2017 , is it worth the upgrade ?

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 28 Dec 2016 1:31 am

I am running the full blown 2013 PAK on a HD, with Real this Real that, tons of really nice stuff.

What would be the benefit of going to 2017 ?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 28 Dec 2016 2:55 am

Depends on what and how much you use it.
I upgraded from an older than yours version (thought it was time). Don't see a lot of visual changes, although there probably is "under the hood".

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 3 Jan 2017 2:49 am

I hear ya Jack, I have no issues with 2013, I use it for drum programming and for practice tracks. Just wondering out loud. I'm barely touching the surface of what it offers !

I don't see me spending yet another $169 for a full upgrade.

If it had something WAY different included that would be a different story.

Carl Kilmer · Post by **Carl Kilmer** » 8 Jan 2017 6:27 am

The last one I got was the 2010.5 Everything Pak on a hard drive.
I've hardly ever used it. Every year they add a little more to it and
after a few years you have a lot invested in it that could be used for
for some equipment you could get a lot of use out of. There's a lot
of super good tracks available both purchase and for free that I can
enjoy and use for teaching. For the cost of upgrading every year, an
old man on S/S can sure buy a years worth of tracks and strings.

Jim Smerk · Post by **Jim Smerk** » 8 Jan 2017 8:49 am

Carl, what you say is 100% true, but like you said, if you don't use it why would you upgrade at all?

For folks that DO use it the 2017 is a worthy upgrade, especially for folks that have 2012 or earlier AND use it a lot.

Harry Dove · Post by **Harry Dove** » 8 Jan 2017 7:30 pm

Don't know that I would recommend upgrading every year, but if you have a version that is a few years old it is definitely worth it. What you can do with 2017 is almost mind boggling. I think they are getting more user friendly all the time as well. Some of the plugins let you create your own effects rack, amp modeling, etc. You can import recorded songs and almost instantly create chord charts of exactly how the song was recorded. That alone can save you a ton of time when trying to learn a new song. I know I plan to spend some time learning a lot more about the program. It's time well spent.

Bob Muller · Post by **Bob Muller** » 18 Jan 2017 10:17 am

I had the 2011 version, just got the 2017 about 2 weeks ago. 2017 seems to have a lot more options and sounds very good. I still need to spend more time learning, but there is a lot of online info to help. I think it is a great up grade.

Harry Dove · Post by **Harry Dove** » 19 Jan 2017 7:04 pm

Have any of you run the latest update? A couple days ago the box popped up telling me there was an update to install. When it installed it really changed the appearance of the display and where the tools are located. It made it look more like the 2016 version. This is probably more user friendly to those who haven't used the program much, but I kind of miss how compact the 2017 version was before.