New Avid S3L

[baanes]

I know we all love to bash Avid, but I have to chime in here. This makes little sense for a studio, especially as just a DAW controller, but that's not it's target market... It's aimed at live sound, my guess is primarily for small companies for whom truck space and labor are limited, and for small venues that don't need a large amount of I/O. $18k for a digital console is in the bottom of the midrange in that market, and you get all the selling points of the Avid consoles - use your studio plugins, broad marketshare, decent UI, etc.

Mock cat5 all you want, but it's a little easier to run than a big old copper multicore. And AVB lets you do your splits digitally, so you can theoretically route audio in all sorts of ways over your network.

That said, I don't know if I buy the interface on this thing. But I'd give it a shot.

[bayswater]

Oh yes, that was it. Mine was color with a Steinberg sequencer, all MIDI of course, in my pre-Mac-pre-DP days. But that was a productive machine.

Where can I get that in at DP Theme?

[bayswater]

And gradually, the cost of an in-the-box studio equals the cost of a full wood-&-concrete studio. [rant warning]

I get the rant, but, what would you do if you owned Avid? You have a huge amount of money tied up in an operation that is facing extinction because of competition from others that can do what you do for 10% of the cost. Do you walk away and try to start all over again? Do you go for lower priced products like the competition? They tried that (M-Audio) and it didn't work. They're not good at that. Or do you take a $2.99 hamburger, tart it up, call it a slider, and sell it for $14.99? Well, that does work for some, and Avid is good at it. Not likely to find much interest here, but there are people out there who will pay $14.99 for a tiny hamburger, and you don't need many of them to protect your investment.

[Prime Mover]

Dude, I've had some tasty $15 hamburgers. But it's still $15 (and I don't usually see hamburgers outside of McDonalds for much less than $8 anyway). This is like paying $80 for an $8 hamburger though!

M-Audio was known for making ****, even compared to Avid's current competitors. What I see is, Avid isn't taking this seriously. Either, they make complete bottom-of-the-heap products (M-Audio), or they make luxury, Buy Other Sound Equipment type hardware that everyone with half a brain (and less than a millionare's pocketbook) knows to avoid. They're missing the sweet spot, and they're missing the point. The reason why M-Audio failed was because consumers are getting smart. They're starting to know how to look for value, real value. The passed on M-Audio because there were better things out there for around or slightly more than their offerings. That doesn't mean that all those missed sales opportunities are going to run to luxury offerings either. Avid's making the exact same mistake that M-Audio did, in the other direction.

Avid's used to being the big boy in town, and not worrying about anyone else. Well, there's other players in town, and Avid just DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO COMPETE! Someone needs to sit the guys at Avid down and teach them the basic tenants of capitalism.

[bayswater]

Avid just DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO COMPETE! Someone needs to sit the guys at Avid down and teach them the basic tenants of capitalism.

That's what I mean. So they have moved off to a segment where there isn't a lot of competition. What else can they do? It's to late to send them back to business school.

[Prime Mover]

I just have very little sympathy for "Rolex" type companies in pro industries. Avid has become a status symbol like Bose. Most of the people who REALLY know what they're doing won't buy into that hardware because they know what the real value is, and will find something better for the price. But, it will always wow the amateurs, who just think Avid = best, without questioning. Obviously, this is an over-generalization since Avid does make some good products, and things that top tier producers want to buy, but they really do make their share of overpriced crap.

BTW: when thinking about the value of the product, I want to always look at it's worth per the price. You can have one of the greatest pieces of gear on the market, but if it's overpriced, then I'm not going to respect it much more than a terrible product priced like it's a legitimate one. A lot of people give companies a pass for being "quality" even if they overprice things.