Pro Tools lay people off

Fretwired

I'm a Steinberg guy but it's always sad when competitors lay people off.

http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2016/1/28/pro-tools-and-other-audio-team-go-in-avid-technology-layoffs

spark240

It's desperate indeed., but inevitable I think in the tech sector. So many new software guys churning out new DAWs etc, and costs are relatively cheap so it doesn't take much for people to switch to the next new thing.

digitalscream

spark240 said:

It's desperate indeed., but inevitable I think in the tech sector. So many new software guys churning out new DAWs etc, and costs are relatively cheap for anything but Pro Tools so it doesn't take much for people to switch to the next new thing.

Fixed that for you.

The problem is that Avid's software is ridiculously overpriced, but there's no opportunity to buy the cheaper stuff that people might actually want - eg the Eleven Plugin - without investing in the whole package, due to their deliberate lack of compatibility with everything else on the market.

Then there's the Eleven Rack, which is (was) a fantastic product, ruined by years of neglect. One single expansion pack in 8 years, when people were actively begging for more and perfectly happy to pay for it.

It's not just a case of "software's a tough market" - it's exceedingly poor management decisions that led this way.

darcym

this is gutting,

I've just had to upgrade my pro-tools 11 setup to pro-tools 12 with the rolling yearly support package, which I think the whole thing is a disgrace,

you buy a product, they admit bugs and fix them but then make you pay for fixing those bugs on the product you've already paid.

I had to upgrade to 12, as despite 11 being still in "support" the view is that no more fixes will go into 11 unless they are mission critical which forces (and works) people like me to opt into the support contract per year.

Now to find out they have forced a huge number of pro-tools users into this model to get a much bigger revenue stream on a yearly basis, I find they are laying off staff.

Pro Tools is already understaffed with developers and support people, now they force you to pay for support and they are lowering the number of developers and support staff that my subscription is paying for.

Avid....poor show.

Avid need to sell this product to someone who wants to invest in it as a smaller revenue generator.

randomhandclaps

Price aside the other problem that faces Avid is their target market.   They have always aimed at the pro level.  If you are new to recording then nowadays you have a plethora of DAWs to try and see what suits and Pro Tools certainly isn't the most accessible of all, plus even in the low end range up until recently you needed dedicated hardware with made switching a bitch.  So as a result the can't really compete with a lot of other DAWs for the newcomer or amateur recordist market. 

Then you have the pro end of the market which at one time was fine because there was a.) People seeing the benefit of investing in better usability and capability of software and b.) A kind of studio arms race where often interfaces alone were enough to sell a studio's virtues. 

When I started working with Pro Tools in a professional sense it was limited to 32 tracks (and that seemed a lot) but these could get used up very quickly.  As a result a lot of studios were using Logic for the bulk and Pro Tools for final mixing.  However each time Pro Tools has progressed we have bought more and more into it but inevitably it had to get to a breaking point where we had all we need and upgrading became and expense and a risk, rather than a possible necessity to ease workflow.

The change in the music market itself was also an issue for Avid and I said a good few years back that the rise of Ableton was going to give them an issue.  To me Ableton bridged that gap between the ease of making music on a PlayStation and professional recording.  People ask me why I use and stick with Pro Tools and the answer is that I am a control freak from a compositional point of view.  I record and program everything and very, very rarely unless specifically asked by a client use loops or pre-sequenced stuff and if I do I am well versed in doing this in PT. This left Avid and left them with a choice between pissing off their current client base with potentially clogging up the software with DIY gadgets and trying to sell me 'improvements' I don't need or sticking by their principles.

The world of software is always going to end in reduction as not only does the foundations of new versions remain the same, new ideas and saleable improvement become harder to find and even the  engines they use to develop their own software improves and ultimately need less man hours to develop. 

I remember seeing a news report when there was a big media pant-wetting about Windows 7 being released and everyone scrambling to upgrade.  They interviewed a professor who was head of computing at Cambridge and had worked with Turin and co.  He said that all the computers in his lab still run Windows 98 because it runs flawlessly and that far too many people obsess about 'improvement' or software fashion rather than concentrating on practical use.  He said that this isn't so much of a concern for the consumer market but can be devastating for businesses and he recommended to any business he advised not to upgrade until a program had been out for around three years.  He said ask yourself this question "Does it do all I NEED it to?".  It's an obvious question we neglect but as a result I'm still running Pro Tools 8.

Danny1969

digitalscream said:

spark240 said:

It's desperate indeed., but inevitable I think in the tech sector. So many new software guys churning out new DAWs etc, and costs are relatively cheap for anything but Pro Tools so it doesn't take much for people to switch to the next new thing.

Fixed that for you.

The problem is that Avid's software is ridiculously overpriced, but there's no opportunity to buy the cheaper stuff that people might actually want - eg the Eleven Plugin - without investing in the whole package, due to their deliberate lack of compatibility with everything else on the market.

Then there's the Eleven Rack, which is (was) a fantastic product, ruined by years of neglect. One single expansion pack in 8 years, when people were actively begging for more and perfectly happy to pay for it.

It's not just a case of "software's a tough market" - it's exceedingly poor management decisions that led this way.

Actually I paid £42 for Protools 6.5 TDM direct from Avid when I needed it. Traditionally they have more or less given you the software because so much money was in the hardware.  The Protools Mix system I still have was £21K in 1998 for the 3 cards and an 820 interface. The HD2 system we have was 20K in 2002. You got the software for nowt though

Now PT native runs on any old shit so they charge for the software but PT11 was about £211 I think when we got it which is very reasonable. 

octatonic

I got out of Digi/Avid a while ago, after the fucking nightmare that is their driver software for their own controller hardware.

It simply doesn't work.

I keep a copy of PT 11 around (installed on one system) but I virtually never use it.

Yes, beat detective is the best thing for drum editing, but I'd rather spend a bit more time in Logic than support Avid.

I spent more money on my PT HD rig in 2 years than I have since on hardware (excluding Apple computers) and software and I've been absolutely fine, in terms of being able to work and make music.

earwighoney

Sad to see Avid's Audio department cutting on staff but I'm not surprised.  PT's market was the high end Audio market (not really Midi) based around DSP cards to take burden for mixing in the box/ie with computers.  In recent times computers have become much more powerful so the need for separate DSP's is largely gone, and with Universal Audio UAD cards probably providing something in between but they provide some truly amazing plug ins as well. 

I'm PT will still continue to exist but I imagine they will focus on the pro user opposed to the hobby musician.  

Snap

randomhandclaps said:

He said ask yourself this question "Does it do all I NEED it to?".  It's an obvious question we neglect but as a result I'm still running Pro Tools 8.

I agree mainly, but......

You often don't know you need something until you try something new. For example, AC in cars - never understood why you'd want it until I first got it. No going back.

Development for development's sake is often pointless, but equally it can be a case of not knowing what you are missing. Old Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns.

Jalapeno

Avid has form in this approach, they're asset strippers IMHO.

octatonic

Jalapeno said:

Avid has form in this approach, they're asset strippers IMHO.

Agree.

They seem to have left Sibelius mostly alone, which is weird.