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Avid launches consumer versions of Pro Tools


Phait

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Avid is Digidesign's parent company. They purchased Digidesign in 1994, so you're only 15 years late with this realization.
:D

Avid also owns M-Audio, Sibelius, and some other familiar brands.

 

 

Actually the only company today is AVID.

 

Digi, M-Audio, Sibelius at all are only brands of Avid.

 

 

Pro Tools Essentials is an entry-level version of Pro Tools which will come bundled with selected interfaces. Not sure about the details yet on which ones and the final feature set of PT-E.

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Please, if I'm taking the time to answer the inquiries as accurate as I can, try to refrain from speculating.

 

* The Mackie thing is something real, however it is being managed by the legal departments on both sides yet, as far as I know and there's no final resolution at this moment.

 

 

* Pro Tools Essentials is an entry-level version of Pro Tools which will be bundled in certain interfaces. It is a real product, but I don'e have all the details yet.

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I don't have any figures to back this up, but I can only assume Pro Tools is losing market share, especially on the Mac with contenders like Logic 9 that cost considerably less and don't care what hardware you use, the revitalized Cubase, and of course, Ableton Live's surge in the marketplace. On Windows, Sonar is making serious moves and of course, Reaper is getting a huge following.

 

So, Digidesign needs to do something to get people started in the "way of the Pro Tools," thus creating a customer base that will upgrade as they move up in the recording world. M-Powered goes partway there, but Essentials seems to go all way. It also appears they're aiming to get guitar players into the fold.

 

I think PT is in a good position to do this. Despite some legacy issues buried deep in the code (a separate folder for crossfades?!?), it still has one a very approachable interface.

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Well Craig, it may be all that, indeed, summed to the quintessential question I get all the time regarding every single M-Audio product:

 

"Does the interface include Pro Tools?"

 

 

Answer until today: No.

 

 

M-Audio -and tons of other manufacturers- include a Lite version of Ableton's LIVE -what a great product, anyway- but it is not really the best way to get an user engaged into recording and as you say, it does not lead them "into their way to Pro Tools".

 

So, adding a very basic version of Pro Tools -with the very same environment and functionality- does really make sense these days.

 

 

Amplayer: It is, indeed, taken from LE and M-Powered which are basically the same. As I said, I'm not sure if there will be only one "Essentials" version and the final feature set.

 

 

What I know is that it will be a fully functional version with less channels, less plug-ins.

 

As soon as I have a feature set I'll post it.

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M-Audio
-and tons of other manufacturers-
include a Lite version of Ableton's LIVE
-what a great product, anyway-
but it is not really the best way to get an user engaged into recording and as you say, it does not lead them
"into their way to Pro Tools".


So, adding a very basic version of Pro Tools
-with the very same environment and functionality-
does really make sense these days.

Sounds to me like they got it right for everybody else, but baclwards for this crowd, hence the jabs. I see it as an M-Audio USB microphone, a guitar interface (Fast Track USB?), or a KeyRig or cut down Oxygen keyboard with a copy of ProTools included. Trageted to the people who actually want to play music and record it rather than create music with computer tools like Live (no value judgments here - they're different markets). When you own the software company, you can afford to practically give it away and make your money on the hardware. Some will never need any more than this. Those who want to upgrade and stick with the ProTools path will buy more capable hardware that doesnt]/i] come with a free copy of ProTools, so that's more profit for Avid.

 

That press release was written by a marketing person, probably outside of Avid (they got the M-Box Micro wrong) so the descriptions of the hardware may be a bit off, too. And personally, I think 16 tracks is enough for anybody. ;)

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I can only imagine that AVID has a strong, perhaps even urgent desire to boost their image in investors' minds: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AVID#chart3:symbol=avid;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=candlestick;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined

 

 

I wonder how the tracking time alignment will be for that USB mic? In my limited experience with USB mics (in fact the only experience I've had with USB audio devices), the effective hardware latency was so all over the map that I had to run a ping loopback re-calibration every time I used it in an overdub situation. IIRC, PT LE initially had (or perhaps even still has) issues with uncompensated latency that left new overdubs 'behind' where they should be on the timeline vis-a-vis previously recorded tracks.

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I don't have any figures to back this up, but I can only assume Pro Tools is losing market share, especially on the Mac with contenders like Logic 9 that cost considerably less and don't care what hardware you use, the revitalized Cubase, and of course, Ableton Live's surge in the marketplace.

A little bird told me that the next version of Sonar will run on a Mac.

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So, Digidesign needs to do something to get people started in the "way of the Pro Tools," thus creating a customer base that will upgrade as they move up in the recording world. M-Powered goes partway there, but Essentials seems to go all way. It also appears they're aiming to get guitar players into the fold.


I think PT is in a good position to do this. Despite some legacy issues buried deep in the code (a separate folder for crossfades?!?), it still has one a very approachable interface.

Avid

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