Today Avid Announced the release of the much anticipated Pro Tools 2021.6. While, because of the early announcements surrounding the HDX Hybrid Engine, there is an unusual amount about this release we already know, there are more surprises in this huge release which will please HDX, Native, Ultimate and Standard users alike. As ever we have the details.

If you’re in a hurry, here’s what’s new in a nutshell:

• HDX Hybrid Engine - Better Performance and near zero-latency recording with hybrid DSP and native processing

• Increased I/O

• M1 Support Via Rosetta 2

• Improvements To And Customisation of UI

• ADC On Side Chains

• H.265/HVEC Video Support

• Improvements to video engine

• Improvements to Bounce Mix window

• Assorted Bug fixes

Unusually the first, and biggest feature of this release we already know a great deal about. The Hybrid Engine has been covered extensively by us since we saw its first incarnation with Pro Tools Carbon and Francois Quereuil shared the news that it was coming to HDX in our interview with him.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of the Hybrid Engine For HDX users, bringing as it does a huge increase in voices and performance gains which are hard to believe. The HDX user base, many of whom have been concerned that their significant investment in HDX was nearing the end of its relevance, have just seen their hardware totally rejuvenated.

What Is the Hybrid Engine?

In previous iterations of Pro Tools, native and DSP processing were, to a significant degree, mutually exclusive. While it has always been possible to incorporate native processing into a DSP system, doing so was costly in terms of the voices used getting in and out of the DSP Pro Tools mixer used in an HDX system and the additional latency incurred. The Pro Tools Hybrid Engine allows parts of the mixer, and therefore the audio paths and plugin processing, to exist in either DSP or Native and to be switched seamlessly between the two as and when the need arises.

Hybrid Engine Performance improvements

The Hybrid Engine maximises Pro Tools performance. CPU load is reduced, system delay is reduced so the system feels “snappier”, control surfaces feel more responsive and sessions feel faster. This is counter-intuitive as by moving the load from dedicated DSP to the native CPU the opposite might be expected but for reasons which can only be described as a little mysterious, this is not the case.

Using the Hybrid Engine uses fewer voices as there is less “round tripping” between the DSP and native domains, with its associated waste of voices and increase in latency. These changes represent an enormous improvement in HDX performance as reported by Jamey Scott in his recent article Pro Tools HDX Hybrid Engine - Is It Really A Game Changer?

The change the Hybrid Engine represents to HDX systems is so profound that Avid described it as almost a reimagining of the product.

This is largely down the the way having 2048 voices available extends the capabilities of a single card HDX system. The most demanding sessions, which used to require 3 card systems can now be run more comfortably on a single card system unless the additional IO capabilities of a multi card HDX system are necessary for you. For post houses, which are running 3 card systems, the possibility now exists to break up those 3 card systems into individual 1 card systems and still run the same sessions on each system.

Offload processing of individual tracks to DSP with a single button

Of course the most visible aspect of the Hybrid Engine is the ability to toggle DSP Mode on and off on any track, using the new green button, to enable low latency monitoring for these toggled tracks while it is required. This workflow was first made public with the release of Pro Tools Carbon and it works identically in HDX, though with potentially far more DSP available than in a Carbon system. This simple button solves the issues associated with native systems and their inherent latency and the need to manage buffer settings against CPU load and the restrictions associated with a DSP workload.

M1 Support Via Rosetta 

Big Sur support in Intel Macs has been available since Pro Tools 2021.3. 2021.6 brings Big Sur support for M1 Macs via Rosetta 2.

Pro Tools | First, Pro Tools and Pro Tools Ultimate software are now supported with 2021.6 and all included Avid plugins are qualified to run through Rosetta 2. Pro Tools | Carbon is supported on M1 Macs running macOS 11.3. However, as there are caveats with Carbon interfaces on M1 Macs running Big Sur 11.4, Avid encourages users to visit the compatibility pages linked below to ensure that your system and workflow are fully supported, before installing Pro Tools on an M1 Mac. Also, at this time, HDX and HD Native systems as well as DADman (MTRX and MTRX Studio) and the Video Engine are not supported on M1 Macs.

You can find more about Big Sur compatibility below or in this Avid Knowledge base article

For up to date information on Pro Tools System Requirements go to this page on the Avid Website 

It’s important to make sure that all of your third party plugins, software and hardware are compatible before considering moving to Big Sur. Check using our searchable Big Sur compatibility database.

Improvements To And Customisation Of UI

The Dark User Interface (UI) Theme was introduced with the release of Pro Tools 2020.11. An inconvenience associated with this was the fact that it was necessary to restart Pro Tools to toggle between Dark and Classic Themes. With the release of 2021.6, it is now possible to switch between UI Themes dynamically. Change the theme in Preferences and the UI will now update without a restart.

However, with Pro Tools 2021.6, the UI customisation now goes much further. For a long time, it has been possible to adjust the colour and saturation of various elements of the UI such as tracks and clips. UI customisation has been further extended to enable the customisation of the colour, brightness, contrast, colour and saturation of almost everything. Using the updated, and greatly extended colour palette, it is now possible to set up and store custom UI presets between Classic and Dark Themes

UI Theme Customization Parameters

General

• Text Brightness

• Background Brightness

Tracks

• Track Header Brightness

• Track Header Saturation

• Edit Selection

• Timeline Brightness

• Inactive Track Brightness

• Inactive Track Saturation

Clips

• Waveform Brightness

• Background Brightness

Grids

• Brightness (Grid Mode)

• Brightness (non-Grid Mode)

Automation View

• Waveform Brightness

• Waveform Saturation

• Line Brightness

• Line Saturation

• Background Brightness

Analysis/Warp View

• Waveform Brightness

• Waveform Saturation

• Analysis Marker Brightness

• Analysis Marker Saturation

• Background Brightness

Automatic Delay Compensation On Side Chains

Until now, Automatic Delay Compensation on Side Chains has been only available on Pro Tools HDX. With Pro Tools 2021.6, it is now available on all Pro Tools systems. This is a consequence of the necessary convergence between Native and HDX systems which the Hybrid Engine employs. To maintain consistent ADC performance with the Hybrid engine for HDX users, side chain delay compensation had to come to native systems. If side chain ADC didn’t work natively it would have been necessary to keep side chained tracks in DSP mode just to maintain the delay compensation, which wouldn’t have been an efficient use of DSP. That being said it also addresses a longstanding issue for native users.

Increased Voice, Track and I/O Limit For Pro Tools Ultimate and Pro Tools Standard

The big news here is that for software-only Pro Tools systems, both Ultimate and Standard, the I/O limit has been raised from 32 to 64. This removes a long-standing source of complaint from many users. HDX and HD Native users (meaning the hardware HD Native PCIe card or Thunderbolt box) and users of Avid’s live sound products have previously been the only people who can exceed 32 inputs and outputs. While still restricted to 64 I/O, there will be far fewer scenarios in which the I/O limit presents an issue than would be the case at 32 I/O.

Another benefit to Non HDX users is that the track limit for Pro Tools Standard has been doubled to 256 and importantly all of those tracks are fully voiced at all sample rates. Users of standard Pro Tools systems don’t have to think in terms of voices. They have 256 tracks, mono or stereo.

As previously reported, with the huge upgrade that is the Hybrid Engine the voice count of Pro Tools Ultimate has been increased over 5x to 2048 voices. That’s 2.6 times the voices available in an HDX3 system. This Voice upgrade is a massive increase for all users, regardless of the system they currently have.

Video Engine And Bounce Mix Window Improvements

Bounce Mix to MOV

• Same as Source

  • You can now use the Bounce Mix window to bounce Same as Source MOV files, from DNxHD/HR and Apple ProRes MOV or MXF video sources, on all supported operating systems. In most cases, this is much faster than transcoding a new video file, and it ensures that the video attributes of the resulting file are the same as the file you were working with in the session.

• H.265 (HEVC)

  • Pro Tools Ultimate can now bounce H.265 video to an MOV file using either CBR (Constant Bit Rate) or VBR (Variable Bit Rate) compression settings. H.265 offers a higher quality to bitrate ratio over H.264 and is gaining greater popularity.

• AAC

  • AAC audio can now be included in an MOV file, using either CBR (Constant Bit Rate) or VBR (Variable Bit Rate) compression settings. This makes it easier to export video that contains both compressed audio and video, and is compatible with your favorite video streaming platform.

• Channel widths

  • The Bounce Mix window now lets you include any busses and outputs used in the session, without restrictions on channel widths.

• Import

  • H.265 (HEVC)

    • Pro Tools Ultimate can now import and play MOV files containing H.265 video. H.265 videos can come from a variety of sources, including various NLE’s and even most modern phones.

  • Apple Lossless (ALAC) in MOV

    • It is now possible to import stereo Apple Lossless audio that is contained in an MOV file. Imported audio will be converted to the current session audio file format.

Avid Link Update

Avid Link has been updated, a rewrite means that this application no longer hogs the CPU in the same way as previous versions could.

As well as the associated bug fixes which we are covering in another article Pro Tools 2021.6 is the most significant release for Pro Tools users in years. There is something for everyone here. A leap in performance for HDX users, a doubling of the IO limit which has frustrated many native Pro Tools users and M1 support via Rosetta for Mac users who have had new hardware imposed on them through equipment failure. Having been using the Hybrid Engine with Carbon for some time we can confirm that it is a joy to use. A great release!