Well, the speculation. The frustration. The trepidation. The sheer anxious anticipation. After 20 years of painful waiting, it's here.
"Well the speculation is over, the new Avid Pro Tools|HD Native Core has been released."
The Bad.
Now does that mean that you can buy Pro Tools for your current interface? HELL NO!
What is this? Some sort of democracy? No no no me droogs. We are still bound to the man. In the form of a ProTools Native Core. Yes! Another PCIe interface which relies now upon the power of your cpu! This is better? I suppose, there is more potential.
The Good.
Prices start at $3500 for a Native Core PCIe card AND an HD interface. Okay this is much better than the potential $7000 or more I would have spent on an HD1 Setup.
Which brings us to...........
The Really Bad.
What does this mean for all of the recent purchasers of HD 1, 2, 3 systems? Will support start to dwindle for the old HD's. Do we even need to ask that question? I'm so glad I never bought into the hype.
Well, the bad gets worse. The $3500 that I thought would buy an interface and the HD Native card? Not the case. $3500 just for the card and ProTools HD. What the hell? Complete Production Toolkit is still $2000? So instead of the "deal" for an HD1 + 192 IO for $7000, now we're paying $7000 for the HD Native and an interface.
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is that there is rumor once again that not only will ProTools 9 be Native but it may be available as an open DAW. That is, you may need an iLok to use it but you will at any rate be able to use it with the interface of your choice. That is ONLY RUMOR. Still, if there is even the whiff of truth, there is going to be hell to pay! Will customers stand for such outright extortion? You know they won't sell ProTools 9 for anything less than $2000 retail. Psssssshhh!