Some of the new Pro Tools plans come with Avid support plans. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes depending on the system you own and the amount you pay. I recently took the plunge to upgrade to Pro Tools 12 after seeing the latest features available (when we give Editor's Choice Awards we really mean it), plumping for the $99 deal as I own more plugins than I need and if I need support I'm surrounded by the amazing Pro Tools Expert team and the wider Pro Tools community.

However once I'd paid my $99 (about £80) and logged into my account I saw I also got 7-Day installation support, nice touch I thought but I'm not sure if I'd use it. However once I'd logged into the Avid Application Manager app I noticed the dates for the expiration of my plan didn't match, so I decided to take advantage of the 7-Day Installation Support.

I completed a web form on the Avid web site at 10:55pm in London just before I went to bed, no sooner had I pressed send than I had a confirmation email telling me my case number. I went to bed expecting a reply within 24 hours. When I woke up at 6:00am I found that by 1:05am I'd already got a response from someone called Pinky who asked me to submit screen shots of my account and the app to check what I was seeing, which I did.

By noon I had a answer from Pinky with satisfactory solution to my concerns.

All responses I got during my support case were clear and made sense and helped to got a solution with the minimum of fuss. From what I understand my package promised me web support with 24 hour response time, I got an solution in around half that time, which included me sleeping for most of it.

Granted my situation was not mission critical studio downtime with a client sitting next to me, but for what I needed it was an great experience.

Have you used Avid Support? What was your experience?