How must Avid stay ahead? With Pro Tools obviously, "Pro Tools the SOFTWARE." Pro Tools will more and more have to compete with the other leading DAWs on a level playing field, as the importance of dedicated DSP becomes less of an advantage. It's going to be more and more about "Pro Tools the SOFTWARE" from here on out. They should put most resources into the PT app and just pull way ahead.

That's why PT8 was such a huge leap forward and a brilliant use of resources. They laid down the gauntlet and said we're best, and they succeeded at making the best well-rounded and professional "DAW package," with untouchable editing and mixing ease, reliability, and efficiency and has a great line of pro quality controllers like the ICON behind it. (Yes, of course the other DAWs beat PT in many ways, but as the best professional ""DAW package" or "DAW system", the PT system is unbeatable.)

They also succeeded in bringing on tens (hundreds?) of thousands of new users buy finally inviting in the composers and beat-makers with PT8 and the great sounding AIR plugs. I know so many people using PT now that wouldn't (read: couldn't) use it until it became a sequencer in PT8.

I really believe the entire future of PT lies in the greatness of the software. PT has the best foundation...pull it even farther ahead and professionals will continue to pay more. I hope for the day that PT is so much better than anything else that paying $7000, FOR JUST THE PT SOFTWARE, will seem like a no-brainer steal....no Avid hardware necessary.

the thing here is that it looks like they've worked out how to emulate basic TDM functions, as well as the hardware authorization part. as mentioned in the post, it really does look like the genie is out of the bottle now - new versions of PT will be vulnerable to the same exploit.

Pro Tools users you've been punk'd!

wow.
First waves now this.
How the mighty have fallen
SUCKS for these companies.

People buy PT because of the software. Not the hardware. Avid knows this all to well. People would be willing to pay the price of a 003 for just the software and ability to use it with their own hardware. They're holding on to a business model that is getting obsolete.

Logic, Cubase, Reaper. They all show in their own way that we don't live in the 90's anymore. Computers can run 150 tracks natively. A Mac Pro has more cpu power than several magma cases stacked with HD cards. Digidesign was like a High end VCR vendor trying to compete in a world of DVDs and Bluray.

I really hoped Avid would see the power of Pro Tools when they killed the Digi name. Focus on the software + high end peripherals. So far they're still holding on to average hardware holding down fantastic software... Such a shame.

I wish AVID all the best and even tough I switched over to a different DAW, will silently wait for the powerhouse DAW that has been freed from all the chains and shackles.

Wasn't the MPTK born like this? Someone hacked pro tools hd to run with the mbox giving users more channels, multitrack beat detective, etc. A few months down the line digi announced the mptk.

top executive leaving - attack by reaper tool - now protools just software - as industry standard daw always got heavy wind - what next

This is it

Make or break for Avid really.

This is what the record labels came up against, they fought against it and now they're frantically trying to regain their capitol.

Pro-tools has no choice.

You should be able to use VST plug-in's with it for starters, non of this F-xpansion pack rubbish,
You should be able to bounce to Mp3

All the things that you should be able to do with a DAW is what Pro-tools needs to do.

All the specialist gear they can charge through the nose for but they can't keep this up.

I bet someone in that company is playing mini Steve Jobs.

In fact, if you're reading this people at AVID. Do you remember what happened in that little war between Steve Jobs and Mr Gates. With Mr Jobs saying all the while that he wouldn't allow his product to work with anyone else's hardware.

Then out comes the PC, and they can use it with any hardware they like.

Who won that battle?

They won't do it, they're too backwards. They're run by a bunch of Dinosaurs. AVID is a Dodo in a Tiger cage. Let them drown in their arrogance

I understand people's frustration with Avid but some responses border on hystreia at least on the original news post's comment page about the cracked software.

Yes I am annoyed that my PT 8.0.3 cs2 doesnt work as efficiently as my old 7.4 and that there is still no official Windows 7 compatibility, when was the last time you saw an XP machine for sale brand new? that annoys me not how much I paid for it!

Rather than moan about this cracked software...what could you do with this that you can't with your PT..really what does it offer than my M-powered doesnt.... ADC...No.... TDM....No.... Any plug ins I don't have...No, so really it is a glorified LE/MP program....The only thing attractive about it is the lack of an iLok for my Macbook pro.
.
Yes Avid need to get their act together but remember we have always known that the software is tied to the hardware, for whatever reasons.
Yes it would be fantastic to have a really efficient, native PT and I'm sure it will happen sometime in the near future... well the native bit anyway.

Peace

No reason to celebrate. Mismanagement, wrong decisions and conning users into buying out of artificial limitations while claiming they're not artificial is a sad story for everyone involved. This is the final wake-up call. You can't treat highly interconnected professionals just like the dumb average gamer who believes everything and understands nothing. It will backfire.

Russ,
Doesn't your own forum here on your blog outlaw discussion of illegal software? As does Gearslutz and many, many others. Why would you criticize Avid for censorship on the DUC, when you and most of the legitimate site's do exactly the same thing. Additionally, comparing censoring a forum to stealing and saying "whilst we find cracking distasteful, we also find censorship equally offensive." is ridiculous. Equally distasteful, my guess is that you have never been robbed and certainly not robbed with the prospect of losing your livelihood. I think your Avid friend was right "if he even exists" you have no objectivity. No matter how you try to veil it in civility. You are just stirring up the flames for your own reason's and own agenda.

And why does my post need to go to an editor before it is posted. Will you be editing it?

"Your post will be visible on this site after it has been approved by an editor."

I didn't expect my post would be censored, just pointing out that you retain the right, whether on your blog or on your forum to censor, edit whatever you want to call, it any post that comes in, that doesn't follow your rules. It is YOUR blog after all.

I was specifically talking about your forum when I posted, not your news page, which is why I said "own forum here on your blog" however, you do reserve the right to have any post "cleared by a website editor." News or forum post.

Quoting an unnamed source is an incredibly easy way to put whatever info (spin) you want out there without anybody having the ability to question the veracity of your information. If he was an endorsee of this blog it should be no problem in your "news" reporting to name him. I was only sharing my agreement with his opinion, as he was quoted, as well as my skepticism. Call it flaming if you must. i really don't care if you can or can't publish his name.

Because I am not offering any "news" or info that needs to be fact-checked, why is my identity important? I felt my initials were enough, really I only asked some question about something I found hypocritical. I may in fact be an Avid employee, but what does that really matter?

I will say that growing your loyal fan-base has more benefit for you than Avid.

Does this site have rules regarding discussing illegal software or not?

Why didn't you address that in your reply?

I like turtles.

Russ,

I applaud your decision to take a stand. Groove3 sells your instructional videos of Avid products. It would be prudent to tow the line and do what Avid would like you to do.

I, for one, feel that you're taking a really brave and principled stance. I'm with you 100%.

I own 2 HD systems, and I feel that it's not too much to ask that they work. It's more than a little frustrating when I get better customer service from Propellerheads and Reason, than I do from Avid. I've got $20,000.00 plus in Pro Tools and $300.00 in Reason. There's something wrong with this picture.

Peace

This isn't the first time a crack of HD like this has appeared. We had this on PC about 6-7 years ago during the 6.7 era. It was a patch that was called TDMthing. It allowed us to run Pro Tools HD natively on LE hardware minus all the functionality that the TDM chips themselves covered, therefore no ADC, Input monitoring, TDM plug-ins, surround mix engine etc. TDMthing still required Digidesign hardware and you needed the Pro Tools HD 6.7 software to even get it going. This worked on the original Mbox, 002 and yes, even the long since discontinued 001, which was dropped at 6.4. 001 users were absolutely outraged because it clearly demonstrated that Digidesign lied and still could've supported the 001 long after 6.4, which was when they discontinued it. Users even went to the Digi store to purchase the 6.7 HD software and downloaded updates just to get this going. If Digidesign was to go back and check their sales records with the time period that TDMthing was introduced, the will see an odd rise in sales of the Pro Tools HD 6.7 software and rise in update downloads. Yes, the TDMthing patch actually made them revenue, which was the big irony of it all. TDMthing worked up to 6.9 and then it wouldn't work after that. The seriousness of this new crack is you don't need the Digidesign hardware like we did with TDMthing. The other seriousness is that it was done on the "beloved perfect Mac", which has always been promoted as "secure" from this sort of thing. After all, many still seem to agree with the myth that hacks are done on PC only, and not our beloved perfect Macs.

When TDMthing was introduced, Digidesign went on a "police the internet" effort and tirade. They made sure all mention and posts of the TDMthing patch was removed from the most popular audio forums of that time, such as Gearslutz etc. Even though no one was posting download links and only discussing the pro and cons, Digidesign still tried to "police the internet". They even banned DUC members on the spot from simply mentioning "TDMthing".

Fast forward 7 years and we find history repeating itself. But this time, we are now in a different era with blogs, twitter, digg, facebook, YouTube, social news sites etc. I applaud Russ and give him a big standing ovation for having the balls to stand up and give us a place to discuss the pros and cons of this serious implication, without the psychotic censorship of Avid and the paranoia fear they created with the owners of other forums many years ago the last time this happened with the TDMthing patch.

The big irony of this very post is that we can even discuss the history and past implications of the TDMthing patch, and not worry about the psychotic paranoia and censorship by Avid. They have screwed over their users for way too long and it's finally come back at them. They have NEVER BEEN "sweetness and light".

Thank you Russ for giving us a place to discuss this free from censorship and fear. These are mere discussions and no one is doing any harm.

Long live the 001!

...and long live TDMthing, which has continued to give the 001 extended life long after Digidesign prematurely discontinued it. This time, the mere mention of it doesn't get censored, or get one banned.

@CJZ: That's ridiculous. There is a not so fine line between "condoning piracy" and reporting about it. Pirates are still pirates but sometimes they make a point about what's actually going on within a software and bring up some uncomfortable facts. That's the point of the discussion here and reporting about it, not to motivate people to download it or discussing pros and cons of piracy in general.

@ CJZ
If anyone should be ashamed it should be you.

You're shooting the messenger you idiot. Russ has been faithful to both AVID and the user base for a long time and supported us in ways which most of us would have run away from.

Your claims are baseless and as you don't have the guts to even say who you are or just have a private discussion with Russ you are an idiot.

When you didnt do what you claimed Russ didnt do, answer some basic questions you took your toys and decided to have a hissy fit in the DUC, only becoming a member to try and make Russ look bad.

The best thing you can do is leave this community, your a joke and reading what you put may need medical attention.

I love Pro Tools, but I hate AVID. All I really want is software that runs on the latest OS (how long has WIN 7 been out?) without the need for a "dongle."

You know what? I'd be willing to pay $300 for PT LE. Just the software. Hell, I'm expected to pay more for Logic. If I could have got an Apogee Duet and Tools, I would have done that.

Instead I paid $1200 for an Mbox 2 Pro (Australian, of course). I like all the inputs and outputs, and the versatility - but it's (a) huge and (b) kinda shitty, for the money. The pre-amps sound tinny and have a poor SNR. Considering that until pretty recently Mboxes used Focusrite preamps, this is disappointing and limits my ability to make good music.

In my opinion, Avid has been intentionally crippling their product for years.

I understand why there is a bit of a fuss but I do think people are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I am not a pro tools fanboi but I have read some ridiculous and wild claims, over the past couple of days and think that now the dust is starting to settle, its time for some reason.

We know what we are buying when we buy it. We go for the software/hardware that we can afford and that will suit our needs. If you want a higher track count, later down the line, you can hand over some more money, get an update and you are good to go.

The more serious projects require a larger investment, if you do it for a living you will want an HD rig, of some sort. Again, you get a system to suit your needs/budget, if your needs change you can upgrade along the path that suits you best.

None of this is hidden from you at time of purchase, track counts etc are part of the sales blurb, this is front page stuff not small print info.

And now to the main gripe: Intentionally crippled: Thats what companies do, they switch off or dont include stuff unless you pay that little bit extra. Most companies have a similar model for upgrades. What the software will or will not do is irrelevent, you want it you pay for it, that is how it works.

The one thing I dislike is being tied into their hardware, having said that, this is also something that we are all aware of at the outset. There are plenty of alternatives out there, I'm not going to list them all, that have different business models and that mayeb dont tie you down to certain bits of hardware. We all have legs and can walk at any time, that is the way I look at it.

The young are increasingly reluctant to pay for stuff, music software etc. Basically everything that can be downloaded. There is no 'earn it' ethic on the internet, hell, I have seen some of the same people complaining about how illegal downloads of music is killing the music industry also complain that their software of choice isnt coming with everything switched on, regardless of what they paid for it.

A top of the range car, with all of the features is likely to have the exact same harware/software as a bottome of the range car, in one some of it will be switched off or not connected to anything.

The main problem is AVID, they gave this story legs to run by trying to stamp out discusion and debate. It wouldnt have hurt them to defend their business model publically but doing what they did lowered them, in my eyes anyway.

I have tried a couple of alternatives recently and tbh, they may have a few features that protools doesnt yet but on balance I like what I can do with pro tools right out the box, the editing features and the plug ins that come with it are all that alot of us will ever need. If I had one gripe at all it is stability, pro tools on PC's needs some work and despite what microsoft has been telling us for years, reinstalling software is not a valid troubleshooting method. Stuff that works should not just stop working a month later.

So..... AVID, sort your s**t out and make it work properly, dont try and stamp out debate, try and answer peoples concerns, remember these are PAYING customers not some anti AVID rabble from another website. As for the rest of you, buy the stuff you want/ need/ can afford and use it, if you want to make it do something else, buy the feature and bolt it on ...............simples................

If Avid wants to save their neck, on the LE, M-Powered market, they have to come up with something close to the funcionality in the other DAW's, it could be ADC, an so on.
but digidesign is just part of avid: they also got euphonix resently,pinnacle,etc.
so do they really want to bother trying to upnotch the crack?.
personally i dont think so, they got the big pro tools hd rigs on almost every profesional studio, because they have the budget to afford hd, and now the venue systems,the d-command and the d-control series for hd,and the whole business of academic certification on their software(personally i think is a hoax, but i guess i looks good in your resume).
yes, is a low blow on the proyect studio market, but man, they have so much more to profit from.
so Avid stop thinking about profit,because you already making it and big.
and start paying attention to the customer, the guys who write the code are not untouchable anymore,so if a bunch of talented people can do this great upgrades using hacking as their tool, imagine the guys who can actually manipulate the code can do.
they just needed this kick on their greedy ego's to revaluate the average guy market.
becuase a lot of people ,non audio geeks, tell me that they are planing to buy and mbox and running pro tools le on their mac or pc's, i always tell them(even that i have a certification and junk) buy an apogee or a motu interface(metric halo would be awesome)
and run logic(mac users) or nuendo(pc users) and you would be more happy in the long run.
just because pro tools hd is the standart on the profesional studios, doesnt mean if have to be on the home recording industry, you gotta work with the best tools avaliable in home recording and pro tools le is not one of them

Native PT rigs are ridiculously behind the pace set by other native DAWS.
Limited track count, no ADC, proprietary hardware requirement, RTAS standard for plugs......

I love my HD rig and love the simplicity of PT software but if my 192 was stolen or my HD cards melted I would go native to a full featured DAW like DP or Logic, not a PT bastard son version purposefully crippled by lack of full features.

With or without a cracked version available, Avid needs to overhaul their market strategy or continue to lose market share. If they think this crack is the root problem they're not paying attention to the marketplace.

Reality is that many of you payed a lot for your crippled HDs and there's no way AVID would rectify this known issue, or even remotely hint too it. LE users all know they have no legs to stand on when they bought their unit. It's all about EXCEL SPREAD SHEETS MY FRIENDS, we are all pawns chess on the AVID chess board. I really feel that most of us PT users are somewhat narrowed, myself included, got so involved in PT that never considered learning other DAWS in the meantime, knowing dam well that software is a race that's ongoing and we all need to diversify. It's convoluted thinking if you think others DAWS can't do the job!. Never put your eggs in one basket, my company never buy the same fleet of trucks from the same manufacturer every 6 years, well we all know about recalls ( right). @CJZ, I pray with you for enlightenment , I suggest you look again on the abrasive comments you made calling anyone a IDOIT!, truly for whatever your ongoing battle of wits with the other party doesn't do anyone good, and clearly this battle of wits you are clearly unarmed. EXCEL SPREAD SHEETS+AVID+CEREAL BOX RELIGION = DOG EAT DOG WORLD.

Has it occurred to anyone that, in the same way that record companies intentionally "leak" certain tracks prior to release to increase hype, AVID itself may have "leaked" this thing to solve the what-to-do-about-TDM dilemma?

I mean, it's common knowledge that no one needs the processing power of their HD cards anymore. People may need/want the increased I/O, delay compensation, low-latency, etc benefits, but the ability of the cards to augment native processing power in the ability to run non-VI plug-ins is NOT a selling point anymore.

If real hackers had wanted to come up with a Pro Tools hardware emulator on the Mac, it seems logical to me that they could have done so a long time ago--and probably tried! The fact that they finally now "succeeded" just as AVID's TDM cards are the the very end of their lifecycle and the market for a replacement product with the same basic purpose is sketchy at best? Awfully coincidental IMO.

Seriously, AVID was definitely in a bad spot in trying to figure out how to transition to a competitively professional native system without pissing a lot of HD owners off.

Now they can just point to this "cracked" version and say, "see, we had no choice."

Just as a follow-up to my last post:

As some people have pointed out here already, the mix engine of HD is handled by the TDM cards, not the CPU, and so in that regard is radically different from the LE mix engine. So this cracked version/hardware emulator has to be MUCH more than a simple faked answer to a hardware "ping" request from the software. It has to pass the audio itself to/from PT. So logically, either the hacker had to have 1) wrote their own mixer engine into the hardware emulator, or 2) used an existing open-source mix engine and folded that into the emulator, or 3) somehow separated the LE/MP mix engine from the PT LE/MP software and kluged it together with their emulator.

I'm not a programmer, but all of those options seem unlikely without inside information and/or access to both the PT HD and LE source code. For option 1 or 2 to take place, the hacker would have had to figure out exactly how PT routes audio to/from the mix engines and somehow tap into those signal flows. Option 3 would require that information PLUS the ability of the hacker to chop out select components of an already-compiled application.

Or am I missing something?

AVID is an evil empire, this is crazy. Long live XVX.

Aah ye olde censorship thing.

Its ironic isnt it. We have had to bail out the biggest, nastiest bunch of lowest criminals of them all 'The Bankers'. They and their masters who make the Mafia dons in their hey days look like a bunch of utter amateurs have done a massive number on us all. Were not talking about a few hundred million or even billion!, were talking about a three trillion dollar, quid, Euro (take your pick) heist job i that we will be paying back for the rest of our miserable little insignificant lives. Yet we all know it happened, it wasnt censored (well it was, but the majority think they know what the cause was). But the point is you have read and watched from a gazillion sources about the biggest robbery the world has ever known from the MSM, and independent and underground sources. It matters not if you got the truth, thats up to you to decide. The point is it wasnt censored. Then we have had the Iraqi invasion, Afghanistan. yes they are censored, but you wont get banned from anywhere if you mention it. You follow me?

And then we have the biggest website of them all that deals in the worst crime of them all according to some circles. Will I say their name? Oh better not just in case it makes them even more busy than they already are. But we all know its name, where its owners are based and how many times the media lawyers have tried to bring the down. Yet , the mainstream media have named and written written hundreds of articles about the site, what they do, where their based and how many times the media lawyers have tried to close them down. We have wars and nasty stuff going on all over the planet freely talked about by MSM and of course the underground media without censorship. The UKs most successful and influential political blog http://order-order.com doesnt censor a single comment. here here I say!!

Yet we have that airhead over at GS who will not tolerate any mention of ssshhhh the high seas piratey people and their legions of down loaders Sssshhh. Oh the Hypocrisy of the man. While its been fine from launch day to freely talk of the illegal downloading of music (and what a bit of a shame it was that niche musicians like me cant make a living any more) its cool to talk that up and bear fruit all the many opinions i have read from an assortment of mostly failed musicians who never released a record in their lives who are of course fully supportive of the free music because for them it was case of I never made it and neither have the talent to do so, ther for so should no one else. That is the majority voice an dpoint of view over there. Oh how predictable. But there were a few dissenters like me who always said it was extremely damaging to many peoples careers. yes, believe it or not thats the minority view on just about every thread I have read on the subject. Its always easy to spot the musians who never did a thing in his or her life. Always agreed that music should be free because basically the major labels are evil incarnate. But this line alwasy gives the game away becasue they failed to realise or understand that the majors money trickled down to the small indies who could then push new and inspiring talent and niche artists. When the majors belts had to be tightened of course that source of income dried up. But the point is, No censorship there...Eh, am I on glue or something?? Why is that Mr GS. Oh the hypocrisy of the man. Of course its absolutely obvious why he , SOS, KVR and others will not tolerate any mention of piratey things, but only if its the software kind. But at least here, and I saw a thread on the PSW where the unmentionable was mentioned. Here here I say! Oh, am I a bitter musician. Yeah, your damn right I am. I used to make a living selling my CDs. But hey, im not a software company so who cares.

Of course those who run those muso forum sites are extremely unimportant in the grand scheme of things but its people like them with think censorship (always selective) is fine that help bring about conditions where people begin to believe censorship is a good thing and quite normal practice. its called desensitisation. But of course it isnt a good thing. In the big picture it always leads to misery and oppression. They always have a Very Good moral reason for it...of course. Just like in Germany and Austria if you stand on the street and deny the holocaust you will go straight to jail for up to 15 years. While I dont agree with those people I will damn well fight for their right to say what they want. Again the utter hypocrisy of selective censorship, but this time you really get to see it action if you care to take a trip over there and test it. The censors usually always have left leaning tendencies, another blatant hypocrisy considering the lefts are supposed to be for the people, freedom of expression and so on...Yeah right... Yet they are applauded by many brainwashed fools who endorse their actions as if they are taking part in Stalinist Red Square Demo 1948 fighting the good fight for the workers of the world. Oh the gods of free speech!!! give me strength to show these fools the light!

Ok, I guess my point is made from a political perspective. But THE POINT is when did software companies and the forums who support them (for obvious reasons) get to have a monopoly on free speech.

I can understand Digidesign not wishing to slap up a sticky hailing the talents of the hackers of their software. I can even understand their reluctance to allow threads which talk freely and open about it. But thats a wrong move. Again they endorse censorship. I cannot agree with that under any circumstances. Its a fools game to pretend it hasnt happened. Software companies had better get used to the idea that their software will always be hacked. I fyour going to go in to that business you have to expect people are going to take your stuff without paying for it. (JUST LIKE MUSICIANS and labels have had to be dealing with for far longer). Censorship is NOT the answer to the problem. Thats about as useful as a fart in a space suit

I see from some comments this blogs owner has had the clichéd critique that he appraises posts before publishing them and is thus taking part in censorship. Well, I think any dim wit can see he is fairly open to all comments although Im sure hes ditched a few posts which of course I would disagree with that. But then again he doesn't require registration (here here i say) so I would wager that his main motivation is to stop the glut of Viagra ads that would undoubtedly appear by the dozen every day. So, I applaud the mans Air blog for allowing bitter musicians like me who once used to make a living from selling a few records now and then to practice my free speech skills.

In regards what this will do for Digi. Well, you want some truth. That little job has made me order a legit copy of their latest version of their software for my PC because I forgot how damn good it was. I tell no lies. Ok, its just an M powered version but if it weren't for those evil hackers Digi wouldnt have seen a penny from me. Im having a ball editing audio again. I might even be inspired to make another album even though it will end up on pirate joes within a day or two of its release. But hey, despite my misery and bitterness I still love making music.

And to Mr AIr. I dont care where you get your advertising from. If you want to advertise tampons for cats and dogs then so be it. Just never let them muzzle you. Notice how I arrived here (google search) and came back. but also think of why I came back.

Live long and Prosper Digi. its not as bad as you may think it is. Your software is damn good. All you need to do is give me the main job and I will double your profits and quadruple your profile. People in other galaxies will have heard the name Pro tools by the time Im finished. The old mob there are to busy wringing their hands in despair and worrying about their own ass. See this as an opportunity not a hindrance

We all know AVID are ditching hardware for PT right? The XVX crack essentially opens up the PT software to be usable with any hardware (more or less) up to 56 I/O using an aggregate device to route the audio. Question is now everyone knows that this is (and always has been) possible, why buy the TDM hardware, why not just wait until AVID do what the crackers have already essentially done - toughie for AVID. Robin Hood or Robbing Hoods - you decide.
Perhaps a scarier outcome of the XVX chap's foraging is the release of an UNPACE tool which essentially does what it says on the tin - removes any PACE restrictions, I've not seen any official reply on the situation from them, but I bet they're not happy :/