Protools outlasted Digidesign's ownership. It can outlast anything. But in seriousness, we must take into account the entire education "pipeline" which revolves around Protools; as well.

 

The term industry standard is also sort of... subjective?
I mean a few decades back most published music was made in professional studios, now it's made in home studios.
So where is the industry located? Perhaps the flood of home studio producers made the scale tilt into the other direction?

 

Avid Pro Tools is a well-oiled machine. It works perfectly well and there's no reason for it to go south, except for AVID themselves with their subscription models, killing perpetual licenses, and overpricing their products. Anyone who complains that PT is buggy is because they've never owned a license. They're stuck with AudioUtopia and other half-baked implementations. Will it continue to be the standard? Probably so because it does the job well. Is being the standard a thing in 2023? Probably not.

 

This is true... But to stay relevant and stop the education sector from switching away it needs to stay relevant and understand what people want and why. That could change in the future if Pro Tools isn't appealling enough. Kids won't be interested in going into studios to use software that they don't understand, so it needs to be visible to stay relevant... I think education will have to adapt to trends and use what people want, rather than trying to dictate

I'm vaguely aware that different genres seem to use different DAWs. It seems like Cubase is popular with Psy Trance and some EDM with FL Studio, probably because you don't need a keyboard and can draw things in. Its a creative tool that appeals to certain types... So that will influence trends too, whatever way the wind blows with genres

 

here I am dreaming of no standard but all DAWs can open each other's project files. The closest we get now is how Bitwig can open Ableton Live project file (with minor problem here and there) but they are still trying.

It is a long shot against capitalism and market monopoly but here's how the society will look like if it happens :

 

Last edited: Dec 27, 2022

every single pro that has left protools is saying one thing: the industry standard cannot be complicated to use. in that line, i think somewhere between studio one, logic pro and ableton in gonna become somewhat of a standard

 

I do post-production work for film & television and in this sector there is a distinct chain of transmission in terms of where the audio starts and ends. For example, you have all the editors and creatives doing their part and they will exchange sessions: in-house ADR recordings go to the dialogue editor; foley recordings go to the foley editor; sound design goes to SFX editor; etc. These sessions then make their way to the pre-mixer, who compiles everything and sorts it out for the mixers - and eventually on to the mixers. All of this is done in Pro Tools (even if the sound designer works in Nuendo, it ends up as a .ptx session).

The primary issue is compatibility and seamless integration. The only way to break the chain is for another DAW to be able to fully & exactly integrate the discreet elements of a .ptx session (which, btw, is still a form of PT's dominance). Otherwise, I see no way for this standard to change without a major upheaval (which is unlikely, unless some radical, holistic solution shows up). The other aspect of this problem is that AVID are notoriously & obtusely proprietary. They will never open PT up for cross-compatibility (they still won't even support VST ffs!)

 

Last edited: Dec 27, 2022

PT doesn't go anywhere as long as there are still needed recordings with 100s of audio channels (think large orchestras). Their hardware + PT makes this recording thing easier than any other combo out there. Even if they completely stop developing PT and their cards, I can't see them going anywhere in the next decade

 

more studios, nice

 

im using their card from the 80s in my atari mega4 they are built for eternity
you pay what you get

 

We could discuss endlessly about the notion of "industry standard" (the said "music industry" is very diverse and varied, and the needs are very different depending of what you exactly do... so why should we care about this "iStandard" concept? At the end, we do and choose exactly what we want and need)...

But instead, I would like to discuss of what you don't write about: the subscription-only model.

I don't have anything against Pro Tools as a DAW, in fact I could be interested in learning more about it... But this subscription-model is for me a big SCAM that software industry have found to get more and more money from more or less naive (or worse: captive) clients...

Imagine, you pay for something, but the day you have any problem, like bankruptcy, unemployment, family or medical problem... Whatever, the day you stop paying the fracking subscriptshit, your software cease to work!!!

Subscription means that you can't trust your software vendor anymore. If you live in an economical, social insecurity, the software that is the core of your development, the core of your studio, and for a non-negligible part of us: a source of income... could very well cease to work overnight!

That is not acceptable.

 

Pro Tools remains the standard in major studios because musicians that don't know much about recording think it's what the pros are supposed to use. However a lot of these engineers use Reaper or something else when they're alone.

I genuinely feel bad for all the guys still using Pro Tools. I ditched it for Reaper years ago and couldn't be happier. There are so many limitations with PT it's silly to keep using it. I'm getting work done while they're still waiting for PT to load

 

it is a mix between logix, reaper and studio one in the most part. and as i said in my original comment, i've seen a lot of pros ditching with the same statement: the industry standard cannot be difficult to use, which gets clear by the fact that a certification program exists and in the ones mentioned there is not necessarily that

 

I COULD imagine Studio One (if Presonus finally would implement Surround Mixing), Reaper and Cubase/Nuendo becoming a new industry standart, if you take the aspect of running in different OS.
They are not hard to understand and learn, and they have a quite good workflow.
But I believe ProTools will still stick around for quite a long time.

 

I mainly agree that is gonna stay the de-facto standard for pro studio recording.
I'm just gonna add something as sad as true. If something isn't expensive it won't become a pro standard. Just because of pseudo-snobbery.

 

Please add Mixcraft 9 Pro Studio

 

You're right. A lot of people don't realize that Reaper is actually $225. The devs are just super cool and understand that most hobbyists don't want to pay that. So they offer a major discount and are also as unintrusive as possible with DRM.

If they did away with all that and made the default theme something from White Tie I think people would take it a lot more seriously. But I'm glad the devs aren't ruled by money.

 

@tzzsmk said: 4) audio engineering is so overrated, 95% of youtube videos are more or less paid Ads for audio hardware, software and plugins.

So wait. Those YT review videos claiming such and such plugin is the best thing since sliced bread are lying? Say it ain't so, Joe!

 

Sheep gonna sheep. ProTools and UAD. It's what people have heard of and it's what they expect to see. That won't change any time soon.

 

Actually, I've always wondered something. We know that bedroom producers, such as myself, release albums every day. How many records in national charts like Billboard were produced in home studios?