While I won't slam Protools as a product because, as you all know, I think it's awesome, for the most part I agree their customer service and business practices leave much to be desired. But I'm not looking back to the years of NuBus, I mean in computer years, NuBus is the dark ages.

For those who don't know - here's the real beef. There are a lot of Protools TDM Mix+ owners using OS9 and PT 5 who have been for many years. In or around 2001, the Protools HD hardware upgrade became attractive because it had 2-3 times more DSP power than Mix+. It also had up to 24/192 recording. The catch is you have to replace all your plugin software. Even more maddening is now that OS X has come out with a decent iteration, namely Panther, you have to upgrade to Protools version 6 and dump your plugins once again for new versions.

Now I can't blame Digidesign for being forced to move to OS X - that's just the progression of the Macintosh. It was a shock to me to learn that all Macs after the G4 quicksilver model are incapable of running OS 9. Clearly Apple has drawn a line in the sand and said, "we want everyone to move forward to OS X."

What would've been nice was if owners of recent copies of Waves, for example, got free or cheap upgrades to OS X. Instead, these companies have made it expensive.

Eventually, I too will move to Protools 6 on OS X - actually I have 2 drives going now with a version of each but am still mostly using OS9 running PT 5.3.1 - mostly because I can't afford to upgrade.

Another note is this - it's well known Mix+ users keep their systems because internet crackers broke the copy protection of the bulk of the plugin's used for that system. When Protools HD came along they introduced I-Lok and the internet underground for the most part hasn't caught up.

My feeling is, for $15K, Digidesign better provide me with a host of great plugins. I feel they've only made marginal improvements in this offering. Recently they bought the bombfactory plugins and offer them as part of their package. They need to do the same with Waves and maybe Autotune. They also need to include a kickbutt sampler. While we're at it, they should include a great cd burning program like what masterlist used to be. If they did these things I'd be even more loyal than I already am.

My wish for a DAW is to have an integrated product that is reliable and has most of the tools I need to do the job. Nuff said.