Pro Tools 12 brings subscription pricing and cloud collaboration

Pro Tools 12

The new version of Pro Tools brings it into the new age of software subscription pricing

As far as we can tell, Pro Tools 12 is not a feature-laden release, but instead focuses on financial accessibility and cloud collaboration.

Subscription charging has always been rather divisive, but there are clear advantages in our view: as a professional subscribing user, you always get the latest version of the software, and it's much cheaper at a given point in time to get access to the product.

Anyone who prefers the traditional method of payment is catered for as well with a "Purchase Outright" option, which comes with a (we presume optional) annual upgrade plan.

The new Cloud Collaboration tools will help users share projects without the complexity of file management. By keeping it "in house" Avid aims to make the process seamless. For example, any changes to an "online" project are synchronised across the group of users.

This version of Pro Tools will be able to use Avid Marketplace. This is essentially an app store for Avid products and, as with other in-house stores, it will ensure that qualifying software works well with the DAW and can be paid for, downloaded and installed painlessly.

Pro Tools subscriptions start from $24.99 per month.

Pro Tools 12 is available now.