Pro Tools: “Everything You Want, And Nothing You Need”

At the 2008 Audio Engineering Society convention in San Francisco:  a slip of the tongue from the Digidesign presenter while demoing the new Pro Tools version 8 inadvertantly speaks to the radically altered landscape in digital audio workstation software.   (Gaffe occurs at 3:54)

Worth a chuckle, but certainly not at Mr. Jackson’s expense.  His employer, however, is another story.  Thanks to their business model, the slip has more than a hint of truth to it.   Digi’s rigid adherence to hardware bundling built an empire, but is part of a philosophy that has resulted in each new iteration of its DAW application being less and less exciting while competing titles are steadily eating Digi’s market share and capturing users by the thousands.

PT8’s Sibelius-scoring features and GUI face lift are a real shrug of the shoulders when put up against the kind of development work being turned in by the good people at Cockos with their REAPER DAW.  If you’re recording anything from any source for any reason and you’ve never checked out REAPER, it’s time.   REAPER is a case of everything you need and nothing you don’t want.