Avid are currently sweetening the deal when you buy a Duet or Quartet interface offering $998 worth of free extras. However on closer inspection it raises some issues about confusing plans, for example it seems that when buying an interface/Pro Tools bundle you do not get an upgrade plan. So let's take a look at it in more detail...
Get An Upgrade Plan Worth $199
One part of the $997 deal is the offer of a free 1 year upgrade plan for the Pro Tools software that comes with the interface. But hang on a moment, when you buy the Pro Tools software on its own, don't you get a one year upgrade plan included? So we checked the Pro Tools software page and under What's Included in the Tech Specs tab it says this...
One-year Avid upgrade plan (includes all Pro Tools upgrades, plus support, renewable annually)
That got us thinking, does the software included with the other interfaces come with an Upgrade plan? So we checked the Mbox Pro and Fast Track Duo pages and there is no mention of an upgrade plan b.
Get One Tier 2 Plug-in worth $299 and one Tier 3 plug-in worth $499
What exactly is a Tier 2 or Tier 3 plug-in? They clearly have grouped their bundles into levels with the same purchase price but how does one go about finding out which plug-ins to choose from?
There is no link on the page we clicked on from the email sent through from Avid. Next we looked at the Duet product page and we found a link in the paragraph covering the plug-in offer, clicked on it and the link is broken, and the Quartet page has the same broken link.
We took a look at the link and wondered if the "-one" should be on the end? When we deleted it, hey presto a page explaining the Avid plug-in Tier structure. This is good news because the store doesn't display the plug-ins in tiers, we had to sort by price and find all the plug-ins from Avid that cost $299 or $499.
Buy An Avid Interface And The Pro Tools Software Included Doesn't Come With An Upgrade Plan
So it would seem from the current information on the Avid web site that if you buy an Avid interface bundled with Pro Tools software, you will need to budget an an extra $199 for an Upgrade Plan from day one, that is if you want to be able to access the upgrades as they come along in the coming months. Avid are penalising customers buying hardware and software together, unless you buy an Avid Duet or Quartet with this current promotion.
The use of the Tier 2 & Tier 3 plug-in terms which are not used universally across their sites and store further confuses the buyer and harder to make choices. It is confusing to say the least.