[cmbourget]

I arrive at the day of renewal. Until last year I was able to renew my perpetual license (vanilla) for $ 130 CAD. Even if Avid pushed all of its information to customers to add a completely unnecessary support plan (in my case), or turn perpetual license into annual subscription (promotional hypocrisy), I managed to figure out how to simply renew my license, which is just normal. I am paying for the upgrade or renewal from version 8, even though I bought a perpetual license.

But this year, it's impossible. Avid doubled its price by forcing the acquisition of the plan, with no way out: CAD $ 260. 2019 saw the arrival of a beautiful thing for me, track records, but overall Pro Tools is definitely not worth that annual cost. I just renewed Cubase (version 10.5 to 11) for $ 150 CAD. It's a bit expensive but we are in a reasonable area. In addition, the novelties are important and diverse, within the framework of a software which is generally much richer and broader in functionality.

I was planning on renewing Pro Tools for some great and unique features, in addition to an interface that I love. But obstacles are there. One, Avid's customer philosophy, which is too heavily mercantile and not very honest in its expression and logic. Two, the well-known slowness of its development (just think of ARA for Melodyne, then of the integration of Console 1 from Softube). Three, the new madness to massacre one of the strong elements of its commercial offer, its interface. The failed switch to dark mode, moreover with a completely ugly new promotional look (which is less important, we agree), gives worrying clues for the future. Instead of attacking to join its competitors on crucial elements, Avid imposes on its software superficial transformations which, moreover, are badly screwed up and worthy of the nights of interior voyage of a lonely graphic designer on the barbiturates.

For these reasons, despite a strong relationship with Pro Tools (but sometimes tumultuous, it is true, over the years), Avid has managed to discourage me from continuing with its flagship. When you consider that a large part of the composers also move from Sibelius to Dorico, which is my case, the picture does not improve. Yet I would have liked Avid to follow the train ...

So, no renewal. We stay at 2020.11.