Avid, along with introducing Pro Tools 10, has introduced a new plugin format, AAX.
Here’s what they have to say about the AAX plugin format:
Expand your mixing palette with a wide variety of AAX (Avid Audio eXtension) sound processing and effects plug-ins, from lush convolution reverbs and vintage compressor emulations to powerful noise reduction tools. This new audio plug-in format gives you better workflows and sound parity when sharing sessions between DSP-accelerated and native-based Pro Tools systems.
AAX DSP requires a Pro Tools|HDX card for processing. AAX Native can be used with any Pro Tools 10 or Pro Tools HD 10 system or software, and relies on the power from your host computer. With this new architecture, AAX opens the door to greater technology advancements in the future.
Avid and many third-party audio plug-ins offer AAX-compatible versions, including those found here.(get the latest AAX compatibility details).
The key bit in there is “This new audio plug-in format gives you better workflows and sound parity when sharing sessions between DSP-accelerated and native-based Pro Tools systems.”
TDM & RTAS are still supported but are becoming legacy formats.
Details on compatible plugins at the Avid site. Expect lots of AAX announcements from third parties in the next few months.
Protools v9 came out less then a year ago.
Still 32 bit.
$299 for a very insignificant update.
AAX = so they don’t have to keep making two.
Once the industry standard. Now the industry and standard has changed where does “Pro”tools fit in, or did they just sink the ship?
Studio One 2 Pro, 64 bit and all the new goodies for the cost of what should be a v9.5 update for free.
This is a good example of how important it is to pick the right company to family up with your music.
I have the Operator Certification (I got the shirt) and I have kept up with it as versions get larger, but this is the kind of action that make me hate Avid more and more every day, I MISS YOU DIGIDESIGN!!!!!
Oh, great, another step away from standardization. F**ktards!
oh awesome, another proprietary, too-expensive-to-license plugin format for an increasingly irrelevant platform. i don’t know about other music professionals, but this is exactly what i’ve been hoping for.
A commendable update for audio post.
I find it hard to describe how much I dislike Pro-Tools – The software is decent but the hardware is a nightmare. Poor drivers, weird conflicts, overly fussy, prone to about every imaginable crap going and support you have to pay for after you ask your first question or a certain number of days. I use Slo-Tools on PC and MAC and it is awful on both. I am forced to use it professionally but if they keep on going they way they are I might see the end of Avid sooner than later – keep changing formats, keep bricking older soundcards, keep coming up with ridiculous marketing ploys like HD Native and asking for ludicrous update costs, keep not working with modern control surfaces, keep neglecting to update drivers until the next new OS is out.
I actively dislike their products and their customer service. Their products have made my professional life harder. At least with 9 and 10 I can use RME or MOTU but now I see they are going to get as difficult with the software as they were with the hardware. I hope this heralds their death and we get an actual professional tool again rather than this piece of inflated rubbish – edit/mix group and batch fading is all it really has going for it – so if somebody else nails that then?????
It sounds like a great idea to phase out their old and outdated plugin formats…
But what about VST3? Or the solutions Presonus is working on? Why does Avid distance itself purposely from standards that are being accepted by every other DAW? Many of us use multiple DAWS, and it doesn’t make sense. The creation and upkeep of another plugin format makes it harder on developers, and less stable/supported for customers. Avid needs to get with the program.
… O… and I’m not sure they will be forthcoming or fair when it comes to pricing. After being screwed over with M-Powered right before the Digi-Avid changeup, I’m not taking any chances.
It’s been pointed out by another user on another forum that Avid seems to be shifting their target market away from home studio users and back towards post production a/v. As seen by the updates favoring that side of the house.
This can also been seen by the remaining middle of the road product line, such as the 003 having no effort or recent development towards them. Also the high prices on the updates, such as $299 from v9 to v10 and $499 from v8 below on.
Avid appears to be more interested in the $100,000 studio to push their products. Then selling to the small home project and bedroom producers who a lot have moved onto other software.
I don’t think the removal of their hardware requirement from their software for v9.0 helped to increase the sales as much as they hoped for. I believe a lot of the project and bedroom producers got smart and moved on to less expensive, feature filled and more stable products.
Maybe Avid realizes this and are refocusing their marketing and target user. Since they have fallen so far behind the technology curve it’s their only option. Which I find strange because post a/v would benefit the most from extended RAM beyond the 32 bit limitation they’re persuaded to upgrade to.
And then in 9 months expect to upgraded to PT 11 finally with 64 bits for $299-$499 depending on how bad they wish to stick you, AGAIN!
It’s so sad to hear the corporate crap from AVID again sticking it to you. I am a HD2 registered user and if I want to switch to HDX it will cost me up to 6500 just to switch the card and software . Yikes money whores these people are. I am seriously thinking about dumping pro tools all together and using another DAW , Logic, DP or who knows maybe even Fruity Loops (coming out for Mac this winter) .AAX another useless piece of crap that will probably go no where and be expensive as hell. SORRY NO UPGRADE FOR ME. !!
avoid FruitLoops Studio, stuck in 32 bit for the next 2-5 years.
and it will run on Mac using a wrapper adding latency on top of the already bridge heavy application.
save your money and go with Logic or Reason 6 if you are on Mac.
still no rendering. no stem export. no vst. poor instrument ram hoggyness. midi is meh. i have had realtime fades on vegas for ten years. multi format realtime too… an iLok? forget it. soundcould export? thats a joke too. installation process takes forever. you know your list of grips…. but every pro joint i work at is avid…. and on a big session with a large setup it is very stable, important when you have 50 union people in the room….
for my pre pro machines i will stick with 8.4 for a long time, and let the studios i work in buy the 10k a year for each DAW payments to avid…. i tell my kids and students use reaper to start out, its very cheap and works very well…. too bad sony doesnt get its act together on vegas [worst name ever] to be the DAW of choice. easy to use, fast setup, no driver issues, vst, really is a nice DAW, if it was a bit more pro….
Look everyone there is actually a phenomenal reason that this is pro tools 10 and not just a free update from 9. This is the first time since sound designer that the mix summing algorithm has been changed and that’s a huge deal. In this new version of pro tools there is virtually no difference in sound quality between hd and native plus the software uses about a quarter of the power just to run the same tasks as 9. The reason it’s pro tools 10 is because if you tore it down to its basic coding, nothing is the same. Thus you can’t just slap a 9.5 sticker on it. Sure I was pissed when I got that email from avid but as I dug more into it I definitely feel more comfortable purchasing the upgrade from hd 9 to hd 10 and the only reason I’m still using hd is because I can’t get rid of all my Tdm’s quite yet. D a little more research and you’ll see it’s completely worth it.
Happy i stay thru to Logic, since Digidesign merged, never use Pro Tools ever again.. pwew..
Sad Avid doens’t think the customer way.
I switched to Orion Studio 8, will never use ProTools again. Why on earth can’t they support VST or Audio Units? The upgrade price is a joke too
Everyone I know is going to presonus studio one. The only saw since fl I just jumped into without reading a manual or FAQ and just plain built a song. It looks gorgous. More Mac like in look and feel than even logic. Rock stable. It’s awesome.
That’s it. I am done with this bull. Avid you have forever lost my business due to this overpriced crapware that you keep releasing, and I hope you exit the audio market in shame in the coming years. I use pro tools HD professionally at my studio, and recently bought pro tools 9 with a focusrite bundle so I could take projects home to my project studio and do some editing prior to mixing at the studio. Pro tools 9, albeit has the ability to work with any interface is a nightmare to just tart running. It crashes all the time, and requires ridiculous workarounds for a computer that is fairly well specd for audio. Now they come out with this ludicrous update and ask for 300 bux just so I can dynamically edit volumes without audio-suite. What they think all the studios and engineers are locked into this pro tools system that they don’t care about improved developments in rival companies? Reaper is a DAW that costs less than a 1/3 of Avid’s upgrade price and can run circles around pro tools. I’ve always been a cubase user but I have also been working more and more with reaper and have really enjoyed it. I hope AVID disappears so this industry standard nonsense can ground itself to a more worthy piece of software.
Avid was doing this crap way back when they first bought DigiDesign in the mid 90s! I was sick of it when I had a ProTools 3 system. So sad to see they are still doing the same crummy business practices, pushing the same product line which is no better than anyone else’s, yet they are the “industry standard”! It just goes to prove that if you keep saying you are special for long enough, most people will believe you.
AT LAST!
Finally, Avid will start phasing out the fixed-point 24-bit DSP processing on the age-old “56K” platform (Motorola DSP56000 was developed in the 1980’s, you know).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_56000
New floating-point 32-bit DSP chips in the new HDX cards will make sure your projects sound the same when moving it from your native home studio to the HDX-based studio downtown.
This is the largest change in Pro Tools history, ever!
AAX is a natural name for the new format, after all, AVID’s AVX format from the video sector is pretty well-known.
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/11/a-new-plug-in-format-really-avid-answers-our-questions-about-aax-and-pro-tools/
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/10/pro-tools-10-pro-tools-hdx-what-you-need-to-know/
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Actually I ran out of tears and laughs in the ’90’s. I’ve been reading the same comments in forums hatin’ on Digidesign since before they were Avid. They were true then. They are true now. And I still use Pro Tools even though their entire business model is based on planned obsolescence.
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I feel for you ProTools guys. Seriously. Watching that over-priced, under-featured, too-proprietary monopolizing DAW giving you headaches year after year. If you switch DAWs my I humbly suggest you seriously check out Digital Performer. It’s older than PT, and in many cases its much more mature. It can easily keep up with PT in the audio department, and it is light years ahead in MIDI features. DP is 64bit, AU and VST compatible, is feature packed(!), and MOTU is probably the most stable OSX developer (one never knows what Apple may due with Logic X). DP is being ported for Windows too. Also DP has a more Pro Tools-like interface than Logic or Cubase. I do like and use Logic, but I can say that overall DP is vastly superior. There is a great supprt community at MOTUNATION. I’ve owned and have been using these apps since 1993. I’ve stuck with DP because it is the most feature rich and professional DAW available, IMO. Good luck guys.
I feel for you ProTools guys. Seriously. Watching that over-priced, under-featured, too-proprietary monopolizing DAW giving you headaches year after year. If you switch DAWs my I humbly suggest you seriously check out Digital Performer. It’s older than PT, and in many cases it’s more mature. It can easily keep up with PT in the audio department, and it is light years ahead in MIDI features. DP is 64bit, AU and VST compatible, is feature packed(!), and MOTU is probably the most stable OSX developer (one never knows what Apple may due with Logic X). DP is being ported for Windows too. DP has a more Pro Tools-like interface than Logic or Cubase. I do like and use Logic, but there is a bit of hype to the program and I can say that overall DP is vastly superior. There is a great supprt community at MOTUNATION. I’ve owned and have been using these apps since 1993. I’ve stuck with DP because it is the most feature rich and professional DAW available, IMO. Good luck guys.