To understand why Pro Tools is so significant a piece of audio software, let’s first take a brief look at what it, and any other DAW, is at its core. So why does Pro Tools garner such strong opinions, one way or the other, and what does 12 ultimately mean for the end user? What made a bigger splash and caused more heated discussion on the pro audio message boards was not any one functional feature of the update, but rather the fact that Avid was adopting an optional subscription-payment model, in addition to being able to purchase a license for the software outright, giving the option of yearly or monthly access. Earlier this year, Avid announced version 12 of its industry-standard Pro Tools DAW (digital audio workstation).
