Pro Tools First, their demo version.....

......... requires users to be online when using, and data is saved to a Pro Tools server, not to the user's hard drive.

??

Does anyone use this? I can see possible problems, besides being a general annoyance.
 
......... requires users to be online when using, and data is saved to a Pro Tools server, not to the user's hard drive.

??

Does anyone use this? I can see possible problems, besides being a general annoyance.

I have used Pro Tools since 99 and until about ten years ago they stopped doing "LE" versions and started the PTF it was an unwelcome change. Avid have it listed as a singer/songwriter beginner type of DAW. Sort of a DAW on training wheels. The only reason i even tried it was because i was using a version that was way out of date and wanted to see if it was worth updating. I keep a copy on the Laptops just for quickie recording of stuff with two mics and mobile interfaces. Then i download the "projects" to my full Pro Tools systems and save them as real sessions. So it has some use, just really limited.
 
I have used Pro Tools since 99 and until about ten years ago they stopped doing "LE" versions and started the PTF it was an unwelcome change. Avid have it listed as a singer/songwriter beginner type of DAW. Sort of a DAW on training wheels. The only reason i even tried it was because i was using a version that was way out of date and wanted to see if it was worth updating. I keep a copy on the Laptops just for quickie recording of stuff with two mics and mobile interfaces. Then i download the "projects" to my full Pro Tools systems and save them as real sessions. So it has some use, just really limited.

Thanks for that.

So you are able to download a session from the PT 'cloud' to your hard drive? This messes up how I think of their 'connected' requirement. [I confess that this system confuses my non-technical brain a little bit.]
 
While I'm at it: PT writes that Win 10 is required for all versions, but M-Audio version says that it runs on Win 7.
Hmmpphhh.
 
Thanks for that.

So you are able to download a session from the PT 'cloud' to your hard drive? This messes up how I think of their 'connected' requirement. [I confess that this system confuses my non-technical brain a little bit.]

Only because i have the full Pro Tools also. For a while AVID would allow PT first users to download to hard drive only if you purchased extra cloud space, but from what i heard on other forums, it never worked correctly. The cloud saves "Projects" which are cloud ONLY. They(Projects) cannot be saved to a hard drive , period. You have to have a full PT system which has the option to "Save as a Session", which is saved to the hard drive, not the "Project"
 
While I'm at it: PT writes that Win 10 is required for all versions, but M-Audio version says that it runs on Win 7.
Hmmpphhh.

I'm running 2019.6 on three different Win 7 systems, but it's technically not supported and the only way to get it to work was to update in place from PT 12.6 to 2019. I have the latest version downloaded but not installed. I figure if i ever need it i have it and i will upgrade to Win10 then.
 
I'm running 2019.6 on three different Win 7 systems, but it's technically not supported and the only way to get it to work was to update in place from PT 12.6 to 2019. I have the latest version downloaded but not installed. I figure if i ever need it i have it and i will upgrade to Win10 then.

Sorry, but your numbers confused me a bit; which is newer: 12.6 or 2019? I think that you mean that you downloaded then went to an older version, yes?

And while I'm at it, how do you like it? Are you running it in conjunction with anything else, another DAW or sequencer?
Thanks.
 
Sorry, but your numbers confused me a bit; which is newer: 12.6 or 2019? I think that you mean that you downloaded then went to an older version, yes?

And while I'm at it, how do you like it? Are you running it in conjunction with anything else, another DAW or sequencer?
Thanks.

I tried PT First when version 12 came out in 2015. I felt it was much improved over PT 8 which was the latest version i had. So i purchased a Pro Tools Vanilla license version 12.0 and have upgraded at such times as i felt the new features were worth the cost, downloading each and doing clean installs until Avid stopped supporting win7, which IIRC was 12.6 or .8 or it might have been as late as version 2018.7. At that point (2018) they changed the number from the version to the year and month of release and it became necessary to install "over" the pre existing version. As of 2020.3, Pro Tools will no longer install in win7 at all, even over previous versions AFAIK.

So my PT license is good for every version from 10 to the present, but i am staying at 2019.6 until i have to move to win10. The latest version is 2020.5 for the full version and 2019.6 for PT first. I have downloaded the 2020 versions but haven't installed them.

As far as how i like it , well i have been using it since PT 5 and i have tried pretty much everything but Logic so it works great for me. I have Live lite and a lite version of Cubase for sequencing but rarely use them. I also have Harrison Mixbus 5 which i like the sound of but it's harder for me to work on so i only really have it for location recording where i dont have my I lok available.
 
Thanks. That is very interesting.

Regarding Windows 10: I see that there is a particular version of PT included with M-Audio interfaces, it is called "Pro Tools First M-Audio Edition." The specs for the interface mention only Windows 7, not the software, so I'm not sure if that version is Win 10 only or not.
 
Avid have pretty tight support restrictions. They officially support certain combinations of OS and software but that doesn't necessarily mean that other combinations will not work.
It just means they won't give you support if you come to them with an unsupported setup.

If there is a specific reason that some unsupported combination actually wont work they often flag it up in their update notes.

I've been running PT 12.5 on unsupported versions of MacOS for quite some time now. I've run in to very minor bugs here and there but nothing that has impeded enjoyment or ability to use.

If you're considering and unsupported combination the best thing to do is either try it out for a while casually, where a loss or issue wouldn't matter, and see how it goes or google for info from other users with the same combo.
Avid DUC forum usually has quite a lot of threads on mis-matched OS+Version.

Over the years they went through sequential version numbers up until version 12 in 2015-2017.
Each major had incremental minors - 12.1, 12.2, 12.3 etc.
Rather cheekily they sold PT12 licenses then half way through (12.6) decided that they were releasing a new license type and everyone with a (no limit?) PT12 license would have to buy it again,
if they weren't paying for support.

After that they changed to a year naming convention, starting with Protools 2018. The current version is 2020.*
 
Thanks for all the very good information. I think I've come to the end of the road there is not a version of PT which I can procure and run on Win 7. I'll talk to my recording store guy this afternoon, but I think I'm done with the notion of PT. Avid and/or Windows 10 claim another one.

For the record - no pun intended - that probably leaves me with doing Ableton with my existing Studio One, although I may load Cakewalk to see what the workflow is like.

Thanks to all.
 
Back
Top