4

Alright, so you have in the package DV Toolkit 2, 96 tracks, automatic delay compensation, NO INTERFACE NEEDED and works with any interface! Yes, they finally did what everyone else did 10 years ago. But its pro tools, and they finally got their act together and gave the people what they wanted.

This for a cross-grade cost of 250 bucks.

Past all the hype, I want to know what the cons are. There has to be. Avid (formerly the evil in comparison Digidesign) always has some kind of hidden catch. What is it?

Go!

2
  • I kind of wish they mentioned PT9 when I was buying DV toolkit 2 on their website for too much money a couple weeks ago. Nov 16, 2010 at 0:03
  • hey they offer discounted upgrade pricing for anyone who bought the DV tool kit recently
    – studio13
    Dec 10, 2010 at 18:36

17 Answers 17

1

As Miguel says...watch out for bugs. I have obtained some inside information that yes, it is still buggy, and there's one bigger issue at play right now for people in our line of work...PT9 has shipped/launched with issues in video sync. I suggest everyone wait at least until the first update before upgrading.

Clarification: So the sync issue I heard about was that when this person was working with video, sync was initially off. adjusting settings seemingly corrected sync while working in PT9. When the audio was sent back to picture for layback however, sync was off again. We discussed the possibility that it was the picture edit system, but that was dismissed. Plus, this person really knows they're stuff. So, I'm very inclined to believe them.

4
  • Very interesting! Considering this is what I mainly work with, thats very good to know! Thanks Shaun!
    – C3Sound
    Nov 6, 2010 at 6:38
  • yeah, i was a bit shocked when I heard that, then i realized that we aren't necessarily their largest user demographic....even if we are the most important. ;) Nov 6, 2010 at 6:41
  • even PT8 had far inferior video sync than PT7.3 especially scrubbing/varispeed video & audio
    – user49
    Nov 6, 2010 at 20:39
  • yeah, i regretted upgrading to 8 at work. pal quicktimes still don't work the way they used to. Nov 7, 2010 at 3:51
3

FWIW, a good friend of mine beta tested PT9 for two months before the launch and proclaims it be MUCH more stable than PT8. So, go forth and purchase --

1
  • Thank ya much Jay - I probably will indeed purchase this - not just for the benefits, but to support a good business decision in pro audio software.
    – C3Sound
    Nov 6, 2010 at 6:39
1

Bugs!!!!! :D .0.1 or .1 versions of Pro Tools are always better :)

2
  • Bugs! What have you run into so far?
    – C3Sound
    Nov 5, 2010 at 19:11
  • I've not upgraded my PT system yet, but I've knew about several issues from users that have done the upgrade to PT9... I think I can wait a bit more to make sure. Nov 8, 2010 at 4:25
1

Is there any news on plugin compatability in PT9? Will my waves v7 and izotope plugins work without any upgrade from their respective companies?

1
  • Just made the jump from PT8 to PT9 and all plugs seem to be intact. Nov 7, 2010 at 5:09
1

If you've got DV toolkit, either 1 or 2, you can upgrade it to CPTK2 for only US$250 rather than paying $2000. So its worth something. That gives you VCAs and all the extra HD editing and automation features that PT9 doesnt have.

That's separate to your Pt9 crossgrade price.

2
  • I hadnt looked into the upgrade to complete production for only 250! I may upgrade both if I can!
    – C3Sound
    Nov 7, 2010 at 2:34
  • Hi @Brent_in_Sydney, welcome! Having just upgraded my DVTK for PT8 I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a price difference between the two. But hell, I've made my $50 since the upgrade, at least I'm still saving $1700! And VCAs on "LE"? Totally worth it! Nov 8, 2010 at 15:22
0

I played around all the day with Pro Tools 9 and cptk, and found stable as version 8.0.4. But More testing is needed.

I think that it's what the PT community asked for, and I'm happy to be able to work wherever I am without the need of the stupid mbox, and that finally I can open those PT|HD sessions on my laptop without losing any information (TDM plugins excluded).

I hope that PT 9 is a starting point, not the finish line: maybe Avid will start giving us some other functions requested many, many times (folders in region list, a better handling of markers, etc).

2
  • I love the folder in regions list idea! That would make organizing so much easier!
    – C3Sound
    Nov 5, 2010 at 19:11
  • 3
    and handles when processing with audiosuite!!! Nov 5, 2010 at 19:13
0

Wow !! What am I going to do with my G5 / HD2 rig now ... ?? Anyway I found this feature comparison chart very useful

1
  • Am I reading this correctly? Only the 003 rack will work with PT9? Or is that just a general checkmark for all of the products?
    – C3Sound
    Nov 6, 2010 at 6:44
0

I'm so freaking happy about this announcement.

Just as I was trying to hustle up some extra bartending work to be able to buy an Mbox pro and DV Toolkit... Remember this question: http://bit.ly/cNGeoc ?

Question is, according to the Compatibility specs, I have to have at lest a Core2 Duo Mac, and my(still good) MBP is a 2007 Core Duo...looks like an expensive 'upgrade' route, unless anybody knows of someone who has PT 9 installed on a a Mac like mine? Avid Qualified Macs are listed here: http://bit.ly/9vWuSa

Kurt

2
  • Core 2 Duo adds over Core Duo mainly in the area of 64 bit, and maybe on the efficiency side. Like Adobe, I expect Digidesign would be slow to migrate to 64 bit architecture thus making it a hard requirement. But you can see them paving the way already.
    – georgi
    Nov 8, 2010 at 21:09
  • But i'm sure it wont be a major impediment, running a Core Duo. Im sure it'll be just fine
    – Kurt Human
    Nov 9, 2010 at 10:23
0

Since there's a thread going on this, I figure I'll ask here and see if anyone knows...

Will the Mbox series and Eleven Rack be upgraded to carry PT9 software as well or will they still ship with (the now vastly inferior) PT LE? I was totally saving to buy an Eleven Rack to replace my POD and get Pro Tools again but now.....

2
  • If you have PT8 after 4th Oct you'll get a free upgrade so yeah you'll get PT9, technically.
    – ianjpalmer
    Nov 6, 2010 at 18:01
  • That's good to know, means I'm still considering the same gear purchases. £250 difference between PT9 and Eleven Rack though...
    – JTC
    Nov 6, 2010 at 20:25
0

so I own Pro Tools 8 and DV Toolkit, but I still have to pay 250 for an upgrade to gain the extra plugins I already have? Sounds like a bum deal for us dv toolkit owners, shouldn't we get a discount on the upgrade? Great for non-dv toolkit owners obviously, but I feel like I'm getting the short end of the straw a bit!

4
  • What plugins does PT9 come with? Might sell my DVToolkit2 only if I keep some of the plugins like Vocalign and TLSpace.
    – ianjpalmer
    Nov 6, 2010 at 18:02
  • Dude totally! I have DV Toolkit as well! But the bottom line is that we use Pro Tools and love it - are the Pros enough to weigh out the cons? That line is probably different for everyone - which is why I posted this!
    – C3Sound
    Nov 6, 2010 at 18:04
  • And like ian mentioned, selling DV Toolkit is an option too!
    – C3Sound
    Nov 6, 2010 at 18:05
  • I just looked and as far as I can tell CPTK doesn't come with Vocalign or TLSpace. They are also listed separately on ilok.com. I presume from this I could upgrade or sell and keep those 2 plugins. These plugins, TC, import AAFs were why I bought DVToolkit, glad I wont lose them. Might need to ask somewhere if they'll work in PT9 though.
    – ianjpalmer
    Nov 6, 2010 at 18:20
0

It seems that it is possible to run PT 9 on the older MacBook Pros, Generation 1,1 and 2,1.

At leat according to this thread on DUC

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=285636

0

Biggest PRO I see (as a user on a budget): OMF and 1 track of video support without having to buy the expensive DV Toolkit, if I'm reading everything right. Downside: need to get my Win 7 rig built.

1
  • @VCProd Correct, but in my situation - with having a license of DV Toolkit - I am now able to upgrade to the CPTK for only $300 - which in the long run has saved me $650 bucks.
    – C3Sound
    Nov 14, 2010 at 15:24
0

Does 9 do anything to improve PT PC? I so so so want to be able to work on the PT but dont want to change platforms.

5
  • @David I may not be understanding your question correctly. Are you asking if Pro Tools has been reprogrammed to run more efficiently on a PC? From what I know, ProTools PC and ProTools Mac OSX are the exact same, just ported correctly for their platform. ProTools was a Windows based DAW before it was ever a Mac DAW.
    – C3Sound
    Nov 14, 2010 at 15:20
  • @C3Sound actually I always thought that Sound Tools (the ancestor of Pro Tools) was born on the Mac platform. Don't know about ProTools, but I always worked on Mac (since version 5): really don't know how it perform on Windows. Nov 14, 2010 at 23:44
  • @Davide Dont know about Sound Tools - I know if it, but never used it. That was before my time in audio engineering.
    – C3Sound
    Nov 15, 2010 at 5:23
  • I'm platform agnostic. I'm running PT 8.04 LE without any issues on a PC at home, and HD on a Mac at work. Then again, I also built the PC myself. The biggest difference between Macs and PCs is the attention to compatibility between hardware components. With Macs you're paying a premium for a carefully constructed machine. You can spend just as much money to buy a carefully constructed PC, but most people don't. They cheap out because there are lower grade constructions available for less money. That and they leave all the software bloat on the off-the-shelf model. Nov 15, 2010 at 14:09
  • I have a very nice PC (quad core i5, tons of ram) and an MBox2 Mini. My system consistently loses track of hardware (the fix is quick, but about 1ce an hour i have to fix) I also find i get clicks on playback regardless of buffer settings and such. Boot up time is consistently 3-4 times longer than Nuendo, and if the sessions have a lot of regions, then session opening can take quite a while. Last week i did some dialog editing (several thousand lines of dialog with edits = ~10k regions) and it took up to 4-5 minutes to load the session I never get any of this on Nuendo Nov 16, 2010 at 23:24
0

I searched the whole Avid site about this:

"Speed up your workflow with advanced automation, audio, and video editing tools"

and i found nothing! what exactly are the advanced automation, audio, video editing tools? is it worth buyng pro tools without complete production toolkit 2? how can i decide if i dont know!?!

4
  • It's a lottery, my friend.
    – Kurt Human
    Nov 15, 2010 at 13:55
  • 1
    @Nikos There are a few types of automation added - Preview and Punch Preview being 2 of them that allow you to set levels and plug-in automation and then "punch" that setting into the session when you are done. This is ridiculously handy in a lot of situations. Thats just one of the more unexplained features on their website - look here for a more descriptive read out on what CPTK does: avid.com/US/products/Complete-Production-Toolkit-2/features
    – C3Sound
    Nov 15, 2010 at 18:29
  • thank you very much for the info, i seriously dont think i ll "need" the 2000 euros extra this package has to offer though! i think its incredibly overpriced Nov 15, 2010 at 23:18
  • The CPTK2 gives you all the feature of ProTools|HD except for TDM plugins/mixer, sync IO support, track input, track punch. The version 9 has a few new feature: - it's now possible to route a track to any existing tracks (or a new one) directly from the I/O label of a channel strip. - the maximum tracks in a session is now 512 (and the voices are now 96 for protools (without CPTK)) -there are a few options in the panner behavior -there is a new IO setup (like in ProTools|HD 8.1) - Nov 24, 2010 at 18:07
0

Great price for buying the software but the Production Kit 2 is very expensive nearly 3x more than ProTools itself! :(

Addition:

If I cross grade from LE to 9 can I switch to an iLok dongle?

Once upgraded to 9 can you sell the Mbox with LE 8?

3
  • I wish they would come down on Complete Production Toolit - Logic has 5.1 mixing built in already!
    – C3Sound
    Nov 6, 2010 at 18:06
  • @Ade yes, you would have to buy one - i think its like 32 or 40 bucks. ProTools 9 has to be authorized upon opening every time with an ilok.
    – C3Sound
    Nov 24, 2010 at 19:07
  • @C3Sound, So the Mbox wouldn't have to be used to work the program, great news. Nov 24, 2010 at 20:07
0

Not sure if this warrants a new thread (apologies if it does) but I'm wondering if anyone know how sessions from PT 9 open in PT 7.4. One of my biggest clients mixes at a studio that is still on 7.4 and before I upgrade I want to make sure that there isn't going to be issues and/or time consuming workarounds opening my sessions in 7.4.

2
  • The session format is still the same (so no "save as copy" like going from 7.4 to 5.1). Still, there are some things that you lose going to 7.4 (IO setup change, bus are dropped, elastic audio behave differently, etc) but it works. I exchange sessions from PT9 to PT7.4 (and before from 8 to 7.4) all the time (all the mixing stage here are still on PT7.4), and never had a problem Dec 10, 2010 at 14:01
  • Thanks Davide, it sounds like it works the same as PT 8 to PT 7.4, which is great!
    – AdamAxbey
    Dec 16, 2010 at 20:38
0

I wrote about this on my site: Why I'm Not Upgrading To Pro Tools 9...Yet

That was back in November and I still haven't updated. I use REAPER for nearly everything now and keep M-Powered 8 installed for compatibility. OTOH I'm not a pro sound designer.

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