Installing Pro Tools 8

[Chrisdb]

I'm a bit confused, it's probably obvious. But if I get Pro Tools 8, do I have to have an old version installed before hand? as it is labeled as an upgrade? I have Pro Tools 7 but it isn't installed at the moment, but would I have to get 7.4 then buy 8?

Or can I just install it from scratch on my mac?? Which would make more sense...

Cheers in advance

 

[tlennon1]

As you noted the obvious, what does UPGRADE mean to you? If you purchased the PT8 upgrade, then of course you need an earlier version installed.

 

[pezking]

As you noted the obvious, what does UPGRADE mean to you? If you purchased the PT8 upgrade, then of course you need an earlier version installed.

No no no no no.

The installer is a completely fresh install!

The only time you must use a Pro Tools installer over a pre-existing installation is when performing a CS update, or a "dot dot" update (i.e. Pro Tools 8.0.1).

Just to make it explicitly clear - You do not need a previous version of Pro Tools installed on your system when installing Pro Tools 8 or any other version of Pro Tools.

If it's Pro Tools LE we're talking about, you do not even need to own a previous version of the software - just the hardware (Mbox or 003 for example). If it's M-Powered or HD, you will need to supply the ilok ID of an account which contains an asset for the version from which you are upgrading.

The only reason it's labeled an upgrade is because they want to try to make it clear that you can't just go and buy a copy of Pro Tools LE - and have it work. You need to already have the hardware to buy the software. As you can only buy the hardware coupled with the software it means that you only ever need to upgrade the software not buy new stuff.

On the other hand you can quite happily purchase an M-Audio interface without Pro Tools. In fact very few of the interfaces are bundled with M-Powered (the NRV-10 being the only one I know of). So it's very reasonable to expect that somebody would need to buy a full version of the software - hence having a different price between the upgrade (rewarding customer loyalty) and the full version for a new user. When in fact the upgrade and the full version are exactly the same product...

HTH.