Time to leave Pro Tools. What would be a good replacement?

I appreciate everyone taking time to reply to this. I am taking the information you provide and doing further research on each of the DAWs mentioned. I still have my PT license until December, unless I contact them back and tell them I will take the refund they offered me and shut it down. I need to find out what that return window is so I can decide whether to keep that going or just spend a week or two researching and cut over to something different now.

I have experience with mixing on a number of different devices and software. I think I will be able to adjust and learn any of these without too many issues. I don't have any real obscure needs. I am really trying to judge how much I need to spend to get something for my uses. I was probably over spending on PT even before they raised the price. I have had it since before they started the perpetual licenses, a little over 6 years now. It had everything I needed in it is so there was no need to purchase a bunch of plugins to make it work for me. They have included their plugin bundle with the perpetual license now but I don't really see that as a value to me since I have not needed it up to this point.
 
I believe Ableton Live is the way forward.

I've been with PT since 7.2 and certified by Digidesign(now Avid) since 2011. The only reason I launch Pro Tools these days is if I have to for a client or to open a legacy session.

I saw so little progress from Avid and so much from other companies that I switched from PT to Live as my full-time daily driver DAW in 2018. I'm extremely pleased with the switch and since Live 11 got linked track editing and a good comping workflow I haven't missed anything from PT.

As a songwriter I find Live to be in another league as far as getting ideas out and formed swiftly.

I'm of the belief that the only thing of value Pro Tools has to offer creators and engineers in 2022 is compatibility with professional studios that use Pro Tools(much like graphic designers who want to work in design studios need to know the Adobe suite despite better tools being available due to Adobe's foothold in the pro-market).
 
jljesse said:
I'm of the belief that the only thing of value Pro Tools has to offer creators and engineers in 2022 is compatibility with professional studios that use Pro Tools(much like graphic designers who want to work in design studios need to know the Adobe suite despite better tools being available due to Adobe's foothold in the pro-market).
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I've actually always kind of wondered about that.

It's not like my experience is all that extensive, but the pro studios I've been in were always very out of date on PT HD versions. Like....crazy out of date. If you're a pro and you don't need to connect your computer to the internet or use it for anything else, there's no reason to stay up to date once something works.

If you have a current version of PT, there's every chance it just won't work in a lot of pro studios. You'll still be bouncing to audio.
 
marsonic said:
I've actually always kind of wondered about that.

It's not like my experience is all that extensive, but the pro studios I've been in were always very out of date on PT HD versions. Like....crazy out of date. If you're a pro and you don't need to connect your computer to the internet or use it for anything else, there's no reason to stay up to date once something works.

If you have a current version of PT, there's every chance it just won't work in a lot of pro studios. You'll still be bouncing to audio.
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+1 Ableton
 
marsonic said:
I've actually always kind of wondered about that.

It's not like my experience is all that extensive, but the pro studios I've been in were always very out of date on PT HD versions. Like....crazy out of date. If you're a pro and you don't need to connect your computer to the internet or use it for anything else, there's no reason to stay up to date once something works.

If you have a current version of PT, there's every chance it just won't work in a lot of pro studios. You'll still be bouncing to audio.
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This. For most of the last decade I ran a 2009 Mac Pro with Pro tools 10.x that I disconnected from the internet and treated like a tape machine.
 
Used them all. Finally settled on Mixcraft and haven’t looked back. They all pretty have the same capabilities. Existing library and workflow are the differentiators for me.
 
jljesse said:
This. For most of the last decade I ran a 2009 Mac Pro with Pro tools 10.x that I disconnected from the internet and treated like a tape machine.
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Yeah...the studio I interned in was using HD3 systems essentially just as a tape machines. They used a few plugins, but it was mostly to have the IO to run a 64-channel SSL and to be able to run their outboard either pre-capture or as inserts in the big room (it was around 100 channels). Since they didn't need to run modern software, they still used PowerPC macs. The other room also used a PowePC mac and HD3, same basic IO setup with less gear, but the SSL was broken the entire time I worked there, so they were using plugins and the PT mixer in there.

This was in 2012. Apple converted to Intel in 2006.

The time to upgrade things was too expensive.

Last I heard, they had switched to Windows because that was easier than dealing with the trashcan mac pros.
 
I don't think there's a better DAW but there's the one you get more confident: I switched back a couple of years ago from PT (I had to use it in the Studios I worked at) to CUBASE and I have to say that I'm faster with this one. At the end, I would try, as others suggested, the demos and see which one make you faster to make the job done.
 
I am starting to get the feeling that I am going to be investing in more than one solution. It is hard to ignore Logic X. The more I look at that the more I like it. However, I am also trying to prepare for the day when my Mac need upgraded. I will probably switch over to a PC at that time because the hardware is half the price. I originally went with Mac because they were doing things better at that time. Things just worked. It is a new world now. Knowing that, I am going to want to pick a solution that I can easily move over. I don't want to have to pay a crossgrade fee to do it. That is where PT was strong for me. All I had to do was install it on both and use the iLok in whichever machine I was using at the time and it just worked.
 
Also, not all plugins exist on both platforms, and not all that do give you licenses for both when you buy. I've investigated this zero, so both of those situations may be rare, but I know they exist.

Not to mention the significant hassle of installing all that on a new machine, but that's true whether the new machine is on the same os or not.
 
There are several DAWS out there that are both PC and Mac. Cubase is what I have stuck with over the years because it always works. I had a lot of problems with Pro Tools and how finicky it was. When things wouldn't work, I would contact support and they would always answer that I was using something that was not officially supported by Avid.

You can set Cubase to use the same key commands as Pro Tools. While it doesn't cover all of the key commands in Pro Tools, it has most of them there and you can always set up your own preferences and macros. The newest version of Cubase also has a multi tool similar to the one in Pro Tools. Cubase comes with a lot of plugins and has a channel strip built into every track by default. Steinberg has also announced that Cubase 12 will get rid of the dongle (e-licenser) which has been the biggest negative about Cubase for a long time.

A few things that I like most about Cubase is chord tracks, arranger tracks, proper folder tracks, built in variaudio(Cubase version of Melodyne), and Control Room. Control room makes it easy to set up different mixes inside of the DAW and makes it easy to switch through multiple monitor setups. I also like how easy it is to set up using multiple computer monitors. Last of all, the MIDI editing is second to none in my experience. There is even a dedicated midi editing mode for drum midi.
 
drgamble said:
A few things that I like most about Cubase is chord tracks, arranger tracks, proper folder tracks, built in variaudio(Cubase version of Melodyne), and Control Room. Control room makes it easy to set up different mixes inside of the DAW and makes it easy to switch through multiple monitor setups. I also like how easy it is to set up using multiple computer monitors. Last of all, the MIDI editing is second to none in my experience. There is even a dedicated midi editing mode for drum midi.
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There are endless little things in Cubase that make a big difference. One is the track listen feature when you're using the control room. There are quite a few nice things that are unique to Cubase, but control room is one of the most important. And yes, the drum midi editor goes way beyond what any other DAW offers.
 
Logic X and Cubase Pro are the two highest on my list right now. What I am not sure on is if I buy the current version of Cubase, will I have to pay an upgrade fee later this year when they release the new version? I need to get an answer to that question.
 
Budda said:
How often do you plan to upgrade mac vs upgrade PC? If one gives you 5 years at 2k and the other gives you two years at $1k, the mac is cheaper long term.
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Yup I agree...

My 2 cents on the perceived expense of a Mac vs PC is long term I think the Mac wins. I'm at the point now where the only reason I find myself replacing a Mac is when I can no longer upgrade to a version of MacOS I want to run. I NEVER had a PC that lasted more than 2-3 years. For the few pieces of software that were Windows only I've always been able to run them in virtual machines or in some cases boot to a bootcamp partition. With the new M1 Macs bootcamp is gone but I think it's only a matter of time before the ARM version of Windows is fully supported at least as a virtual machine (pretty sure it's already running just fine unofficially). Seems like unless you are a PC gamer or use a lot of Windows dependent software or hardware a Mac might serve you well long term.

I did just recently break my normal upgrade cycle as I wanted to kick the tires on the M1 Mac's. My wife's Mac was due for an upgrade so I got her a new Macbook Air. That little lightweight system runs everything I was running on my 2017 Macbook pro and doesn't even break a sweat. It is completely silent and stays really cool. She does a lot of video and photo editing and was really frustrated with the weight+heat+noise of her 2012 Macbook Pro. I decided to go ahead and upgrade to an M1 Macbook Pro and I can't imagine upgrading that for many years. What has been a nice surprise is I haven't hit any issues with any of the software I run. I did have to do a few tweaks mostly related to MacOS Monterey as I decided to go all in and also run the most recent OS but so far everything not M1 native has run under rosetta with no issues. Quite a bit of the software I use is already supporting M1 though.
 
I tend to get quite a bit of life out of my machines. I try to keep them fairly clean and use them for specific purposes. I keep the junk away from my music systems. I have a few laptops. I can honestly say that if I were setting all of this up from the bottom up today and buying everything I needed, I would set it up on Windows. The machines are half the price for the same spec of hardware. I would expect both to need to be upgraded around the same time frame. I have had many more OS upgrades on my Mac than I have on my Windows machines. Those have caused me more pain than anything else. That is what started this whole train of expenses and replacing things. Due to that is how I discovered the increase in the maintenance for PT. I am hoping this last decision on the DAW will be the last expense for a while.
 
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