Control|24 and ProControl with Pro Tools 11?

[iMartin]

But we are offering them money to figuring it out and make it work.

[AREED]

Originally Posted by iMartin

But we are offering them money to figuring it out and make it work.

Yes, and being a hardware company that wants to sell more hardware. You would think they would want to show that there hardware will be working until technically impossible. This move is not gonna give anybody a warm and fuzzy feeling about buying Avid hardware.

Its very sad because I love Pro Tools and have spent alot of time and money on it. From Mbox (that got EOLed for no good reason), Digi002, to HD and Control 24, Update after update for years, Pro Tools Certification the whole bit. I was always proud to recommend Pro Tools to anybody interested in recording.

After this, Im feeling betrayed. I feel like Avid doesn't care about the long time loyal customers that put them where they are today.
I am really hoping Avid will reconsider there decision on this. If they don't, I will ride out PT10 for a couple more years and then im gone. I just cant stay on board with a company that doesn't support us the way we support them.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by AREED

Yes, and being a hardware company that wants to sell more hardware.

That is true, but it also sounds pretty harsh. We should always bear in mind that any tech product bought today has a planned lifetime. Control surfaces are not analog consoles, they need real effort to keep them working in the changing tech environment.

That said, and the mod hat off;

I'm not that pissed about C24 and ProControl being left behind, those are very old now like it or not. But when I peeked the End Of Support document I also saw that the original blue ICONs are also seeing EOS pretty soon. I mean, WTF? I thought the new black versions were only about changed visuals. What else has changed? Mind you, those things cost multiple tens of thousands and the old C24's are peanuts in comparison. THAT is what worries me. If the ICONs are not getting support for longer than this, I'm not happy.

[Kenny Gioia]

First they came for the Pro Control,
and I didn't speak out because I didn't own a Pro Control.

Then they came for the Control 24,
and I didn't speak out because I didn't own a Control 24

Then they came for my Blue ICON,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

[lillloyd]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

First they came for the Pro Control,
and I didn't speak out because I didn't own a Pro Control.

Then they came for the Control 24,
and I didn't speak out because I didn't own a Control 24

Then they came for my Blue ICON,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

OK Kenny now you've just gone loopy on us.

Although certainly no one's comparing Avid to the Third Reich, your point's well-taken. This isn't about the Control 24 per se so much as it is about the extent of the gap between our expectations of how hard Avid should work to keep our (significant!) investments functioning, and Avid's own expectations. And that impacts everyone who's purchased Avid hardware, not just Control 24 or Pro Control owners.

I think part of the outrage, if you can call it that, is that this gap might be quite a bit larger than what we all thought when we first plunked down thousands (tens of thousands, maybe) of dollars for PT hardware. I'm not going to say that Avid is under any obligation to support their hardware as long as it's technically possible to do so--it's their prerogative not to, I suppose--but that approach could certainly change how we view these hardware investments going forward.

[lillloyd]

Originally Posted by JFreak

That is true, but it also sounds pretty harsh. We should always bear in mind that any tech product bought today has a planned lifetime. Control surfaces are not analog consoles, they need real effort to keep them working in the changing tech environment.

That said, and the mod hat off;

I'm not that pissed about C24 and ProControl being left behind, those are very old now like it or not. But when I peeked the End Of Support document I also saw that the original blue ICONs are also seeing EOS pretty soon. I mean, WTF? I thought the new black versions were only about changed visuals. What else has changed? Mind you, those things cost multiple tens of thousands and the old C24's are peanuts in comparison. THAT is what worries me. If the ICONs are not getting support for longer than this, I'm not happy.

I think it's the extent of the "real effort" required to keep them working that's in question here. We've had several ostensibly qualified technical people chime in with extensive experience in software programming and networking/Ethernet (myself included) who've been dubious regarding the degree of difficulty involved in getting the Control 24 to work with PT11. Now it may be (as Bill has argued repeatedly) that the effort is vastly more involved and resource-intensive than we think, but absent some sort of technical explanation from Avid, I think that this point remains very much up for debate. Avid employs a bench of talented programmers and designers who have created a complex, integrated software and hardware system...keeping the Control 24 working seems, on the face of it, to be a relatively minor challenge.

Re/ the Icons...it may be a different scale of investment, but it's the same general point. Avid is giving the appearance of creating arbitrary hardware life cycles for expensive gear that may have nothing to do with a technical inability to support that gear further. They may have business reasons for doing this that are compelling, I don't know. But it's a tough climate these days, and if you're a company trying to sell expensive, proprietary hardware into these kinds of headwinds, it seems that it would make more sense to do everything possible to assure prospective customers that you're committed to keeping their hardware investments functional, for as long as it is technically feasible. To me the Control 24 situation suggests that commitment may not exist.

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by audiobob

Thanks for posting that Bill. I haven't read every post on this thread and didn't realize it was there. I think everyone has their answer. It's EOL. Like the Blue interfaces Avid will not do anything to make it work, or do anything to not make it work. The interfaces just happen to work so we're lucky. Control 24 does require Avid to do something...and since it's EOL...they are not going to do anything. That's what it looks like to me anyway.

That's why I posted it, Bob...

I've noticed that on these "mega-threads" people don't want to wade through pages and pages of the "same old, same old" and sometimes miss some pertinent information...

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by iMartin

I always thought PT11 was a complete rewrite. I'm not a programmer, I make my living in music but to me it looks like a rewrite would make them decide which code to include and not include.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Is there really that much of a difference between C24 and Control24 that you would need 2 completely different drivers?

I'm a programmer, not a theologian, but...

(Sorry, but I couldn't resist picking up on your theme)

What we are talking about is "Sins of commission" versus "Sins of omission"....

A sin of commission is when the code is there but it has been disabled.

A sin of omission is when the code wasn't ever there.

And yes, the Control 24 and the C24 could require two different drivers. And I think we're talking a "sin of omission" here, because I don't think Avid would have turned off a driver that existed and worked...

[JFreak]

The old C24 driver has never been created due to end of support

[audiobob]

Originally Posted by Pie Hole Sound

My money is on you're wrong too.

I hope so too Pie.