Enhancements

Pro Tools | Carbon

Support for the initial release of Pro Tools | Carbon audio interface. For product information, go to www.avid.com/carbon

Dark Theme

Pro Tools has a “Dark” UI Theme in addition to the previous lighter colored look which is now called “Classic”. The “Dark” UI with its modern design, is now the default look for Pro Tools, but the theme can be switched in Pro Tools Preferences > Display based on work environment or personal preference. Note that there is no difference in Pro Tools functionality between the two available UI Themes.

Audio to MIDI

We have integrated Melodyne from Celemony into Pro Tools to provide the ability to convert audio to MIDI. Pro Tools analyzes selected audio and converts pitches to MIDI notes and amplitude to velocities. This can be achieved by dragging and dropping an audio clip onto a MIDI or Instrument track, using a new command found in the track menu, or using special clipboard commands in the audio track’s contextual menu(s).
Melodyne must be installed and activated for this feature to work.

Melodyne Essential

We are now including Melodyne Essentials for all active Pro Tools customers. Read the Licensing Melodyne essentials KB for activation instructions.

Space Clips

Space Clips is a new batch command that inserts a user specified amount of space between selected clips on the timeline. This allows you to quickly space out a large number of clips by a desired amount in any time scale.
This feature was originally designed to vastly speed up certain game audio workflows that dealt with a huge number of clips, but can also be used in sound design, dialog editing, mastering, sample library creation, and music.

Bounce Mix Window

The “Bounce to Disk” window has been replaced by a single “Bounce Mix” window.  It is now possible to bounce audio or video file formats from a single window, accessed by a single key command.
The entire window is driven by presets.  Presets save and restore the parameters in the window, including the mix sources and location options.
The Bounce Mix window also offers custom location options, including the ability to bounce to a user definable directory structure relative to the session file, as well as a static location.
All of the above improvements have also been applied to the Track Bounce window.

Dolby Atmos ADM BWF Export

(Pro Tools Ultimate Only)

“Dolby Atmos ADM BWF” has been added as a new exportable file format in the Bounce Mix window.  This allows for much quicker deliverable turnarounds with offline bounces directly from Pro Tools.  It’s possible to generate new deliverables from a new project, with new metadata, or rework previous ADM files, passing along or changing the previous metadata.

QuickTime Export (Public Beta)

We are opening up the ability to bounce to MOV files, across all OS’s, without the need to install any additional components.  Not all intended functionality has been completed, but we realize the importance of this ability, so we’re sharing our current progress.
The new Bounce Mix window has an “MOV (Public Beta)” option in the File Type menu.
This allows you to bounce MOV files with the following options.

• Transcode video to:
  • DNxHD
  • DNxHR
  • Apple ProRes
  • H.264 (VBR and CBR)
• Includes the following audio formats
  • PCM uncompressed audio.
  • 7.1, 5.1, Stereo, and Mono channel widths
  • Multiple audio stems

More features will be added to this bounce method in the future, but in the meantime, the previous Bounce to QuickTime functionality is still available on macOS Mojave (and below), as well as on Windows with QuickTime installed.

QuickTime and MXF OP-1a Import

It is now possible to import audio from the following files, across all OS’s, without the need to install any additional components.  This adds new support for macOS Catalina and beyond, and it removes the QuickTime installation dependency on Windows for import.   The following audio file types and codecs can now be imported on all supported OS’s, in addition to the existing file support.  All imported audio will be converted to the current chosen session audio format.

• .m4a/.m4v/.aac
  • AAC audio
• .mov/.mp4
  • PCM (uncompressed)
  • AAC audio
• .mxf
  • OP-1a  (audio  from a combined audio/video MXF)
  • PCM (uncompressed)  audio

Master Fader Increase

(Pro Tools Ultimate Only)

Pro Tools Ultimate can now create 512 Master Fader Tracks.  This is useful in situations where it is important to have plug-in processing at the end of the output stage for each output.   Now it is possible to insert limiters when mixing in Dolby Atmos, for each object and bed, just before the signal reaches the final output.

AAF Mute

Static track mute settings can now be received in an AAF from Avid Media Composer 2020.9 (and later).
Pro Tools can also export static mute settings with an AAF. Media Composer 2020.9 (and later) can import this mute information.

Performance Improvements

• Offline bounce speed has been improved.
• Optimization at low buffer sizes:
  • A new setting has been added to the Playback Engine called, “Optimize Performance at Low Buffer Sizes”. This setting applies to the two lowest buffer sizes available.
  • In some cases, this optimization will conflict with certain plug-ins and cause a CPU error. If that occurs, Pro Tools will post a dialog with the suggestion to disable this optimization.

Bug Fixes

Control Surfaces

• Automation Writing/Preview state now reflects knob state as well as fades on EUCON Control Surface display screens (Avid Control and S6 Display Modules) (PT-266464)
• Fixed a Windows only issue where the Pro Tools screen is not drawn completely, then stops responding when using an Artist Transport. (PT-263802)
• Meters on Aux and Routing Folders correctly show input signals when the S6 has set PT meters to Off Disk Only. (PT-265215)

Crashes and Errors

• MP3's with a width greater than stereo are now correctly prevented from being attempted in the bounce dialog, avoiding a hang (PT-263483)
• Fixed a crash on quit if a 403 error was encountered while using the Cloud Collaboration feature. (PT-266631)
• Fixed a crash that may occur when clicking in and out of numeric or text entry boxes. (PT-258814)
• Fixed a SWOD that could occur when bouncing a large number of tracks. (PT-266692)
• Fixed an issue that would cause Pro Tools to crash on launch on some Windows systems (PT-265899)
• Fixed an Ableton Live crash that could occur when running on HD Native Thunderbolt. (PT-255932)

Dolby Atmos Workflows

• The Bus/Object toggle now defaults to Object for Objects imported with a Dolby Atmos ADM BWF file (PT-266137)
• Splitting stereo tracks to mono will now also correctly divide the objects between the two resulting tracks (PT-266136)
• Beds and Objects are now ordered according to renderer input index when importing a Dolby Atmos ADM BWF file (PT-266134)
• Stereo busses, with objects assigned to the sub-paths, will automatically expand when IO Setup is opened (PT-263978)
• Prevented an erroneous dialog that would claim objects could not be mapped after importing a Dolby Atmos ADM BWF file (PT-262550)
• Defaulting IO Setup, with the "Use Atmos Renderer" setting, now properly accounts for skipped renderer inputs (PT-262531)

Editing

• Fixed an issue where 'Clip Slide' was being added to the UNDO queue prematurely on mouse down, instead of mouse up. (PT-265820)

Elastic Audio

• Removed an assertion when right-clicking  selected clips on an audio track's timeline with Elastic Audio enabled (PT-265582)

Export/Bounce

• The "Mono (summed)" File Format option no longer disappears after bouncing with it selected. (PT-255617)

Field Recorder

• Fixed an issue when importing embedded AAF's where the wrong channel name was appearing on clips that referenced a channel which was not the first channel index (PT-265117)

Import

• Files with a .aac extension will once again import (PT-265317)
• Fixed an issue where some AAC encoded files would import as silence (PT-241285)

Installer

• Fixed a case where on some systems installation would be prevented by the following message, "Pro Tools Helper must be closed before the software can be installed." (PT-262226)
• The video engine is once again installed with Pro Tools on Windows (PT-265214/PT-260676)

Performance

• Fixed an issue where the System Usage window showed DSP resources to be available when they were not. (PT-264415)
• Fixed an issue where dragging a DSP plug-in to a different insert resulted in AAE errors -30003/-30015. (PT-262479)

Routing and I/O Setup

• Subpath channel orders (7.1.2) are now correct on busses created using the track Output Selector > "New Track" or by creating Routing Folders. (PT-265748)

UI

• The voice meter is no longer incorrectly displayed in the Pro Tools (non-Ultimate) System Usage Window (PT-265180)
• Fixed an issue where the Ableton Link cluster was rendering in the wrong toolbar location if the project was created from a template (PT-264689)

Video

• Fixed an issue where variable frame rate (VFR) H.264 MOV files could drift sync during playback (PT-262526)
• Apple ProRes video with a Clean Aperture setting will no longer force the video engine to a 1888x1062 raster on macOS Catalina (PT-266744)
• Odd integer raster sizes are no longer allowed for the engine raster.  If a file with an odd raster is imported, the engine raster size will be rounded up to the nearest even number (PT-266818)

Workspace

• Drive letters A and B are now recognized as writable drives on Windows (PT-265935)
• Fixed an issue where volumes with certain names were being ignored (PT-266338)

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue that would cause the Sync HD firmware update to fail on Windows when using DigiTest (PT-267032)
• Software monitoring is once again properly muted when LLM (Low Latency Monitoring) is enabled with non-HD audio interfaces (PT-253835)