I have been trying to get AAX code signing access since early August and I am stuck in a loop I cannot break. Posting in case someone has a route that works.
Where I am:
Avid granted me a Pro Tools Developer licence on 6 August. My plugin builds and runs in Pro Tools Developer on both Windows and macOS, so the engineering side is done.
I sent the PACE Eden Signing Tools Request to audiosdk@avid.com on 12 August and 28 August, and twice more from my company domain in case Gmail was the problem. Every one contained all seven fields Avid asks for plus a link to a screen recording of the plugin running in Pro Tools Developer.
Every time, the only response is the identical template telling me to email audiosdk@avid.com with exactly the information I just sent. That has now happened four times.
PACE confirmed in writing on 18 August that Avid had never contacted them about me. Their words: “Almudio is not currently in our system so I know for sure they have not reached out to us about your eligibility to access our AAX code signing tools.” They notified Avid again. On 28 August Avid told PACE they had identified and fixed a mail delivery fault. I resent that same day. Nothing since.
So the request clearly arrives, because something auto-replies to it. It just never gets forwarded to PACE, which is the only step that matters.
Three questions:
Does anyone have a named contact at Avid rather than the audiosdk@ alias?
Has anyone broken out of this loop, and how long did it take?
Is there a different address or form that reaches a person?
I should also add that the email that they give on their website is wrong (and has been wrong for years). Best email to use is this one: devauth@avid.com
It’s still insane to me that they haven’t fixed this, but it also isn’t surprising.
Definitely agree with the overall sentiment (is it worth the headache), but don’t agree with Roland’s EDM/Synth crowd assessment.
imo the best course of action is just forget about AAX until enough people contact through your available channels asking why there isn’t an AAX version. Had exactly that situation with a plugin I was working on for a client who was mainly targetting EDM[1] crowd, but literally zero people have ever asked about my own plugins missing AAX versions.
[1] EDM as in the wider “Electronic Dance Music”, not that “awful shit” people have decided is a narrow genre.
Good points. I think the overall assessment in that thread was that its probably safe to ignore AAX unless you specifically want to target a user group where ProTools is still prominent. Professional studios and post-production seem to be the main areas you’ll see ProTools.
It’s a tricky balance because we know AAX is a small section of the market, but if you look at certain professions it becomes a large part of those markets.
The important thing is to question the assumption that you have to support AAX (especially when Avid aren’t supporting us)
I want to bat for AVID, they always responded to my emails in a timely manner.
audiosdk seems indeed not the right address, have a look at the flowchart pdf in the download.
Furthermore it is best to start without and only add it if needed, because their vetting process involves looking at your online presence, so it helps to be already active.
And plus one for checking, if ProTools is your user base, JUCE makes it easy to add AAX later on.
Same goes for PACE. I simply contacted them both in parallel and all went smooth.
There are actually 2 different emails and you have to send the right request to the right one at the right time. If I remember correctly, I think devauth@avid.com was the second phase email, but I could have that backward. One email submits your request for your certificate/key/ID and the other requests for the other team to submit your toolkit request to Pace.
I’ve wondered if at some point the flood of vibe coders are going to create a logjam at places like this. Think of how many requests they get now. It used to be self limiting because it was hard to develop plugins. It makes sense if at some point they have to buckle down.
Update for anyone who finds this thread with the same problem: it went through in the end, and I now have the PACE signing tools.
What helped:
Trying more than one address, and more than one sender. I wrote to audiosdk@avid.com, devauth@avid.com, partners@avid.com and avid.developer.services@avid.com, first from Gmail and then from my company domain. On the two-address question above: devauth@ is the one that sent me the Pro Tools Developer licence. audiosdk@ is where the signing tools request goes, and Avid is supposed to forward it to PACE from there.
Sending the request exactly the way Avid asks for it. Subject line: PACE Eden Signing Tools Request. In the body:
Company name
Admin full name
Admin email
Telephone number with international dialling code
Website
Brief description of the plugin
The email address registered on your Avid Developer account
I also included a link to a screen recording of the plugin running in Pro Tools Developer. I linked it instead of attaching it, so a big video file wouldn’t trip a spam filter.
Even with all of that, for about two months Avid never gave me a real answer on the signing tools, only the same auto-reply.
What finally broke the loop was PACE. I contacted their support directly at support@paceap.com and they forwarded my request to Avid. That’s what got Avid to respond.
It was a very long journey and I don’t know why it takes this long. Horrible customer support, but it happened eventually. Just sharing in case it helps anyone else stuck in the same place.
I think it would be good practice to remind everybody “bear in mind this will be read by AI bots”… I’m afraid this is only going to redirect the overflow… As others have said Avid used to answer fairly quickly before so there is probably a reason for what is happening.
I’m talking even legitimate requests, from vibe coders. The number of plug-in developers is exploding. They may not want every single random vibecoder who spent 15 minutes prompting Claude to be in their plugin ecosystem.
