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Not renewing Pro Tools "subscription"

I like that I could buy a month for the month that I needed it and then not renew. But yeah, is there no longer a way to buy it outright?
 
I bought a Pro Tools Ultimate perpetual license earlier this year but I realized it was a mistake and ended up selling it. The reason being that after the first year they charge $399/year for the upgrade and support plan, which seems pretty steep especially after they delayed a compatibility update by five months earlier this year. But where they REALLY F*&^ you over is if you let your upgrade and support plan lapse, because if that happens and you don't have an active one they charge (I believe) $999 to reinstate it. So if you just want to bump up a version every three years they are going to bleed you for a thousand bucks.

It is possible that I have my facts wrong and they may have changed the reinstatement policy in the recently announced pricing updates, but it really seemed like the final straw for me so I've opted to try to do everything in Cubase on PC. (Apple's absurdly overpriced new Mac Pro is a separate piece of the Pro Tools puzzle, but the Apple story is similar to the Avid one in my opinion).
 
It is possible that I have my facts wrong

You don't. You are entirely correct.

is there no longer a way to buy it outright?

See @Jeremy Gillam post above. I bought a "perpetual" license, but that requires that I perpetually pay $399 a year to get updates. So it's really a one-year license but the software doesn't expire as such.

Put another way, you can keep using what you bought indefinitely, as long as your plugins etc. remain compatible with the OS that you're using for PT.
 
What if you bought the full version before the subscription model came out. Are you just stuck at your current version?
 
What if you bought the full version before the subscription model came out. Are you just stuck at your current version?

They've been through so many gyrations I don't know if there's a single "yes" or "no" to your question. For ten years I stayed on Lion (or something) and PT v9.03 (or something like that). Finally couldn't stand it and updated when I heard the latency compensation had more than doubled.

Guess it's another 10 years then!
 
It used to be the software was free because it wouldn't run without the PT hardware, remember that? I don't know if I miss that or not, seems almost better in some ways. I'm just glad I don't need it except for a month or two for certain projects.
 
I suffer from AVID anxiety. :cautious::mad:

I previously had a Pro Tools 12 perpetual license in 2016. When it came time to renew in 2017, I unfortunately misunderstood their plans/upgrades/smoke and mirror packages and picked up a one year subscription (thinking that the word 'subscription' meant that when the subscription period ended, that I would get to keep everything up until that point, just like a magazine subscription for example). I also thought a perpetual license was a license that would never expire, boy was I wrong!

To cut a long story short, in the process of buying a subscription back then, I ended up losing the Pro Tools 12 "Perpetual" license. Avid would not give it back and said that at the end of the subscription period I would either have to subscribe again, buy another perpetual license or go back to Pro Tools 11, (which I also have a Perpetual license for).

I spent almost 6 months arguing with them about it, but they would not budge. In the end they decided that they would, in their words, make me a "generous" offer, and would reinstate my Pro Tools 12 license for $99 so that I wouldn't have to pay full price for a perpetual license (which I previously owned!). After all the stress I had dealing with them, I just paid to have my license reinstated and cut my ties with the company.

I still have not installed PT12 on my iLok or computer since then, so not sure what to expect when I do try it in future, considering that PT12 is a generation ago.
 
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Yeah.
I've got a std. perpetual I've been paying $99 a year for.
That price doubles next month so I'm planning to pay before the price increase and see if I think it's worth it next year.
I don't do as much editing as I used to do and that's the only reason I have keep PT.
I checked out a couple of the threads on Slutz and Duc and people saying they've had it with Avid.
 
Given what they added over the past 12 months, I don't feel I have gotten $99 out of my subscription. That alone was leading me to not upgrade again...then the price increase happened on top of that. Granted, I rarely open PT these days - so many other great options for us hobbyists.
 
"AVID" is now for some users "AVOID".
So sad. It's like extortion in the worst way.
Seems they want to continue pleasing their stockholders and not care about their loyal customers.
I've had Pro Tools since it was a 4-track digital production system (ProEDIT with ProDECK) in the early 90s.
Invested heavily with Digidesign software/hardware a few years back and recently with Avid's HDX system.
I feel trapped since I'm so used to its workflow.
BUT to continue shelling $400 a year for the measly updates is insulting.
And when I stop paying for their subscription, reinstatement is a whopping $1k (if they'll still allow it)!
Their subscription model, including their current price increases will undoubtedly result in countless hobbiests to jump ship.
Sadly, I'm looking for another DAW - which means investing a good amount of time learning it.
But at least the price/updates will not be as sinful as Avid's.
Enough is enough!
I will no longer allow this greedy company to extort me.
 
Their "trade in your perpetual license for a cheaper subscription" model is slimy. It really is the worst concept with zero intentions of benefiting the end user. They are literally trying to take back what they sold you and force you to enter into a subscription model. I stopped renewing ProTools at v12.7.
 
I bought PT11 pre-subscription. So I dunno.

Maybe some egghead/hero will make a Reaper template of PT and some software that makes the session into an actual PT session/file.
 
I picked up 3 years at Sweetwater for $99/year (the max they sell) I've had a perpetual since 2006 and still find it easier to use than Cubase. But the main reason for me to keep it right now is they use it at the community college I go to so I can work on stuff at home when I travel for work.

If you have the Sweetwater card, it's got 24 months no interest financing. I'm hoping they either realize they are making a mistake before my 3 years runs out, or I may just freeze my system. Okay, I'm on Windows. I can still use 11 and 10. I won't actually have to freeze anything. :)
 
$400/year is of course peanuts for a scoring stage, but too much for an orchestrator that just opens it twice a week for the midi files. Too bad they can't successfully do different versions responding to different needs!

Are any productions accepting Nuendo files for deliveries?
 
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Avid seem intent on doing a ‘Quark Xpress’.

What with pressure in the video side from Black Magic Design’s Resolve and their alienation of younger/poorer students and musicians using other DAW’s they seem to be sabotaging their own business.

They’ve forgotten who their customers are, in the chase for short term cash. The way I read their announcement, it seems clear to me that they want to transition their business to 100% rental, and they are going to remove permanent licences from their customers over the next few years. Probably slowly at first, and then they will stop selling them leaving people stuck on old versions.
 
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Yeah they've lost me too, a while ago.
It is the most reliable DAW (or used to be, when I was using it - I don't know about now), but not even that justifies their business practices, to me anyway. I feel I would essentially be working for them.
 
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A couple of years back, I've missed an opportunity to upgrade from PT11 to PT12 for 99$ + VAT and I've passed thinking that PT12 won't bring too many "earth-shattering" new features. Although I was kind of wrong, the price of the Reinstatement Plan had drove me away toward REAPER and I couldn't be happier. Not only I'm way more productive now due to the unique flexibility and power of this DAW, but Cockos' ethos especially when it comes to the retail price and the updates / upgrades policy is much more fair toward the end-users. The price of PT was always relatively high, but at least the updates within the major version were free and you were even eligible to a free upgrade to the next version in some cases (I'm not sure if this still stands today). Of course, this is all relative even with the new AVID politics when talking about the big businesses, but many of us don't fit into this particular category.

Personally, I've kept PT11 on my system only for backward compatibility with my older projects. Although the versions older than PT12 are not officially Windows 10 compliant, I've haven't experienced any serious issues myself, though I must admit that I very seldom use PT these days.
 
It used to be the software was free because it wouldn't run without the PT hardware, remember that? I don't know if I miss that or not, seems almost better in some ways. I'm just glad I don't need it except for a month or two for certain projects.
We may come back to that. If you'll indulge my speculations...
Since no brand of computer/OS is reliable anymore (Jobs' Macs used to be very reliable, but that era is over), we might need to rely on proprietary hardware for relative stability under an unstable system again, like we did 15 to 20 years ago: PT5 under MacOS 9, the original Sadie under Windows 95, the Virtua desk under Windows 3.11 (!), or Radar with own proprietary hardware and OS - remember those? Freaking expensive, right?
Of course that's only if manufacturers and publishers see this model as viable in today's market... And hopefully without segregating their ecosystems too much.
Otherwise we'll just be stuck with unreliable computers for now. We've been there in the past. It's no fun, but hey.
 
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