Pro Tools 12 - The Blowback
 
Pro Tools 12 was announced at the NAMM show, but not many liked what they heard about. This applies to you even if you're not a Pro Tools user because of the influence it will have on all sectors of the audio software industry.
 
1. What's so new? In a nutshell, Pro Tools 12 will only be available via subscription. You can either go month to month at $29.95 per month or $299 per year, or get a "perpetual" license that allows you to purchase the software for $899. You also need a subscription for your hardware as well so that the software continues to work with it.
 
Here's the rub - If you stop paying your monthly subscription, the Pro Tools software will disappear from your computer. And a perpetual license is of little help since you still have to pay $899 per year to get any support or upgrades. Stop paying and the app remains on your computer, but no updates are available to you.
 
2. Large facilities aren't happy. The major film and television studios and large post houses that all run Pro Tools and Avid picture editors realize that it's going to cost them a lot more money every year to keep their systems running. Imaging if you have 200+ systems and you have to pay big dough every year just to keep working?
 
Plus there's an issue of putting anything in the cloud, which violates the Marvel standard for protecting film data. Kind of defeats the purpose of being tied to the cloud.
 
3. Musicians and producers aren't happy. It's going to cost more money per year and you're going to be tied at the hip with Avid closer than ever, which scares a lot of musicians. But most of all, there's no advantage to using Pro Tools 12 because there are no new features except for cloud collaboration, which is of limited use to most users.
 
4. Avid's not the only one headed to the cloud. Adobe was the pioneer of the subscription model, but this is new to audio. That said Cakewalk Sonar and Slate Digital are going that way too.
 
5. Will a new alternative emerge? Nuendo once made a lot of headway into the film and video post community until it was bought by Yamaha, who ignored that sector afterwards. It's a very powerful and capable system, and with great third-party IO hardware now widely available, don't be surprised to see Nuendo getting another close look. Of course, if Universal Audio ever bought or came out with a DAW, the discussion would probably be over.
 
Outlook: There's a lot more to this story than you read above, although there's not enough space to get into it here. However, if you're a Pro Tools user, you're going to see some changes in the next 12 months, either transferring to the subscription model, perhaps Avid backing down on some level to something easier to digest, or having to change to a new DAW app.
 
If you're not a Pro Tools user, expect your favorite DAW to at least test the subscription waters soon, especially if Avid is successful.

(Un)fortunately, the companies who have tested the waters with this have also had software released prior to these models which do extremely high percentages of the new models functionality. As years pass the law of diminishing returns applies, which will even test those who make revenue from the program(s). Hobbyists will get tested significantly sooner.

This is another advantage that Cake has over PT.
 
There will also be an impact to educational institutions, unless AVID is providing pricing advantages to them.  PT is used a lot because it is taught a lot (because it was used a lot due to its hardware functionality originally.)  So either the cost of that education is going to go up (likely) or educational institutions who are teaching general principle courses (i.e. not PT specific ones) will switch to more affordable solutions.  Which will eventually result in a shift in the marketplace.

I have ProTools 10 and 11.  I do not nor will I upgrade to 12.  I will not be doing Avid's new model at all.
 
I have Cakewalk Sonar X1 Pro, X2 Pro and X3 Pro.  I will not be doing Cakewalk's new model at all.
 
I will not be doing subscriptions or any of these proposed models for upgrades.
 
I am still using my Adobe CS3 products.  won't upgrade to the cloud based subscription stuff.

Cake says they are not a subscription and you can keep the software after you pay for it. How is that like a subscription that is needed for continued use?

Subscription means whatever the company wants it to mean.  A subscription should mean you get the product and keep it.  If you want the latest, you keep paying for it.  Like newspapers.  Or magazines.  If you stopped your subscription, SOS didn't send the bully boys to your house to clean out your bathroom reading stash.  You just didn't get any upgrades.
 
Adobe and Protools don't understand English, or get subscription confused with extortion ("That's an ugly word, and if you mention it again I'll have your legs broken." - Animal House).
 
Cakewalk can use a dictionary.  And is the reason so many of us got short-tempered with those that didn't.
 
@

AT
Subscription means whatever the company wants it to mean.  A subscription should mean you get the product and keep it.  If you want the latest, you keep paying for it.  Like newspapers.  Or magazines.  If you stopped your subscription, SOS didn't send the bully boys to your house to clean out your bathroom reading stash.  You just didn't get any upgrades.
 
Adobe and Protools don't understand English, or get subscription confused with extortion ("That's an ugly word, and if you mention it again I'll have your legs broken." - Animal House).
 
Cakewalk can use a dictionary.  And is the reason so many of us got short-tempered with those that didn't.
 
@

 
Well said AT!

I agree AT. Some people just will never understand and they only see the "glass half empty". You sometimes kinda feel sorry for those people.

Yeah, just read that B. Owsinski newsletter and was coming here to correct a post I'd made recently. That's the clearest explanation I've read so far, and it has the merit of coming from a Pro Tools user, so it's not like he's on a mission to hype another DAW software.
 
I think AVID will back down. That's the only option I see for them, and for their own sake. 
 
I own 11 and really don't care for 12. The way I see it, my current DAW will remain as is until I upgrade my studio computer - no OS upgrade, no major software upgrade. Furthermore, I've just inherited a Command 8 control surface for Pro Tools, and I intend to use that thing for a while...
 
If I want to enhance what I got, I'll simply run it on a laptop and hook it up to the main machine. And I must say that for that, Cakewalk's own subscription model and pricing is a lot more tempting. If I can get over my aversion for Windows...
 

Once I boot up and I'm inside my DAW software, I never use Windows. (Wink) ;-)