I’ve been on holiday and had some down time from the blog whilst sitting in the beautiful hills of Tuscany in Italy. The great thing about taking time out is it helps you reflect on stuff a little more, to stand back and reflect.

The team did an admirable job of the podcast without me - the jokes were better for sure, but one thing that got me thinking as I listened to the podcast, rather than host it was the whole discussion about buying extra features as bolt on apps for Pro Tools. This discussion was partly driven by our feature on the lack of surround in the new Avid Pro Tools Quartet package.

This led the team to revisit the idea of buying extra features such as surround. I nearly wrote an article about Pro Tools fantasy version where I was going to ask what that would look like.

As I reflected on this idea I changed my mind - buy 5:1 as a feature for Pro Tools in 2014? Are you joking? Give me a break, this is nuts.

Other native DAWs ship with surround support, so why in heaven’s name should anyone have to pay for surround support in Pro Tools, or be expected to buy a Pro Tools HD system that far exceeds their needs just to get surround?

Give me, in fact give everyone a break Avid.

Some of the Avid team ask why we are not always that positive about the Avid Everywhere vision, to be blunt some of it is an adventure in missing the point, offering things Pro Tools users don’t really want instead of delivering the things we are crying out for. 

For example, buying a plug-in to finish a project is one of the features Avid thinks we all need. Would I buy a plug-in to finish a project? Only after I’d exhausted the other options available such as getting the project sent over with the plug-in burnt into the audio, downloaded a demo of the plug-in, or just worked on my part of a project without the plug-in. The last thing I would do is spend money on a plug-in just to finish a project, after all that’s profit lost. If I was running a post house or a studio and someone came to me to say they needed a plug-in to do the job then I would ask them to try and find alternatives before blowing cash on the plug-in. Avid run a business where they are trying to maximise profit and minimize costs, so why in heaven’s name do they think the professionals they are selling to would run their business any differently?

It’s time the Avid Everywhere vision extended to more immediate needs of those in the real world, rather than stuff we might need.

Pro Tools is CURRENTLY the industry standard, so come on Avid let’s have 5:1 as standard, as well as other features that continue to be deficient in Pro Tools. Why should we have to pay for features that come as standard in competitor products?

So what motivated this article, have I been drinking? On the contrary I think I’ve sobered up.