Let’s vent about or applaud Avids subscriptions

[rick]

I feel like a battered wife ..still like 20 years later still
I tried to leave Avid so many times I have tried leave
But they always get my money every time they ask
Every .single. time
I can’t beat them .

[Text_Edifice]

The subscription model bones. I have been holding out and holding out with an older rig.

But will probably have to cave at some point.

It's probably the only area of my life at the moment where I'm reluctant to pay for convenience. And I'll eventually lose that battle with my brain.

[waitup]

I've avoided the sub completely. Still on Sierra and Pro Tools 12. Will have to give in soon it think.

I'm at a fork in the road. I need to either retire my 2015 macbook pro and get something newer and more powerful, or stop making songs that have 100 audio tracks with 10 plugins on all of them...

Because I lecture ones a week at the school I get $9US/month sub. I can swallow that, especially given I pay like $100 for other subs that are way less important.

[mylesgm]

I hate the subscription, and I don’t want to be online 24/7 with my rig either. Difficult to do that on location!
Surprisingly I actually think the ilok system works well for me and I’ll hang on to perpetual license as long as possible. PT2012 on 2011 and 2012 macs here.

[Ender]

I also don't subscribe, just running a (very) old MacPro running 12.5 but it keeps on humming so for now I'm ok and don't look too much at what I don't have to worry about it. The Mac did die on me a few years back, but I managed to bring it back to life. I would miss the PCIe, so reluctant to change including PT until I really have to.

[audioio]

I bought a perpetual back in 2016 because I wanted to keep running HD/TDM with PT10. I don't know if that's included with the current bundle. Four years later, I still haven'tmanaged to find an HDX card cheaply. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time during 2018 when three went on ebay or FB for well under $3000. Oh well.

I don't have a modern enough computer to run higher than 12.8.x, although I suppose I could try on the old 17" MBP. I'm lucky there... the video card hasn't failed yet! Might be time to invest in a new Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt chassis for that magic HDX whenever I can snare one. Some of you will tell me I don't need it. I don't need a lot of things, but interfaces with mix software aren't flexible enough for me and I just love that low latency hardware acceleration gives me.

Anyway, when Avid announced the reinstatements were ending late last year, I decided to do it to get back on the sub bandwagon to be able to use it when I upgrade my computer. Three months later, it appeared I still hadn't got my license. Here's what they make you do:

Upon checking, your Reinstatement Plan is already on your account under My Products & Subscriptions. Please have them activated by surrendering your expired license.

You may follow the steps below:
-Login to your Avid Account
-Click My Products & Subscriptions.
-Click Pro Tools Ultimate
-Click SELECT UPGRADE OPTIONS for System ID [my system ID]
-Once selected, click SUBMIT then that should give you download codes for the latest version of Pro Tools Ultimate.

Call me old-fashioned, but I would have thought that if you purchase, you should get the product. SELECT UPGRADE OPTIONS sounds as if I'm initiating something, whereas, as far as I'm concerned, I already had by purchasing! So that sucked.

We could argue till the cows come home about whether a Pro Tools sub is a reasonable value proposition, but this isn't Gearslutz and you're all too smart for that anyway.

[a.beck]

I'm still just using PT10HD on a 2009 Mac Pro. It's rock solid and does everything I need it to do. The only real issue is MacOS 10.8. Browsers are starting to become incompatible with some websites. I've just gotten used to the fact that my rig is basically a tape machine now. It works well but isn't really upgradeable. I'll upgrade when it finally dies, but so far so good.

[rick]

I just checked my avid account today . i thought i had a perpetual and a subscription and went through hell last sept to sort it all out .

what i actually have now is two subscriptions , on monthly and my perptual has mysteriously turned into a yearly subscription . (pricks)

so um , they swapped my pert for a sub doing me some kind of favour ?
so in sept i have to give them money for something i already owned all over again .

anyway , i am done with fighting with them they always win i havent got the energy .

so i just downloaded the new 2020 software because i figure am paying for it anyway , it worked seemlessly as an install , will report back if there is anything worth talking about .

[Drumstruck]

would like to use PT but no fan of subscriptions (for all those reasons), and can't justify the perpetual cost when Reaper does pretty much everything for a pittance - pity it's not pretty even with skins

[tunetown]

I have the perpetual that expires in June. I probably won't renew it and won't go the sub model. I generally use Nuendo anyway. I only joined the Protools thing for artists who brought in their own stuff for mixing or o/dubs. I don't get much of any of it these days. Everything I have still works with the hardware I have so I'll just stay this way until I am forced not to.

[stosostu]

One word "Reaper".

That is all.

[wez]

I'm just in the middle of FINALLY upgrading to 12 (from 8!)

I'm running the trial version to make sure all is kosher with my system, so far so good. When the demo expires in a couple of weeks, I am planning to buy the perpetual version... but now I'm a bit confused. Perpertual can expire? How does that work? I get that you have to keep paying if you want updates... but what if you don't? I've been using 8 for 10 years without an update, 7 before that for a few years. I just want something stable that works and keeps working.

Can I not just install it once and forget about it? Or will I boot it up one day and find that it doesn't work anymore?

As for jumping ship... I've used all the DAWs at some point, I've been tempted by Logic & Reaper, but I'm a long time PT user/fan (since version 3) and have a huge amount of time and learning invested in it... Digidesign/Avid may have their issues but Pro Tools has always been the one for me. I'm at a point where I just want to make music - PT is transparent for me, like using a pen or eating with a fork, so I'm sticking with it if I can.

[The Tasmanian]

I'm doing all of my main work on Reaper.
The way I did it was to keep all of my mixing work on ProTools, and when writing - made (forced) myself write on Reaper.
Over a period of many months, I gradually became familiar with Reaper - customized it so that all of the ProTools shortcuts transferred over - so moving between the two was not such a headache, as I had to constantly swap between the two platforms. (although I had moments of f*#k this - I'm staying on PTools - but persisted)

I have PT10 and a great 48/ IO rig - & on Laptop PT12 (but never seem to use it)
Reaper is light years ahead - fully customizable. The only thing that I miss from ProTools is the grouping for automation.

Tonight I thought (knowing how PT is crippled) lets try creating 5000 tracks in Reaper - took 3-4 seconds - 5000 tracks.
Each individual track can have up to 64 outputs.
Total hardware outputs on mix session is 512 outputs to hardware.
Rendering tracks is incredible.
No AAX bullshit. No subscriptions or ongoing payments. VST's. Video importing and editing. Lock to picture. open multiple projects at the same time and cut and paste between projects... endless better workflows and options.
And I can make custom workflows like: select many items / convert and export to multiple formats / add any plug in during rendering, etc. I could put 100's of custom processes inline, make them happen in a render queue - go for a walk and come back with everything done for me.
$60
NO contest. So happy I persisted.

[a.beck]

Perpertual can expire? How does that work?

AFAIK it's just the free updates that expire.

[wez]

Thanks Andrew, that's what I thought... but you just never know with Avid.

[audioio]

It's as Andrew said: the Perpetual license is forever. However, as I recently discovered, if you reinstate (since 31 December 2019, that's no longer possible) and possibly if you resubscribe before your current year is over, you have to "surrender" the license. Somehow, they figure out what you keep (the Perpetual license) and what gets updated (year's worth of updates and support).

I wasn't happy with the process or the justification for it, but the actual surrender went fine. It wasn't always so. When Avid separated Digilink from HD/Ultimate licenses, a lot of people who did the surrender early on had problems... licenses disappearing, expiry dates incorrectly set, and the like. I'm guessing some of it was Pace's fault and some Avid's. But they do seem to have sorted that out.