New Licensing

[NipL]

Originally Posted by CME

I've seen it on sale at various dealers. I've also heard from my dealer that avid is now requiring all dealers to sell at msrp. So there won't be any discounts in the future. Unless avid allows it, or possibly for a close out sale. You also see a lot of used licenses change hands. It's actually how I bought pt10. Then I bought a friends pt11 license which he got with his eleven rack and had no use for. I believe right now the best deal is to buy the little interface with pro tools express and upgraded it to "regular" pro tools. So I won't say people aren't buying pro tools. Just most smart shoppers aren't paying the previous $699 and soon to be $899 for it.

How would that even be allowed - given a market economy and principles of competition?

The idea is about anybody that can lower their logistics and other costs and can sell at lower prices - are to be promoted. That is how some survive and other disappear from market.

Indirectly Avid could reduce a retailers advance - and that in turn could lead to that retailer does not bother selling it. This is proper balance between supply and demand.

I had close connection into music retailers in the 80's - and they were pissed at Yamaha reducing advance, being almost half of other brands. They were thinking of stop selling Yamaha. And still today, many music store chains stick to certain brands and just refuse others - built on where they get volumes.

Avid could try force MSRP - but wonder if that would lead to other result than exposure of Avid products deminish.

Evaluating if to go Avid route - I talked a lot to local music stores, and how their support are and to what degree they help out etc. Planning to have an income from it, I have to know these things.

All I got back was how good Cubase was - they don't bother with Avid. They sell Avid lowend hardware interfaces, but the rest is not worth it. They list ProTools software, but they don't try to sell it. If they would lower advances on it - I guess they don't bother to list it either.

Those that already use ProTools and need more licenses buy it - force of habit. Newcomers are likely to go Cubase route. Steinberg also recently introduced the ZeroDowntime thingy so that is not iLok-only anymore.

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by CygnusX-1Bk2

Right because ProTools is SO stable now... Sure, people who only do music are happy because they can use any crappy IO. Stability has gone downhill since 9. Yeah, that's pro.

Yes, 11 is too flaky for me to use in front of clients. Avid seems to have a recent track record of letting significant bugs pass though the testing phase, then failing to fix in a reasonable time, and when they is fixed, other bugs often pop up to bite us.

Sometimes fixed bugs reappear down the road too, which says a lot about the management of coding activity and pre-release testing.

All in all, its a pretty grim state of affairs IMO, getting on for 18 months since PT11's release.

I sincerely do wish I'd not bothered upgrading my PT10+CPTK to 11HD. I've not seen anything like the benefit from PT11 that was 'touted' by Avid, because of the bugs that we've been dealing with. Certainly not worth the upgrade fee for me.

In fact, I've spent too much unproductive time developing workarounds (eg for VI mlti-out delay compensation) and trying to identify the precise circumstances that lead to crashes (eg the 9173 error that I get randomly, not just when bouncing but sometimes just in playback).

I've had enough. I won't be signing up for the support plan. As well as my HD licence, I also have a couple of student licenses. I'll take the free upgrades until my four years is up. So I'll have a couple of vanilla licenses on 12,13 or whatever they choose to call it, and a HD licence on 11.

Hopefully 11 will become stable enough to use before Avid abandons bug fixing it to focus on delivering 'cool new features'. But I'm not even confident of that happening.

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by NipL

Steinberg also recently introduced the ZeroDowntime thingy so that is not iLok-only anymore.

Unfortunately, Stenberg's version of ZDT is not the comfort blanket that iLok's version is.

It can only be used once per USB eLicenser device, it only covers Steinberg licenses (eg it does not cover my Arturia and Vienna licenses) and it only provides temporary replacement licences to keep you going while you then go through the process of applying for replacement permanen licenses.

On the plus side, it's free!

I'm a much bigger fan of iLok's ZDT, which covers all licenses and provides new permanent replacement licences, on the basis that the old iLok will stop working anyway.

[29CountsNY]

Originally Posted by CygnusX-1Bk2

Sorry guys but removing the hardware from the equation was the start of bigger problems, mostly stability and secondly pricing. Instead of having a closed/fixed system now it's a cluster f*** of what works with what. The reason I hated using Cubase or any other DAW than ProTools was trying to get stuff to work together that had no business being connected.

+ 1 billon!
When I turn on my HD rig I know it will work. Every time I used to boot up Cubase I would have my fingers crossed I got no errors and 90% of the time I would. And when I was in the 10% range that it actually fired up I would wonder what went wrong in the boot process. There was never a level of confidence with the gear, at least not like I have now with my HD rig.
If the system was still closed they wouldn't need a support line to help someone get their $5 sound card working in PT.
That's my two cents after 20 years of doing this. I like making music and want my gear to work and as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

[CME]

I've had no issues whatsoever with any DAW I've used. And I've used Harrison's Mixbus quite a bit. Which I'm pretty sure is one of the least mature daw's out there. Part of that is no doubt that I'm using metric halo I interfaces. So I don't think avid opening up to 3rd party interfaces was an issue. Fwiw I'm on pt11 and haven't had any issues, aside from a few plugs still not AAX. Admittedly I don't ever do any audio work. But at the end of the day, solid gear is solid gear and good software is good software. But it's not worth paying a premium because avid thinks they can.

[CME]

And to the point about discounting software. I'm not sure exactly how they can/will enforce it. But I have a dealer at a big store that has always cut me good deals. And pro tools has allows been one of the least discounted items. Apple being right there with them, but when I inquired about buying the ptmp to pt11 upgrade, he said he couldn't discount it at all. $199 was the price. Their had been a policy change and they couldn't discount pro tools anymore. Not sure if it applies to hardware also. But it wouldn't surprise me.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Originally Posted by CME

And to the point about discounting software. I'm not sure exactly how they can/will enforce it. But I have a dealer at a big store that has always cut me good deals. And pro tools has allows been one of the least discounted items. Apple being right there with them, but when I inquired about buying the ptmp to pt11 upgrade, he said he couldn't discount it at all. $199 was the price. Their had been a policy change and they couldn't discount pro tools anymore. Not sure if it applies to hardware also. But it wouldn't surprise me.

It does. When a store purchases a product the manufacturer sells it for a cost that allows the store to make a marginal profit from the suggested MSRP and in many cases the MSRP is about 3 times the store's cost so that in the case of Guitar Center, Musician's Friend, Sweetwater or Sam Ash they can sell a product for significantly less than the MSRP. Avid and Apple both restrict retailer's ability to set a good street price by making profit margins minimal. In both of these cases with Apple and Avid they have their own webstores, the biggest difference being Apple will sell you their hardware online where Avid do not. Essentially they are making retailers extensions of the manufacturer's stores and dictating what their products sell for.

[noiseboyuk]

Originally Posted by 29CountsNY

+ 1 billon!
When I turn on my HD rig I know it will work. Every time I used to boot up Cubase I would have my fingers crossed I got no errors and 90% of the time I would. And when I was in the 10% range that it actually fired up I would wonder what went wrong in the boot process. There was never a level of confidence with the gear, at least not like I have now with my HD rig.
If the system was still closed they wouldn't need a support line to help someone get their $5 sound card working in PT.
That's my two cents after 20 years of doing this. I like making music and want my gear to work and as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

My experience is very different.

My PT 10.3.9 with an RME Babyface is rock solid. Cubase 7.5 is rock solid (save for occasional VST problems, which are cross-platform). As I mentioned on a post the other day, the worst performances I've ever had with PT rigs have been HD with Avid hardware. One rig (PT9, PC based) was hopelessly underspecced and it perfomed massively worse than my non-proprietary CPTK+10 rig - getting a project to even load was a terrifyingly hit or miss affair. Another (mac based PT10) had endless random clicks on playback, glitches and spectacular crashes - it made sounds I've never heard before. Both these rigs were in commercial facilities.

Of course I've had great experiences with HD hardware too. But its a complete fallacy to assume everything will always be rosy with Avid hardware, and everything will be a nightmare with 3rd party hardware. All I know is that the most solid system I've worked on is PT 10.3.9, RME audio. And that disproves the theory that making the break and allowing 3rd party interfaces causes terrible problems. Look after your system, get quality hardware and - if the software is up to it - you'll be fine.

[Barry Johns]

Originally Posted by noiseboyuk

Of course I've had great experiences with HD hardware too. But its a complete fallacy to assume everything will always be rosy with Avid hardware, and everything will be a nightmare with 3rd party hardware. All I know is that the most solid system I've worked on is PT 10.3.9, RME audio. And that disproves the theory that making the break and allowing 3rd party interfaces causes terrible problems. Look after your system, get quality hardware and - if the software is up to it - you'll be fine.

I think others like you have had the same issues. Every time I've helped someone trouble-shoot their issues, it always boiled down to either user error, plugins that had not been approved or updated, or computer settings. I'm not saying its not happened, but I've yet to personally encounter an issue with PTHD TDM that was either software or hardware related this far on either PTHD 7.4.2, 8.1.1 or 10.3.8. Those are the only versions I have experience with on PTHD. I've also been on a Mac.

[CME]

Originally Posted by CygnusX-1Bk2

It does. When a store purchases a product the manufacturer sells it for a cost that allows the store to make a marginal profit from the suggested MSRP and in many cases the MSRP is about 3 times the store's cost so that in the case of Guitar Center, Musician's Friend, Sweetwater or Sam Ash they can sell a product for significantly less than the MSRP. Avid and Apple both restrict retailer's ability to set a good street price by making profit margins minimal. In both of these cases with Apple and Avid they have their own webstores, the biggest difference being Apple will sell you their hardware online where Avid do not. Essentially they are making retailers extensions of the manufacturer's stores and dictating what their products sell for.

I understand cost, and msrp, mark ups, and all that goes with it. My parents and I own our own store. And we can set the prices for the items in our shop as low or as high as we'd like. Our suppliers might not want us to sell certain items for certain prices but it's our choice in the end. We do have agreements not to advertise below map. But that doesn't affect what we can still sell stuff for.

However it's my understanding avid is telling dealers to not sell their products for less than msrp for any reason. I don't know how that can enforce that, unless they're threatening to take away dealerships of companies they find selling below msrp. I just know something has changed or he wouldn't have said so.