In this video from NAMM 2020 Avid Product Specialists Gil Gowling and Jeff Komar demonstrate some of the features in Pro Tools including the new Folder Tracks and UVI Falcon in audio post-production workflows.

Avid Pro Tools MTRX Studio

Jeff started the demonstration by explaining the features of the MTRX Studio, which Avid announced at NAMM 2020, which benefits from the features and design of its bigger brother, the Avid Pro Tools MTRX.

With 18 channels of analogue I/O, 64 channels of Dante, 2 DigiLink ports and 16 channels of ADAT I/O, the MTRX Studio has been designed by Avid and DAD to consolidate your studio, simplify your signal chain and make it easy to connect all your outboard gear to a single interface.

With its flexible digital patch bay and integration with Pro Tools software and Avid control surfaces, the MTRX Studio has been designed to eliminate manual tasks like switching inputs and patching in processors to taking remote control of sources, routing, and monitoring. All in all, the MTRX Studio has been designed to streamline your workflow for faster turnaround.

Netflix Workflows

Netflix updated their guidance on Dolby Atmos workflows including publishing their own step-by-step guide on setting up and using the new Dolby Audio Bridge feature added by Avid in Pro Tools 2019.10. In addition, Netflix has also stated that it is not necessary to have Dolby Atmos certification to work on Netflix titles.

You can now deliver a final Home Theatre Print Master or Localised Mix as a Dolby Atmos BWAV ADM File, which is a wrapper with a number of 48K/24bit files made up of single or multiple LCR, 5.0, 5.1, 7.1 or 7.1.2 bed(s) and up to 118 objects, depending on how many bed tracks you have. You can learn more about the new Netflix workflows in our article Netflix Update Guidance On Dolby Atmos Workflows.

Pro Tools HDX Thunderbolt

Avid has designed the Thunderbolt 3 chassis solutions in conjunction with Sonnet, to enable users to be able to configure either a totally self-contained 1U rack mount HDX system that can house both an HDX card and a Mac mini, or if you prefer, a desktop solution to take an HDX card to use alongside a computer like an iMac Pro or MacBook Pro.

There will also be bundles that have been designed to enable you to set up your professional studio easily with a Pro Tools HDX Thunderbolt bundle that’s fully assembled and ready to go.

Each bundle will include a Pro Tools HDX Thunderbolt 3 Chassis, one HDX card, Pro Tools Ultimate software, and your choice of Pro Tools hardware I/O interface with the bundles priced to offer savings over buying the items separately, plus, get over 70 AAX DSP plugins and a 1-Year Software Updates and Support Plan included with the Pro Tools Ultimate software.

You can learn more about these in our article Pro Tools Thunderbolt 3 Solutions Coming Soon From Avid.

Pro Tools 2020 Folder Tracks In Post Workflows

Folder Tracks have been designed to improve the organisation of your Pro Tools sessions and will help to eliminate clutter and distractions on the screen, which ties in with Avid’s aim to continue to free your mind to work more productively without the distraction of numerous tracks and complexity on screen.

Here are just some of what you’ll be able to do with Folder Tracks in your session:

• Organize tracks into collapsible folders (up to 8 layers)

• Drag-and-drop tracks into folders with ease

• Colour-code folders

• Edit the folder itself, thereby automatically editing the “member” tracks simultaneously

• Basic Folder Track Functions: include reordering tracks in and out of folders, open/close folders, and propagation of show/hide and active/inactive actions to member tracks.

• Routing Folder Tracks: allows audio signals to be routed through the folder for stem mix workflows. All Aux track functions, including inserts, sends, and automation are available on Routing Folders. Optionally, selected tracks can be automatically routed when moved into a new Routing Folder.

• Editing: Edit selections made on folders are propagated to their member tracks, allowing one to easily edit clips across all member tracks. On open folders, all edit commands that are currently available on multi-track selections are allowed; A smaller core set of edit commands are available on closed folders and will allow users to perform many useful edits without having to open folders.

• Track Presets: Folders with their nested members can be saved and imported as Track Presets, expanding the already powerful feature.

• Backward Compatibility: When sessions with folders are opened in Pro Tools versions earlier than 2020.R1, Routing Folders turn into AUX tracks, while Basic Folders are simply dropped. Nesting is flattened.

Using UVI Falcon In Audio Post Production Workflows

Jeff used the Export function to export a track’s worth of audio clips and then import all the samples into Falcon. Next, he mapped groups of files to the MIDI keyboard notes. Then he manipulated the audio samples with pitch changes, reversing etc. Finally, he uses MIDI events to trigger processed audio samples.

Once he has everything as he liked it, Jeff used Track Commit to convert all the MIDI-based Falcon tracks as audio tracks and then opened the correct folder track to place the relevant audio tracks in the correct place.

To finish the video, Jeff gave us a tour of the complete session and how he was able to use Folder Tracks to only see what he needed across a very busy session.

There is much more in the video especially the demonstration of the new Folder Track workflow. We recommend taking some time to study this video to get a headstart on how to use Folder Tracks in a post-production workflow.