# Pro Tools 10 - released



## noiseboyuk (Oct 21, 2011)

http://www.avid.com/US/products/Pro-Tools-Software


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## RMWSound (Oct 21, 2011)

In short it's a great update for Post Production, and slightly underwhelming for Music Production. No 64-bit (aghh!), but they're clearly preparing for it by announcing that this is the last major version update that will support the older, 32-bit only hardware.

If AAX is leaps and bounds better than RTAS it could still be a solid update for us Music types, but that would require developers re-coding their plugs in AAX.

If anyone jumps in, let us know what you're finding in regards to stability and plug-in compatibility. 

-Ryan


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## jamwerks (Oct 21, 2011)

Since PT 10 hosts both AAX and RTAS-AS, developers will have time (1-2 years?) to recode. And apparently many have worked together with Avid already and have finished recoding.

I may be totally off target here, but it seems that AAX plugs can run either natively of from DSP (if you have a HDX card). So could VI's in the AAX formate get juice from these new cards? I'm thinking Play, Kontakt, MIR Pro & VIP for example. Instead of having 2 or 3 farm cpu's, maybe we would be able to work with just 1 machine, with 1 or 2 HDX cards? :?:


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## dcoscina (Oct 21, 2011)

I upgraded last night and it flies on my older Mac Pro 2.66 with 15 gb ram. I'm currently using a Duet2 with the sample buffer set to 256mb and it's just screaming good. I use DP7 quite a lot but have been making the change to PT more and more. This new update really ups the ante as far as work flow. It feels peppier. I ordered a MOTU 2408mk3 system (since it's the only PCi-d system near $1000 and not a shmallion dollars like the APogee Symphony IO or Avid Omni IO so I'm expecting even better performance when that arrives.


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## noiseboyuk (Oct 21, 2011)

It does seem more skewed to post than music. Even there, a lot of the great new features - loading into RAM, conforming from field recorders - are HD only, so the step up isn't as good as I hoped. It looks like you can get the complete production toolkit for some of those, but as far as I can see that starts at £1,200 still [EDIT - scratch that, £1,400]. The Avid page is down for it, but you can download the manual in the big documents zip.

I seem to remember that for PT9 there were real-world price drops incredibly quickly - literally after a month or so. I'll look out for them, don't think I'll be biting just yet.


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## Dracarys (Oct 21, 2011)

Ah $300 for the upgrade, I'll wait until it's 64x and as stable as cubase or logic until I begin composing in it. Gotta love the mixer though, especially compared to cubase's peculiar scheme.


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## RMWSound (Oct 21, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Oct 21 said:


> It does seem more skewed to post than music. Even there, a lot of the great new features - loading into RAM, conforming from field recorders - are HD only, so the step up isn't as good as I hoped. It looks like you can get the complete production toolkit for some of those, but as far as I can see that starts at £1,200 still [EDIT - scratch that, £1,400]. The Avid page is down for it, but you can download the manual in the big documents zip.
> 
> I seem to remember that for PT9 there were real-world price drops incredibly quickly - literally after a month or so. I'll look out for them, don't think I'll be biting just yet.



For some reason I can't find it now on the Avid site, but there used to be an option to upgrade to the Complete Production Toolkit 2 from the DV Toolkit for $299. When PT9 was released, it essentially had all of the features that the DV Toolkit provided, so I was able to track one down for less than $100 to use it specifically for the upgrade.

So if you can still find somewhere that is still offering the upgrade path, you can actually get into the CPTK for cheaper than it may seem. It's definitely worth it with the Instrument track count bump (from 64 to 128), surround capability, VCA Faders, and my favorite time-stretch plug (X-Form). Adding to that the Disk Cache with PT10.

-Ryan


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## kdm (Oct 21, 2011)

RMWSound @ Fri Oct 21 said:


> If anyone jumps in, let us know what you're finding in regards to stability and plug-in compatibility.
> 
> -Ryan



So far no problems - definitely feels faster, and disk caching (for audio projects) greatly speeds things up, esp. with large sessions. 

No problems with plugin compatibility so far. VEPro works fine in PT 10.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Oct 21, 2011)

Just curious, are you guys that upgraded on Native or HD?

The upgrade from HD is really expensive........??

I can't find the pricing for the hardware upgrades either. I'm on a HD3 system with 192 i/o and (5) 192 Digitals.

Hmmmm......... this could cost a fortune, but I guess I shouldn't seem surprised..... it's digidesign after all.

Mr A


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## studioj (Oct 21, 2011)

I've been following the forums a bit and watched the presentation. mr. a, i believe it would cost you 5900 (sweetwater quote)+ $1k each interface (to swap for the 8i/o), as the blue interfaces won't work with HDx. 

My HD3 pcix sits gathering dust, was hoping something in this upgrade would entice me to make a move, but alas they seemed to have left composer folks in the cold. really i'm very glad I went native/logic, I've been using the same RME box for over 10 years now (digiface) through a gazillion software and other hardware upgrades and I won't be surprised if i get another 10 out of it! and thankfully PT9 lets me open up protools HD with the RME when i need to. 

also disappointed in the "5x" the power thing... really? it took you 10 years to only get 5x the power on 1 card? I guess they scale it to get the most money, but still. my computer is probably at least 32x as powerful, likely much more. 

And the majority of the features are things that should have been there 3 years ago. And what's up with the $999 upgrade price for HD software only??? So in closing...meh.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Oct 21, 2011)

I might agree with you.

$12k to upgrade my rig........... nice!

Mr A


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## zacnelson (Oct 21, 2011)

Just checked out the AVID site and all the PT10 info, I must say I'm underwhelmed. I only upgraded to PT9 a few months ago for $300 and another $300 for such small improvements seems a waste of money. My music would benefit more from spending that $300 on a nice sample library - I could buy LASS lite for example.


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## kdm (Oct 21, 2011)

Mr. Anxiety @ Fri Oct 21 said:


> Just curious, are you guys that upgraded on Native or HD?



Native, as in 3rd party ASIO with PT10, not HD Native. Imo, it's a better deal to upgrade from native and the CPTK to for $299, as that includes most of the main new HD features like disk/ram caching, without the $999 pricetag.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Oct 21, 2011)

Sounds like a good plan, except in my case I haven't upgraded to 9 yet, still PT8, so I'm not sure it is cost effective. I'll have to check into this.

Of course this doesn't help out the fact I'm already in TDM - HD land.......

Mr A


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## noiseboyuk (Oct 22, 2011)

zacnelson @ Sat Oct 22 said:


> Just checked out the AVID site and all the PT10 info, I must say I'm underwhelmed. I only upgraded to PT9 a few months ago for $300 and another $300 for such small improvements seems a waste of money. My music would benefit more from spending that $300 on a nice sample library - I could buy LASS lite for example.



I agree - it makes very little sense for regular music users to upgrade, and LASS Lite would give you way more value!

Ryan - I've had a basic Google-search and can't seem to find any legacy upgrade options doing the rounds.

It's funny... PT9 for post seemed to cheap not to go for it, around £300 and you've got OMF import and, well, Pro Tools. But to make the most of PT10 in post, you're literally looking at an additional £1,700. Suddenly doesn't look like such a bargain and again I find myself thinking "yup, one more year of staying with Pyramix"....


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## Daryl (Oct 22, 2011)

I'm thinking of upgrading for one reason. The ability to use stereo interleaved files. Currently converting all the files for an album mix takes around 5 hours. If I upgraded to Nuendo 5, that will do it natively, in a format that Pro Tools understands. So I think that spending £200 on either Nuendo or Pro Tools upgrade is a no brainer.

Having said that, there are no features in N5 that I really want, but in PT there are quite a few time saving things, which will speed up mixing sessions. Also the stupid limits on ADC and track count (I think) have been raised, so mixing will become even easier to organise.

I've just talked myself into it. I'm upgrading Pro Tools. 8) 

One of the interesting things is that most of the new features in Pro tools have been in Nuendo for years, so I will probably feel more at home than ever. :lol: 

D


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## noiseboyuk (Oct 22, 2011)

Daryl @ Sat Oct 22 said:


> Also the stupid limits on ADC and track count (I think) have been raised, so mixing will become even easier to organise.



I was confused on this myself - have they? I decided in the end it was the same without CPTK2.


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## Daryl (Oct 22, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Sat Oct 22 said:


> Daryl @ Sat Oct 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Also the stupid limits on ADC and track count (I think) have been raised, so mixing will become even easier to organise.
> ...


I have the ToolKit, so I can't answer that. Without it, PT would be useless for me.

I also think that the CPTK2 allows the RAM cache thing, so that could be interesting, as currently I have to stream from 3 dives in order for my sessions to play.

D


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## noiseboyuk (Oct 22, 2011)

Daryl @ Sat Oct 22 said:


> I have the ToolKit, so I can't answer that. Without it, PT would be useless for me.
> 
> I also think that the CPTK2 allows the RAM cache thing, so that could be interesting, as currently I have to stream from 3 dives in order for my sessions to play.
> 
> D



Oh got ya. Yeah, I think it expanded in CPTK2, but stays the same in the basic version. Also you're quite right that the RAM cache thing is also CPTK only.

In fact, the only real reason for me to upgrade to the basic version are the real time fades and clip gain - that said, these are both virtually essentials in the post world and I've been whinging about their absence forever.


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## danika (Oct 23, 2011)

kdm @ Fri Oct 21 said:


> So far no problems - definitely feels faster, and disk caching (for audio projects) greatly speeds things up, esp. with large sessions.
> 
> No problems with plugin compatibility so far. VEPro works fine in PT 10.



Can VEPro host a 64-bit plug-in and still interface with 32-bit PT?


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## Dan Mott (Oct 23, 2011)

Not upgrading until I see 64bit. This upgrade is not worth another 300 bucks IMO. No they are turning into a company that only cares about money, therefore releasing 300 dollar updates often. I hate when this happens.

Though. If you don't buy the upgrade, they will most likely make the price from going to PT 11, the same as if you bought 10 and 11 together.


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## kdm (Oct 23, 2011)

danika @ Sun Oct 23 said:


> Can VEPro host a 64-bit plug-in and still interface with 32-bit PT?



Yes. That's one of the main advantages - access to all memory on a 64-bit system, outside of ProTools.


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## adg21 (Oct 23, 2011)

Daryl @ Sat Oct 22 said:


> noiseboyuk @ Sat Oct 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Daryl @ Sat Oct 22 said:
> ...



What do you need to stream from 3 disks out of interest? Do you mean just for audio tracks? As I understand it most VIs e.g. Kontakt will be into RAM. Also doesn't cubase and logic and other DAWs load sessions into RAM this way...so this isn't a unique thing? or is it


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## Jeffrey Peterson (Oct 23, 2011)

This update is garbage through and through. These wankers only give us 64 instrument tracks unless you pay 2 grand for the CPT2. If you have HD then the upgrade to 10 is $1000 and you STILL don't get freezing abilities, or 64bit.

I don't have HD so its 299 but for what? The ability to upload to soundcloud? The ability to raise the volume in a region..now called a clip. Complete trash and there selling it over and over again and all we want is 64 bit and Freezing and unlimited tracks. 

Why is this so hard? Honestly it doesn't take 4 years to make a 32bit program 64. Everyone else in the whole world has done this already.

I'll tell you why they aren't releasing 64bit. Its because once its out people won't need HD anymore so they can't charge 3 grand for stupid useless cards. But even when they release 64 bit they will STILL put limitations on regular PT just so people will stick with HD. Its evil marketing. 

I love Pro Tools but I would love to kick the crap out of Avids board of directors.


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## Jean Paul (Oct 23, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> I don't have HD so its 299 but for what? The ability to upload to soundcloud? The ability to raise the volume in a region..now called a clip. Complete trash and there selling it over and over again and all we want is 64 bit and Freezing and unlimited tracks.
> 
> I'll tell you why they aren't releasing 64bit. Its because once its out people won't need HD anymore so they can't charge 3 grand for stupid useless cards. But even when they release 64 bit they will STILL put limitations on regular PT just so people will stick with HD. Its evil marketing.
> 
> I love Pro Tools but I would love to kick the crap out of Avids board of directors.



+1. 
For music production, PT 10 adds nothing new, and definetly not worth $299 for the upgrade. I just upgraded to PT9, 5 months ago, and wish I did'nt. Frankly It's not that different from PT8.
Evil marketing as you said!


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## zacnelson (Oct 23, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> I don't have HD so its 299 but for what? The ability to upload to soundcloud? The ability to raise the volume in a region..now called a clip. Complete trash and there selling it over and over again and all we want is 64 bit and Freezing and unlimited tracks.



Well said Jeffrey! I almost fell off my chair when I saw the upgrade was $300! For almost NOTHING! (At least for my needs)

Particularly when I forked out so much to upgrade from PT8 to PT9 only a couple of months ago!


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## zacnelson (Oct 23, 2011)

Jean Paul @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> For music production, PT 10 adds nothing new, and definetly not worth $299 for the upgrade. I just upgraded to PT9, 5 months ago, and wish I did'nt. Frankly It's not that different from PT8.



Very true. Hardly any difference from PT8 to PT9. For myself, the big attraction was the ability to use third party hardware, I went and bought an Apogee Duet 2 to go with PT9 instead of my useless 002Rack. But the fact we had to wait so long just for the `privilege' of not using crappy AVID hardware.... well don't get me started...!! http://www.vi-control.net/forum/images/smiles/violinplay3.gif (http://www.vi-control.net/forum/images/ ... nplay3.gif)


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## Daryl (Oct 24, 2011)

danika @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> kdm @ Fri Oct 21 said:
> 
> 
> > So far no problems - definitely feels faster, and disk caching (for audio projects) greatly speeds things up, esp. with large sessions.
> ...


Yes, and has done from the start.

D


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## Daryl (Oct 24, 2011)

adg21 @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> Daryl @ Sat Oct 22 said:
> 
> 
> > noiseboyuk @ Sat Oct 22 said:
> ...


When you have over a hundred audio tracks streaming at the same time, you need to spread them over enough drives to avoid bottlenecks. Or use SSD.

No DAW (apart from Fruity Loops) loads the complete session into RAM. They all stream. Apart from Pro Tools 10.

D


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## Daryl (Oct 24, 2011)

I don't see that the upgrade (for other than HD users) is expensive. For me it is £238. Figure VAT and the tax deduction into the equation, and it's only a couple of hours work, for an upgrade that will save days of my life. I think it's cheap.

For those people who are doing music as a hobby, it may seem expensive, but it is cheaper than a years subscription to a gym, or a golf club, or many other poplar pastimes. Hobbyists also don't have to upgrade, as it doesn't matter what version of software they are on, so there is no need to get angry. I change my car every 8 or 9 years, so the cost of a new (actually always a year old) car is very cheap, when you take the number of years use I get.

Of course the HD customers are having to pay a lot, and I do think that those upgrades are steep for what you get, but in this day and age most people don't need HD. The only real use for it is for tracking at low latency, and unless you are a commercial studio owner, and need to track many instruments at the same time, a nice fast PC with RME hardware will work fine. I think it's about time some of the HD customers voted with their feet and joined the rest of us. o-[][]-o 

D


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## RMWSound (Oct 24, 2011)

After testing for a couple days now on PT10, I've found that generally it is a bit more efficient than PT9. My CPU usage is generally 4-5 percent lower than it was before the upgrade. YMMV, but just though I'd throw it out there.

-Ryan


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## Artifex 28 (Oct 24, 2011)

I think the main reason for quick PT10 release is the interface chaos they had with PT9. Just look at the size of the PT9 patches/updates.

PT10 allows Avid to sweep PT9 out of sight. I have no idea why they are asking so much on the PT9 -> PT10 upgrade though? :o


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## Jeffrey Peterson (Oct 24, 2011)

Jean and Zac your right, not much difference last year when PT9 was release...though they got a purple box so I couldn't resist the marketing! 

Actually the reason why I went from PT8 to 9 was 32 more instrument tracks....up from 32. That was an amazing day, but still how am I suppose to have a descent template with 64 bloody tracks?? Mhmmm? 

How do you guys set up your template past only 64 instrument tracks?

I use VE Pro and I like the tracks to send and receive, not 2 different tracks to handle what one could do...keep it clean.

...with a bunch of Aux and midi tracks....garbage. PT needs folders like Cubase does to organize. I use the Hide/Show on a lot of tracks but still...they make us use tons of extra aux sends and nothing to organize it with.

Anyone using VE Pro with PT how do you deal with the 64 limit of instrument tracks I am very curious.


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## RMWSound (Oct 24, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> Jean and Zac your right, not much difference last year when PT9 was release...though they got a purple box so I couldn't resist the marketing!
> 
> Actually the reason why I went from PT8 to 9 was 32 more instrument tracks....up from 32. That was an amazing day, but still how am I suppose to have a descent template with 64 bloody tracks?? Mhmmm?
> 
> ...


. The complete production toolkit gives you 128 inst tracks.


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## gsilbers (Oct 24, 2011)

zacnelson @ Fri Oct 21 said:


> Just checked out the AVID site and all the PT10 info, I must say I'm underwhelmed. I only upgraded to PT9 a few months ago for $300 and another $300 for such small improvements seems a waste of money. My music would benefit more from spending that $300 on a nice sample library - I could buy LASS lite for example.



i agree 

seems to me that PT 9 and PT9 HD is the best deal.

if you want to go HDX then yes , get PT10HD and have fun spending all that money in the card  

but PT 9 already is pretty good and PTHD 9 is even better with vca 5.1 and other good stuff. 

pt 10 and specailly pt hd 10 doesnt bring anything new or exiting.


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## Jeffrey Peterson (Oct 24, 2011)

Yes, thank you I mentioned it in a post above. IMO CPT2 is a rip off.

As soon as I hit 128 I will need more. I need unlimited but I was curious how fello PT composers set up there template...with a ton of aux and midi sends? Lets here it!


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## Daryl (Oct 24, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Tue Oct 25 said:


> Yes, thank you I mentioned it in a post above. IMO CPT2 is a rip off.
> 
> As soon as I hit 128 I will need more. I need unlimited but I was curious how fello PT composers set up there template...with a ton of aux and midi sends? Lets here it!


128 what?

Pro Tools has always been a rip-off in terms of price, when compared to any other DAW. However for some people the workflow is worth the cost.

D


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## RMWSound (Oct 25, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> Yes, thank you I mentioned it in a post above. IMO CPT2 is a rip off.
> 
> As soon as I hit 128 I will need more. I need unlimited but I was curious how fello PT composers set up there template...with a ton of aux and midi sends? Lets here it!


Aux/midi sends was how I did everything in logic, but it was a pain in the ass. That's part of the reason I switched to PT. 

BTW, I've heard from people at Avid that the DV toolkit to CPT2 upgrade will be back shortly. I paid under $400 total for my CPT2 by just buying the dv toolkit used, and upgrading for $299. You get some other good stuff with that as well to make it worth the $400-$500 (but yeah, $2k is too much). 

As for track counts, I don't usually have a problem with the 128 limit. My template is around 110 instrument tracks, and I could stand to drop a few instruments if I really went through it. I believe you can always keep extra tracks beyond 128 in the session as inactive(?), then, you could just swap them in for tracks you aren't using on a particular track as needed. 

I imagine when PT11 drops with 64-bit, they'll probably up it to 256 inst tracks though. 

-Ryan


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## adg21 (Oct 25, 2011)

If you use clip based gain in pro tools 10, does anyone know what will happen if you open that project in pro tools 9?


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## RMWSound (Oct 26, 2011)

adg21 @ Tue Oct 25 said:


> If you use clip based gain in pro tools 10, does anyone know what will happen if you open that project in pro tools 9?



If you do "Save Copy In.." as v9 compatible, I've been told it will render the gain adjustments you've made. However, if you do not save as v9, then you won't be able to open the session at all on 9 or earlier as PT10 uses a .ptx file rather than .ptf. 

-Ryan


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## kdm (Oct 28, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Mon Oct 24 said:


> I need unlimited but I was curious how fello PT composers set up there template...with a ton of aux and midi sends? Lets here it!



Aux inputs from VEPro and slaves/hardware, midi tracks assigned to each in sections/port combinations. Much easier than using instrument tracks. I only have to have one Instrument track per VEPro server instance, and that can serve as the audio return for the first VEP output, then Auxes for the rest. That's the basic overview.

PT is very fast to setup routing (alt-shift, ctrl-alt-shift) - either to a single destination or cascading midi channel assignments for each port, so this system works well for me even when I need to alter it quickly, and it fits within the track limits easily enough. 

I have CPTK2 and PT10. For me CPTK is worth it for surround support, VCAs, destructive record/punch, etc. PT10 for disk caching for audio mixes, clip gain, significantly expanded Eucon, etc.


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## Jeffrey Peterson (Oct 31, 2011)

Oh this is good....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHAb85Rp ... e=youtu.be


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## noiseboyuk (Nov 1, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Tue Nov 01 said:


> Oh this is good....
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHAb85Rp ... e=youtu.be



...and congratulations to maker on the 1,000,000th reworking of Downfall with funny subtitles.


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## gsilbers (Nov 1, 2011)

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAH!!!


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## Mike Connelly (Nov 2, 2011)

The update and pricing doesn't seem to be getting a great reaction, and AVID stock at an all time low (with 200 employees reportedly laid off). I'm glad they're finally taking the necessary steps to go 64 bit and hopefully things like real time bounces, but it seems like they're charging a lot for what's basically a transitional release. The pricing is especially high for users who skipped previous updates - $1500 and $2500 coming from PT 8 and 7.


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## midphase (Nov 2, 2011)

I gave Avid $550 less than a year ago to upgrade to PT9 and buy the complete toolkit thing (which I have yet to fully use anyway).

They did like 3 service upgrades since then to address some misc. bugs and stuff. Now less than a year later then want me to shell out another $300 for what seems to be mostly CPU optimization and a couple of additional bells and whistles which have a minor impact on my workflow.

I don't really get it...I mean I do, but I don't. I think that this should have been a 9.2 release with no upgrade fee or a nominal fee of sorts. Then in another year they could have come up with a 64bit version with lots more bells and whistles and easily get another $300 from me.

With this strategy, they won't get anything from me, PT 10 is the type of upgrade that is simply not worth it for me.

I wish more companies would take the lead of Spectrasonics who release great free updates, and by the time a new product comes out the user is more than happy to reward them with money.


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## noiseboyuk (Nov 2, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Wed Nov 02 said:


> The update and pricing doesn't seem to be getting a great reaction, and AVID stock at an all time low (with 200 employees reportedly laid off). I'm glad they're finally taking the necessary steps to go 64 bit and hopefully things like real time bounces, but it seems like they're charging a lot for what's basically a transitional release. The pricing is especially high for users who skipped previous updates - $1500 and $2500 coming from PT 8 and 7.



Yeah. I was really excited by the pre-release info, but it's just not enough in the basic version. I'm still hoping for big price drops. I'm sure this happened last year very quickly - can anyone confirm?


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