I say "all" - that condition is a huge, huge deal and Avid know it. But people are savvy enough to know that - the extortion simply won't work. While the short term deal for PT8-10 is good, there clearly needs to be a lot more more carrots and fewer sticks long term for everyone.

Such a huge deal that it will make the difference between buying in to the whole concept or abandoning Pro Tools for many users by the sound of it. Avid's mishandling of this announcement and the increased distrust attributable to this, would need them to announce not only that lapsed plans can be upgraded without penalty but that perpetual licences will always be upgradable without penalty ... just to get trust back to where it was before all of this! And that's even more unlikely than Avid turning this around into something it's customers approve of.

[Bob Olhsson]

When you are recording 80 tracks at the same time, just use Reaper! The .wav files will all be the same length and you can import them into Pro Tools in seconds for overdubs, fixes and mixing.

For reasons of both public corporation securities laws and competition, it doesn't make sense for Avid to reveal "all" until they actually have it for sale. As it is, they are being far more transparent than Apple.

Beginners are well served by a license subscription. Media Composer subscriptions are $49 a month for a yearly contract or $1299 for a perpetual license with $299 a year after the first for a support contract. Registered students only pay $9.99 a month! They can also buy it for $295 with $99 a year for support after the first year.

Is this really such a horror story?

[RyanC]

Where a lot of the debate here seems to be centered around the legit-businesses (as in proper zoning, tax rate, insurance, fire codes etc) vs the DIY-at-home-maverick types I think honestly that a subscription like this should be the least of the worries for the do it at home crowd.

My wife and I have been shopping for a live/work property and doing all the research that that involves, and one thing that has been made abundantly clear is that cities/counties are struggling with the sheer volume of people running illegitimate "home-businesses" (in all industries). The tech boom and the internet have opened a lot of "work from home" type situations and while cities/counties are slow to adjust they are making adjustments. 3 different zoning people proudly told me that they are shutting down more illegitimate operations than ever. And residential communities are growing increasingly weary WRT to noise ordinances and parking problems. Ultimately because commercial properties carry a higher tax rate, it seems inevitable that cities/counties do start to crack down on what represents a loss of revenue for them.

I'm not trying to take sides, but I do think that a lot of people have been a bit spoiled by a infrastructure that has inadvertently favored work-from-home situations in our industry and my take is that this is existing in a relatively narrow window here before new rules are written to adjust for it.

It's all somewhat relevant to the subscription and the future of Avid to me because it looks like they are doubling down on the market of those who are legit, and my guess is that as the belt tightens for the at-home crowd, fewer and fewer will be standing inline to buy. If Avid devalues their product now to allow more at-homers in, it could be very risky for them when/as that belt tightens. It would very hard for them to justify a raise in prices later.

[CME]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

When you are recording 80 tracks at the same time, just use Reaper! The .wav files will all be the same length and you can import them into Pro Tools in seconds for overdubs, fixes and mixing.

For reasons of both public corporation securities laws and competition, it doesn't make sense for Avid to reveal "all" until they actually have it for sale. As it is, they are being far more transparent than Apple.

Beginners are well served by a license subscription. Media Composer subscriptions are $49 a month for a yearly contract or $1299 for a perpetual license with $299 a year after the first for a support contract. Registered students only pay $9.99 a month! They can also buy it for $295 with $99 a year for support after the first year.

Is this really such a horror story?

I'm not against subscriptions if done right. And $199 a year isn't bad, but if it's still crippled, I don't see the point.

And have you ever imported 40+ tracks of 90+ minute audio. There's no quick to it. Even with my 6-core Mac Pro I used to have. Seconds??!? Not for me. 10-15 mins minimum. Yes it's doable but a definite work around.

[rainsong]

If post/high end is Avid's niche, I get the need to focus on that.

But the fact remains that the $199/yr "vanilla" product is crippled below what the competition offers at that price. And that's gonna continue the trend that's already been noted here of kids learning to record/engineer/produce using something more powerful and affordable than PTV. Eventually, that has to lead to less studios feeling they *need* to have PT...because they won't.

[ronwasserman]

Originally Posted by rainsong

If post/high end is Avid's niche, I get the need to focus on that.

But the fact remains that the $199/yr "vanilla" product is crippled below what the competition offers at that price. And that's gonna continue the trend that's already been noted here of kids learning to record/engineer/produce using something more powerful and affordable than PTV. Eventually, that has to lead to less studios feeling they *need* to have PT...because they won't.

Well put. This is exactly where things could head down the road in 10-15 years IF and I mean IF another DAW tries to compete with Avid in the high end market which will be a very hard sell to the studios. (In my case Warner Brothers, Larson, Sony etc.) - This is also why Avid will not require computers be online OR that each system renew a subscription yearly for the software to work...imho.

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by rainsong

If post/high end is Avid's niche, I get the need to focus on that.

But the fact remains that the $199/yr "vanilla" product is crippled below what the competition offers at that price. And that's gonna continue the trend that's already been noted here of kids learning to record/engineer/produce using something more powerful and affordable than PTV. Eventually, that has to lead to less studios feeling they *need* to have PT...because they won't.

Or it just means the kids will have to learn PT when they are ready to get into the workplace. Or more likely if they are coming from some sort of school that told them that PT skills don't matter in the workplace they will go leave a nasty review of that school online somewhere.

If someone becomes truly good at ableton or logic and is good at mixing and understands all the tools and concepts in there, learning the PT interface to a decent standard is not going to be a very big obstacle.

Besides Ableton is cripple-ware too. Everyone basically has to have suite if you want to send and share projects. Ableton in 9 versions in 12 years and some paid .5 versions is not a very good example of a low price DAW. Logic is the only one that is realistically too cheap...nobody but apple could make that work.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Registered students only pay $9.99 a month! They can also buy it for $295 with $99 a year for support after the first year.

Is this really such a horror story?

I would enroll just for this- in HD school

[propower]

To me UAD is the company that is doing it right! The MONEY is in Hardware !!!! Do you hear -- Hardware!!!! Not only are the margins there but then you lock people into your software -- now you have them! Why on earth do you think Apple gives so much software away for FREE! UAD has Great plug ins and the only way to use them is their hardware - which you can have for a very functional starting price of $699 all the way up to 32 inputs and tons of plug ins. Guaranteed low latency tracking for all!

AVID could have so easily done this!
- Redo the OMNI as an 8x8 with 8 more digital i/o and include just enough dsp for mixer and monitoring plugins - call it a 004 - Sell for $2000 (even $2500!)
- Repackage HDX cards into thunderbolt (USB3 too?? ethernet, AVB??) boxes with options of 1/2 the dsp of cards or same dsp as cards - Sell for $2000, $3500... (scalable dsp! and easy - development is super minimal)
- Keep making HDX cards.
- Re purpose OMNI as monitor controller - lower to realistic price - $1500?
- Sell all components individually for true market value (eg 16X16 = $2500 etc)
- Sell PT HD software $1500 (15 copies sold for more than this on ebay this month - So much money just left on the table !!!! - all profit too!!!!!!! and this was a SLOW month)
- Let PT vanilla live as works with others - ($299? $199?? but keep running hardware specials to hook them on your dsp solutions!)
- Come up with an Apollo twin killer with minimal dsp - forget MBOX - -
- Kill off MBOX line unless one of them is really popular.

ProTools - dsp for all - go head to head against Apollo etc... Should have done this years ago...
ProTools still has the UNIQUE position of (IMO) the best DAW and fully integrated dsp. That's why the pros are still using it! Capitalize on it.
What if UAD came up with a killer DAW and had all their dsp fully integrated??

Or not

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

So why should we worry about Avid's financial health? The people most likely to buy Avid are companies like http://www.imaginecommunications.com/ , http://www.gatesair.com/Home.aspx , http://www.grassvalley.com/ , Harman and Sony.

May the deities help us all if Sony ever gets a hold of PT. They are poor on updating and fixing things broken in their software. Acid has become abandonware, so has CD Architect. SF in both the PC and Mac platforms aren't far behind either. Sony has their own money issues to deal with and another piece of software isn't going to help that any. Sony's best hardware is the division that does stereo equipment and TV. Pro audio? Don't make me laugh.

PS: Bob - I fixed your hyperlinks as Imagine Communications wasn't going to the right place