33 day countdown! Time to stick?

[Stephen Bond]

Originally Posted by ejinbc

10) And finally, how much would you hate not being able to come to this forum and complain about ProTools ?

I'd love to come out and sing their praises. I still love Pro Tools but the relationship has been tarnished in recent times and there's plenty of attractive options out there these days. I hope Avid sort themselves out and attract customers rather than alienating them.

Stephen

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

I purchased S1 just to give it a try, but "still" here I am.

+1, Tom. S1 has long attracted me with many of its easy drag and drop features, but I'm still 'here"! Maybe it's the long years of familiarity. Even if certain things aren't entirely up to scratch I'd much rather remain confidently in my comfort zone than wade into uncertain waters...

BTW, time flies! It seems only yesterday that you were 'hobotom'!

[noiseboyuk]

The sad thing is that for all I read about "voting with my wallet", this strategy of squeezing customers for very little reward is working for Avid - https://ir.avid.com/static-files/8aa...c-d28a949a2739

Operating Income Increased 214% Year-Over-Year from Improved Gross Margin and Significantly Reduced Operating Expenses

There it is in black and white - they do less, but get more cash. Don't see anything changing, sadly.

[Stephen Bond]

Maybe those are short-term gains? A good many people bought one or more years of updates before the price hike. It will be interesting to see the income figures after another year or two.

Stephen

[Tony Jung]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

I purchased S1 just to give it a try, but "still" here I am.

Same here. I bought S1 and spent some time with it but I keep going back to PT.

Once support ends for my perpetual licence in January 2021, I will not be updating my mac and staying with whatever version PT will have at that time for as many years as I can. Maybe in 5 years I'll see what improvements have been made and make a decision at that time whether to buy a new perpetual licence or not (if it's still available for PT Vanilla).

[::F-L-E-X::]

Stephen, thank you for reminding me to switch off auto-renew….

Whilst we may be in the middle of a pandemic, (which generally focuses the mind), the lack of any meaningful additions to PT in 2020.9 has sealed it for me.

Surely software development is one of the few jobs that can be performed remotely - as demonstrated by Avid’s distribution of coding to other parts of the world?

Been a long time Logic user myself (since V4), & always aspired to PT. Love PT’s old school, simple & ‘analogue’ approach, but Logic just keeps delivering with every (free) update.

Logic’s really not that complicated either… perhaps a little different to PT, but if you’re just starting out, there’s no contest between Logic & PT - which doesn’t bode well for Avid’s long term aspirations…

[GoButtonGuy]

Originally Posted by noiseboyuk

The sad thing is that for all I read about "voting with my wallet", this strategy of squeezing customers for very little reward is working for Avid - https://ir.avid.com/static-files/8aa...c-d28a949a2739



There it is in black and white - they do less, but get more cash. Don't see anything changing, sadly.

A lot of that is from the visual media tools as well. In both spaces Avid has a format/workflow lock that makes it more difficult for larger operators to transition. Plus the one person shops need to take projects from the larger shops. Outfits like the one on the Strip here have a couple hundred in audio worldwide. When we make a platform change we have not only a training cost (and sunk cost of the upgrade) but the opportunity cost of having the techs get up to speed on the new platform.

I don't think Avid is purposely relying on this it's just why so many still use it. It's a standard. Like most other businesses they're staffing and scheduling projects in a way they think maximizes their resources relative to income. In this case I see a disconnect in that customer service satisfaction rates have declined and product reliability at times can be problematic. I agree with your premise, many if not most are locked in and can't do much about it except hang on and deal with it as it comes.

[GoButtonGuy]

Originally Posted by ejinbc

1) If you are on Win 10, I think it is possible to freeze at 2020.5 and retain long term use – on Mac that is a much more difficult calculation – it seems each Mac update breaks something in ProTools (YMMV)

It appears that the updates break things but in reality on the major releases Avid seems to be using non standard methods due to the code base or have not implemented changes that Apple has announced well in advanced. Live and Logic don't suffer this to the extent Pro Tools does nor Reaper for that matter. The bulk of the recent Mac issues look to me like things caused by decisions Avid has made not so much engineering changes Apple has made.

[dez811]

Originally Posted by Tony Jung

Same here. I bought S1 and spent some time with it but I keep going back to PT.

Once support ends for my perpetual licence in January 2021, I will not be updating my mac and staying with whatever version PT will have at that time for as many years as I can. Maybe in 5 years I'll see what improvements have been made and make a decision at that time whether to buy a new perpetual licence or not (if it's still available for PT Vanilla).

The first thing to do if you haven’t done so is to setup the pro tools key commands in studio one it makes life easier. I too brought studio one 5 and I like it especially the mixer scenes. But editing is taking me a while. And while I can get a good mix it works differently. I imported a song and used the same exact plugins and settings that was on the session in ProTools with the same presets and it sounded different.

[Stephen Bond]

Just thought I'd update you as to my situation. Unsurprisingly, I decided not to bother with the £190.40 annual Avid tax. That's the best part of 250 USD.

Tomorrow the 1 month grace period runs out so there will be no way back unless Avid soften their approach in the future.

Anyhow, I managed to snag a Heat license cheap from eBay so I'm spending the tax money well

Stephen