What happened to AAX dev support?

[Urs]

[topic title edited to evade argument ad clickbaitum]

I went to their fancy new dev board - which can not be browsed, only searched - and no answer at all to Big Sur / Apple Silicon support since some devs asked in October 2020.

Were they gonna tell us at all?

WTF?

[Miles1981]

I guess it's going to ease development for us...

[Urs]

I really can't figure out the lack of interest to communicate.

We literally have to drop AAX support until they get their stuff together. It just does not build. And once they get it together, it's not going to be an overnighter to make it work. With a release of everything for Apple Silicon ahead, we don't think we'll have cries of joy if we have yet-another-release-with-AAX-back-in this year. So probably, we won't.

[Fender19]

I seriously doubt AAX is "dead". Pro Tools is still the industry standard DAW of the "big boys".

I suspect Avid - like many of us - is frustrated/overwhelmed with the bombardment of changes Apple has pushed in the past couple of years. First the was the elimination of 32 bit support which massively impacted Pro Tools in video production applications (yes, Avid knew it was coming but when you have mega-buck systems and projects out in the field it's hard to make these kinds of changes). Then the notarization issues and now ARM. Massive software re-writing cost just to keep what you already had working.

IMO, Apple is trying very hard to weed out everything but Apple software. The M1 looks like a great new system - but they didn't invent it yesterday. Apple knows how their new systems work LONG before anyone else and issues compatible software for it on day 1. Meanwhile, independent developers, including big ones like Avid, are always in "catch up" mode.

I pay Apple every year for a Developer Account yet, IMO, I get virtually nothing for it - a "certificate" to sell my software on Mac OS. They have never, EVER replied/helped to any problem I have reported. Instead, they send me to their "forum" for others to address it, if at all, and usually not.

I'm pretty sick of Apple too. If AAX is "dead" I would blame it on Apple.

[Miles1981]

Of course it's not dead, but removing support is plain bad (although in line with what I think of Avid).
There is a similar problem on Windows with very backward support for newer VS.

[elxsound]

Avid's stock has doubled since last year alone. If Avid is somehow in trouble, blame their business model. As a customer, it's a shit system anyways (but yes, an industry-standard). They should be able to afford to cover the changes.

Not to say I don't feel bad for developers and all the support requests you'll get from users who don't understand why something isn't supported right away, but Avid is hardly a sob story.

[FigBug]

I fixed the AAX SDK myself, it's only a few small changes. I'm shipping AAX versions, do they actually work? I have no idea, there is no ARM ProTools host to test them on. I've seen others recommend still doing the fat binary build, but then strip the ARM build so you are only shipping the Intel binary. Then once the ARM host is out, you can remove the strip step and be releasing the ARM version with only minimal changes to your build process.

[Urs]

Avid's stock has doubled since last year alone.

That isn't actually a good sign for AAX and Pro Tools. Means their guys-with-a-say have become more competent and thus concentrate on the core business.

The cut back of resources to deal with a few lines of code that need fixing (add support for 11.x.x) reminds me of companies who drop their development efforts in order to milk the cash cow.

I also suspect another issue: R2R has recently shown how bogus the whole dongle thing really is, and that the biggest heap of money in this industry ends up in the pockets of the wrong people. I suspect the hold off is also due to some paranoid engineers trying to overengineer the next iteration of an already overengineered-but-useless solution for a problem that's a lot less worrisome than said paranoid people wish it to be.

[Urs]

(I guess I'm just really, really miffed because an "Update Release" for all products has a template of 100+ tickets in our issue tracker, and that's a month or two worth of salary... it confirms my belief that iLok directly and indirectly is responsible for the biggest drain of value in our industry)

[mike_the_ranger]

Too much speculation in here. I too don't see the reason to make something work on a whole new platform as quick as possible only for early adopters, especially if it affects the audio engine of a whole DAW. If PT is not even available for Apple Silicon, why should AAX be? And what exactly stops you from releasing non-AAX plugin formats if it's really worth 1 or 2 months of salary? It's just an option in a installer...

[Gregorius]

especially if it affects the audio engine of a whole DAW

Not to mention the DSP cards need to work and the drivers for all the peripherie, from interfaces to controllers. Pro Tools is not made and will never be for the hip teens that want to produce on their Apple notebooks. There's no rush for the studios using it, what matters the most is being reliable and compatible.

That being said it will "only" take a few lines for them to fix, but then an "incredible amount" for you to make it work!? Doesn't sound right to me.

[Tj Shredder]

The easiest for Avid to solve the problem would be to support VST3. Is there any vendor who has AAX only? But they would wait to make it public... Is there anything AAX could do that VST3 can’t? If yes is there any plugin actually using it?

I still love to work in ProTools, but the company sucks so badly that I never would buy it. There are alternatives and for old sessions you could always keep an old system in a virtual machine...

[mike_the_ranger]

Is there anything AAX could do that VST3 can’t? If yes is there any plugin actually using it?

Don't know about VST3, but what comes to my mind and is being used:
- being able to run native and on dsp
- the gain-reduction/eq curve meters
- the integration/mapping for controllers
- maybe even the plugin name shortening stuff

I think you could all do this with VST3 or even VST2 via vendor specific extensions and yeah, surely makes fun to maintain a couple more "standards"

The main point is, there's an audio engine being written specifically for that plugin format. And one can feel that (e.g. all the low-latency stuff or being able to load more plugins before getting dropouts compared to S1, Cubase, FL).

[Tj Shredder]

Running native on DSP would make sense, but UAD shows that you can do that also as a VST. I don’t know how many native AAX plugins exist beside the native ProTools ones. Is U-he coding for the native DSPs? How big is the market for this? I guess whoever does that would have to sell the AAX version separately for a much higher price...

[elxsound]

Avid's stock has doubled since last year alone.

That isn't actually a good sign for AAX and Pro Tools. Means their guys-with-a-say have become more competent and thus concentrate on the core business.

The cut back of resources to deal with a few lines of code that need fixing (add support for 11.x.x) reminds me of companies who drop their development efforts in order to milk the cash cow.

I also suspect another issue: R2R has recently shown how bogus the whole dongle thing really is, and that the biggest heap of money in this industry ends up in the pockets of the wrong people. I suspect the hold off is also due to some paranoid engineers trying to overengineer the next iteration of an already overengineered-but-useless solution for a problem that's a lot less worrisome than said paranoid people wish it to be.

In reference to stock surges, that line of thinking works for short-term gains (Company X announces layoffs of 1000+ employees), but sustainable growth over the course of a year (not related to announcements) is something different entirely.