Avid ProTools and Media Composer Pricing 2022

 Here is an update from Avid in 2022. We love to hate Avid because we are forced to use Pro Tools and Media Composer, so each time they change things or jack up their prices we cringe.

As always I will only reference the month to month prices for each app as anything else is just a discount on the base price. And then we will compare 2022 offers to 2019 prices, fun!

Pro Tools is now declined in three version: Artist for $9.99/mo, Studio for $39.99/mo ($31.99 is a discount), and Flex for $99.99/mo.

Compared to 2019 prices: Free $0, Pro Tools ("vanilla") $34.99/mo, and Pro Tools Ultimate $84.99/mo. We are seeing an increase of $5 for the grown-up apps, and a new offer at $9.99 that replaces the useless Pro Tools Free... For a fee. Good riddance.

Artist is OK for simple stuff with a limited amount of tracks and features. Studio is fine for most workflows that don't involve conforming, or need "Advanced audio post toolset", or want to use expensive Avid Hardware, most of it. Little devils!

So for the Hollywood elites it's $99.99/mo now baby!

For non elites it's $39.99

And for peeps that don't know what Pro Tools is, they have to fork $9.99 for the privilege.

Avid also offers a $99.99/year Studio version to Students and Teachers.

Of course Avid is not doin that with Media Composer, just to mystify us even more.

MC still has the familiar free First version, MC "vanilla" for $34.99, and MC Ultimate for $74.99. Same prices as in 2019! MC Enterprise is still available for an undisclosed amount, which is the only way to get access to Nexis/Edge hardware and associated cloud collaboration.

So Avid is still milking audio post people to death by jacking-up prices on Pro Tools even more, while prices on Media Composer stay the same. Talk about a captive user base...

How To Prevent Free Download Manager To Launch At Startup

Free Download Manager is a handy little app, but it automatically launches by default when you start your computer which is annoying and unnecessary.

To turn FDM autostart off, do the following:

1. Click the Main Menu button on the upper left of the FDM window.

2. Click Preferences in the drop down menu.

3. Click on the Advanced tab, or scroll down to Advanced preferences.

4. Uncheck the box "Launch at startup (minimized)"

That's it!

Vimeo Direct Links Look Crappy, Display Self-Serving Banner And Button

 Vimeo has decided to force promoting itself on the back of its users by displaying a huge banner and a "Join Vimeo" button on every shared link.

Look at this crap. I share these links with clients! It's ugly! Instead of a clean display, we get a self serving prominent banner that actually OBSCURES the title of the video! What is this Vimeo?

As this was not enough, you have to add a "Join Vimeo" button on top of it? Do you really thing it's the way to get new people to sign for your services Vimeo?

There is no way for me to turn off this banner and that button. The viewer/client has to click on the banner to make it disappear, after seeing how ugly and invasive it is...

In addition, there is no way to turn the "Like" button off either, even though there is a Player setting to turn it on or off, the direct link disregards the off preference.

 I've complained to Vimeo already, some doofus pretended to not understand my email, and instead sent a long answer about embed code, which this is not.

Vimeo direct links now look like a sack of balls. Thanks Vimeo! Well done!

Adobe Auto-Update F%$#@ery

 Adobe is shoving auto-update down our throats at every turn. Again today CC app is STUCK in update mode because it turned auto-update on BY ITSELF and decided to start the updating without me knowing. Only I turned the computer off as it was doing it, and since then has been stuck. Stupid Adobe, when will you let the user decide what s/he wants to do?

Idiotic Adobe trying to sneak an auto-update and FAILING! Which by the way #$cks-up Activity Monitor as well, just to make sure that you cannot see what's happening.

All right, next I go to Adobe Creative Cloud folder and run the Uninstaller. Because the only thing that has worked in the past when Adobe CC is stuck is to do that.

Only now Adobe is a bit more savvy and offer to repair the stupid installer that get stuck each time it's interrupted. Fine, I'll run the repair.

And so it goes, great.

Almost there.

Ah! Not so fast! Adobe needs to update first...

Finally we get somewhere.

You can see here that I am turning the freaking CC auto-update OFF, like I always do. It does not matter because sure as hell Adobe will auto update CC anyway next time, count on it.

And here is an additional fu%$ery by Adobe as soon as you hit any app's update button:

Ah! Ah! Ah! Really Adobe? I see, trying to force users to auto-update apps at every corner!

Do yourself a favor and click CANCEL. Adobe, NO ONE WANTS TO AUTO-UPDATE APPS, or auto update anything really. It's a recipe for disaster when you are in the middle of a job, at best you're gonna loose precious time to cancel/stop/install a previous version. Auto-update is  BULLS%^t!  Don't do it! Make sure to go to Preferences and double check that it is turned off.

See, after clicking Cancel the MANUAL update goes through.

Again, make sure auto-update is OFF, else turn it off here (in Preferences / Apps.)

Waves, iZotope (and other brands) Noise Reduction Audio Plug-ins On Mac M1

 Waves is soooo slow it's killing me.

Waves Central is freaking slooow like molasses, it runs on Rosetta still, hasn't been updated to run natively on M1. I have a reasonably fast, stable, good internet connection, thank you. It's slow to start, it's slow to install, it's slow to sync. And why can't we get demos directly from Waves Central? Instead we are forced to use the web browser... That's beyond me. Downloading gets stuck. Syncing takes over 30 seconds, sometimes it gets stuck for a minute. Each time you do something you have to wait. Waves if your servers are too busy, upgrade them!

Anyway, after I am able to finally instal and authorize, many plug-ins are slow in Final Cut on my Mini M1 Monterey. Like I touch a button and it takes a few seconds to register and I get the beachball of hell in the meantime. EQ in particular. I can't work like this.

Waves states that the plug-ins are not meant to run on FCPX. So does iZotope with RX. What's going on guys?

And now here is a quick test of a variety of Noise Reduction plug-ins applied to a voice recording with complex noise comprised of outdoors street sounds:

iZotope RX

RX does not work with FCP anymore says iZotope. Now if you refrain from opening the GUI, RX still works as a plug-in inside FCP. You have to use the unfriendly sliders for all the tweaking, and there is no visual aid, so really a pain. If you click on the GUI, you get the dreaded "plug-in has stopped responding" message, and the plug-in gets disabled. The RX Audio Editor app still works wonders for difficult situations. Spectral De-noise works well, spectral attenuation works great. The plethora of Repair tools is so useful. On the other end it takes some time to tweak to my liking. Editor does not work with bluetooth headsets, why is that iZotope?

Waves WNS

Works well in FCP for low rumble and high pitched, complex noise reduction. Does not attenuate noise much in the voice frequency range. Does alter the voice a bit, without muddying, clean. I wish it had twice the number of sliders or more for better tweaking. Probably the fastest to get pleasing results.

Waves X-Noise

Works OK in FCPX, I can hear some artifacts but they are low frequency so less noticeable that the Acon. I can't push it as far as I want. I wish the noise curve was manually editable, like in RX. Feels old and crippled a little.

Waves Z-Noise

Works OK in FCPX, No noticeable artifacts. I can't push it as far as I want. Muddies the voice a bit. I wish the noise curve was manually editable. Slow like molasses when EQing. Feels old.

Waves Clarity Vx

Does not work at all on my M1, not in FCP, nor in Audition. Makes a super loud saw noise and that's it.

Acon Digital DeNoise 2

Is this a joke? This plug-in presents ugly noise reduction, full of digital artifacts. Terrible.

CrumblePop AudioDenoise

Very limited in tweaking capabilities. I would like to push it more, it only attenuates a little. No artifacts that I can hear, makes the voice very muffy / muddy sounding.

Bertom Denoiser

This one is based on a frequency adjustable noise gate, I can hear the gate too much for my liking. No artifacts that I can hear. I cannot push it enough, and it muddies the voice.

Adobe Audition DeNoise

Based on noise gating, I can hear the gate too much, and it also adds ugly artifacts / digital noise. I used it on simpler noises with better results, no go on complex ones.

Adobe Audition Adaptative Noise Reduction

Works a little better than DeNoise, but I can hear the gating here as well, it leaves the voice very muffly sounding, and leaves a lot of temporal noise behind. Very weird. I used it on simpler noise with better results, but I won't use it on complex ones.