It looks like Pro Tools 12.4 is the end of the line for me. I purchased a student license of Pro Tools 10 back on March 17, 2012. It was quite a deal — it included four years of free updates.

With the news that Pro Tools 12.5 will likely drop on March 31, 2016, that will mark the first release that is not included in the package I bought. I can’t complain - I spent $293.95, and I’ve definitely gotten my worth out of it. But now I’m faced with a decision regarding how to move forward. My options appear to be:

• Spend $300-360/year on a subscription or Annual Upgrade plan
• Do nothing, and continue to use Pro Tools 12.4 until I see a compelling reason to update.

I’m leaning heavily towards doing nothing. The cloud collaboration tools of version 12.5 aren’t enough to spur me to action. At the current pricing for Pro Tools, I’d be very tempted to spend $200 on Logic X, to thoroughly evaluate it, delaying a Pro Tools update by 8 months to offset the cost.

But for now, I’ll just wait and see how my needs evolve.