Are newer versions of Pro Tools OK on Windows?

[whosmatt]

I realize that's kind of an ambiguous title. So, here's a quick summary:

Started with PT on OS 9 w/ 5.1. Owned a Mix3 rig, worked professionally in engineering / mixing for the first half of the 2000s, maybe until 2007 or so. Sold my Mix3 when M-Powered + Music Production Toolkit became available because I was mostly using it for Beat Detective, etc (stuff that became available with the MPTK). The studios I worked in all had HD rigs by that point.

I got out of the game over time, got tired of being a freelancer, and went back to work in IT.

Fast forward about 5 years, and a producer friend is enlisting me to edit tracks for him. Mostly drums w/ Beat Detective, vocal tuning, etc. I still own my M-Powered stuff... PT MP 7.4, Autotune 5, MPTK, basically the stuff that I need to make real editing happen. I no longer own a Mac, and even if I did, 7.4 won't work in a "modern" Mac OS. So, I'm running on Windows Vista 32 bit. And I hate it. I mean, Pro Tools works fine, but its window management leaves a lot to be desired. Working on multiple monitors [edit: displays, not audio monitors] is quite a pain, and I'm limited to about 3GB of my 8GB of RAM on my workstation.

Luckily the tracks I'm getting are created in PT 9, so compatibility isn't a problem, and I can still work with sample rates up to 96k.

I've tried the Hackintosh route, and am mostly successful there, but iLok problems prevent me from running Autotune in Mac OS 10.5, the rest of my software works ok but I have to authorize it every time I run it, which is kind of a pain. So....

If I am to upgrade to a newer version, what are my options at this point? I see that I can buy PT 11 but I'm wondering if I can exercise downgrade rights to run an earlier version, say 9. I'd love just to have a version that works, can run in 64 bit Windows 7, and has proper multiple monitor support in Windows. I can also go the Hackintosh route with a newer version, but my only reason for trying that in the first place was to get back what I lost by moving to Windows.. I don't really care for Mac OS.

Sorry for a rambling post, I've been staring at Beat Detective markers all day and am kind of in a daze.

-M

[ron_from_RIFAS]

I was in the same position you're in about a year ago. I had M-Powered with a ProjectMix on Windows 7. I dumped the ProjectMix and it's was a downward spiral from there.

Windows and Pro Tools with ASIO are a mess. Instability, and the inability to change the audio buffers without restarting PT. Huh?

I went through 6 different interfaces before I found the Focusrite Saffire series. Those work for my system (3.0 Quad Core Dell XPS 630). 4 different MOTU units, Roland, Focusrite firewire... All totally unstable.

I haven't found to many others that have had my issues, but that's the thing. You don't know what's going to work for you.

I tried out the Roland OctaCapure on my wife's iMac and it was flawless.

I'm a Windows user. I always have been, but my taste for PT has soured over the last year. While all of my other software works with any interface, PT has been a pain in the ASS.

Currently I'm running Windows 8, PT10.3.6 with a Focsurite 18i20 (great unit) and a 18i8 (portable but not buss powered). This combination is giving me the best performance I've ever had.

But the headaches in getting this far...

[whosmatt]

Thanks for the input. I'll see if I can't untangle the feature and compatibility matrix and figure out what it'll really cost me, and what other software I'll need to upgrade as well.