Can Pro Tools 9 still be purchased?

[gubu]

Hey Trenches, I'm planning what is for me, a significant upgrade, to a 6 or 7 year old Mac Pro. Prices are within my range, and along with something like a Steinberg MR816, the new rig would be a huge improvement on the old mbox rig on which I've been beavering away tirelessly for the last 10+ years! Problem is, the used Macs in my price range will only run Snow Leopard/PT9. So, is it still possible to purchase a licensed copy of PT9?

[Anderton]

Your best hope is finding an unopened copy somewhere, like from a user who bought it but never used it because he switched to Logic or whatever.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Avid does allow transfers of ownership on software, but I think they expect you to fill out forms to do it. I've never done it, but I've read about it. Maybe you can find someone selling something like a used Mbox with the software at a dirt cheap price and go that route...

 

[gubu]

Thanks guys. Actually I've been seeing some machines in my price range that run Yosemite, so it may come down to getting the extra shekels together for PT 10 or 11. I suppose there would be no harm in contacting Avid directly too, once I get my hands on a machine.

[Phil O'Keefe]

FWIW, I'm still primarily using PT10 HD. I think it's worth the extra bucks to go with 10 over 9. However, I'm still running OS X 10.8.5 on my MackBook Pro - PT10 is not officially supported on Mavericks or Yosemite, and I don't know if it works "unofficially" with those operating systems or not.

 

Pro Tools 11.3 and later are officially supported with Yosemite.

[Nijyo]

What models are you looking at? According to the Wiki for Yosemite, there's machines that are *eight* years old that run that OS version. Mac Pros from 2008-onward work:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite#System_requirements

 

You can get used, non-eBay 2009 Mac Pros for like $600 bucks:

http://www.macofalltrades.com/Refurbished-Used-Apple-Mac-Pros-s/386.htm?searching=Y&sort=1&cat=386&show=300&page=1

 

Worth considering.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My mid-2008 White Macbook can apparently run Yosemite with some caveats, if I wanted to try hassling with trying to install an officially unsupported OS (it's the last unsupported MacBook model as far as running Yosemite...) but it taps out at 4GB (some say 6GB) of RAM, which is pretty lean IMHO for PT 10 or above.

 

It was very nice of you to comment and link to Mac Pro prices, but Gubu's in Ireland, so he might not be able to take advantage of those prices. Shipping (and import duties?) might make the prices considerably more expensive from his perspective, not to mention the potential powering issues.

[gubu]

What models are you looking at? According to the Wiki for Yosemite, there's machines that are *eight* years old that run that OS version. Mac Pros from 2008-onward work:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite#System_requirements

 

You can get used, non-eBay 2009 Mac Pros for like $600 bucks:

http://www.macofalltrades.com/Refurbished-Used-Apple-Mac-Pros-s/386.htm?searching=Y&sort=1&cat=386&show=300&page=1

 

Worth considering.

 

Thanks Nijyo! As Phil says, I'm on the other side of the pond, but the prices are about the same here - ~€500-600 for a 4-7 year old 8 core machine with >=16gb of ram. I'd probably cheap out a bit and go with 4 cores, but we're in the same ballpark here, pricewise

[gubu]

My mid-2008 White Macbook can apparently run Yosemite with some caveats, if I wanted to try hassling with trying to install an officially unsupported OS (it's the last unsupported MacBook model as far as running Yosemite...) but it taps out at 4GB (some say 6GB) of RAM, which is pretty lean IMHO for PT 10 or above.

 

 

That's the thing - I've been looking at similar Macbook Pros and iMacs, because of the stupidly cheap prices, but you're gonna come up against memory and CPU headroom issues real early on, once you start expanding your I/O, plugin suite etc. A decent tower seems to be the best base machine when thinking about adding extra DSP, drives, etc, over the long haul.

[Nijyo]

 

Thanks Nijyo! As Phil says, I'm on the other side of the pond, but the prices are about the same here - ~€500-600 for a 4-7 year old 8 core machine with >=16gb of ram. I'd probably cheap out a bit and go with 4 cores, but we're in the same ballpark here, pricewise

 

I'm surprised that the prices are that close between markets, but that's very good news. I liked those old Mac Pros. The new ones seem so much less expandable, and their "intro model" price for a new one is really much too rich for my blood ($3000 for the lowest priced model? Yeesh).

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

That's the thing - I've been looking at similar Macbook Pros and iMacs, because of the stupidly cheap prices, but you're gonna come up against memory and CPU headroom issues real early on, once you start expanding your I/O, plugin suite etc. A decent tower seems to be the best base machine when thinking about adding extra DSP, drives, etc, over the long haul.

 

I think it really depends on your specific needs, and of course on which MBP you can afford. I have a desktop machine as well as a laptop. My desktop is a self-built PC with a quad 3.5GHz i7 and 16GB (expandable to 32GB) of RAM. It's more powerful and does give me better expansion capabilities - it holds tons of cards (4 PCI-x and 3 PCI-e) and internal drives. The laptop (late 2011 MacBook Pro) offers much better mobility, and with a quad core 2.2GHz i7, it's not a slouch in the performance department either. Apple says it maxes out at 8GB of RAM, but it can use up to 16GB just fine. Add a Universal Audio UAD quad Satellite and an external firewire audio drive and an external USB drive (for backups) to the equation, and you have a very capable machine for use on the go.

 

IMHO, if you're going to be at home a lot and you have a killer recording space there to work in, go with the tower. If you do more mobile recording, or need to be able to move from location to location a lot, the laptop rig will serve you well.