Following the release of Pro Tools 2021.10, we started to think about what features we would like to see in Pro Tools. In this article, we identify a selection of new features, which we would like to see in a future version of Pro Tools for both music production and audio post-production applications.

Both Music And Post

Apple Silicon Native Support

Even though we have amazing performance in Pro Tools on an unsupported computer running an unsupported OS and Avid has released Apple Silicon Native HDX and HD Native drivers so we can run Pro Tools Ultimate with Avid hardware on an Apple Silicon computer, there are still some plugins that won’t work and although with the 2021.10 release we can play video in Pro Tools, there still isn’t support for playing video via video hardware.

We need full native support for not only Pro Tools but all the plugins and associated tools that we all use.

It’s good to see that PACE, the company behind iLok, has rearranged their plans and have gone all out to get a fully native iLok solution, expected to be delivered to their customers in beta form later this month, with the expectation that their customers could release software with iLok protection early next year, especially if they have already got their software running natively on Apple Silicon computers.

So let’s hope Avid can also get Pro Tools running natively on Apple Silicon as soon as possible, after all, Apple’s 2-year transition to move all their products over to Apple Silicon is due to be completed by June 2021.

ARA 2 Support

ARA, short for Audio Random Access is a very clever exchange technology that enables standalone software to communicate directly to a DAW environment for a seamless end-user experience.

ARA was a development by Celemony, the makers of the popular pitch & time correction software Melodyne. PreSonus was then the first DAW maker to integrate Melodyne tightly into the timeline to offer seamless pitch and time correction using ARA.

Since its release, ARA has been adopted and integrated into other DAWs such as SONAR, Logic Pro X, Cubase, Nuendo and Reaper.

Celemony Melodyne

In 2018 the second generation of ARA (conveniently named ARA 2) was announced, boasting an even quicker and slicker workflow. Check our article… Celemony Announces ARA 2 - Plug-ins And DAWs To Work Even Closer

If Pro Tools was to get the ARA 2 treatment them Melodyne could look a little something like this concept image we have mocked up. Take another look… can you imagine your Pro Tools workflow benefiting from ARA? We can!

Synchro Arts VocAlign Ultra And Revoice Pro

When it comes to post-production, there are already a number of products that support ARA 2 including Revoice Pro and VocaLign Ultra from Synchro Arts. This is an example of VocAlign Ultra working in Studio One via ARA 2…

iZotope RX 9

With the release of RX 9 iZotope has now brought Spectral Editor in Logic Pro X via ARA 2, as we showed in our iZotope RX 9 Tested article. So for now it is just the Spectral Editor and only with Logic Pro X, imagine what else you could do with RX using the ARA 2 workflow. The audio restoration software’s processing could be ready and active, but still editable, on the Pro Tools timeline.

Maybe it could look like this…

Sound Radix Auto-Align Post 2

Another post related product is Auto-Align Post. Sound Radix has recently released Audio-Align Post 2, which as well as introducing a new spectral phase correction module, refined algorithm, and user interface, Auto-Align Post 2 brings ARA2-VST3 support for compatible DAW’s like Nuendo and StudioOne.

This is what it looks like in Nuendo 11…

These are just a handful of examples of software already using ARA 2 in DAWs like Reaper, Studio One, Logic Pro X and Nuendo, so why not Pro Tools? It has been talked about for long enough.

Folders In The Clip List

Back in the days of the Pro Tools Ideascale. Folders in the Clip List was the most popular feature request from users. The Ideascale post said…

“Folders in the Region List - For better region management I would like to see folders in the region list. It would be great if you could assign one or multiple tracks to a folder in the region list and all the recordings and edits of the track(s) end up in the designated folder in the region list. This folder could then also be created in the Audio Files folder for even better file management”.

Note that you can see how old this one is, it still refers to regions. Remember that Regions became Clips with Pro Tools 11!

Unfortunately, there was no mention of folders in the clip list in the 2018 ACA vote so we were especially pleased to see that Avid brought it back in the 2019 ACA Vote.

There have been comments in the Pro Tools Feature Request Lounge in the Avid Link including this one…

“Folders in Clip List - We need folders in Clip List!!!”

Even though Avid has brought Folder Tracks to Pro Tools we are still waiting for Folders in the Clip List and, for example, to have folders for dialogue, FXs, Foley, Music and so on as in the mock-up to the right.

At the moment you can only use prefixes to then be able to use the Clip List alphanumeric search to narrow down what you are looking for.

Another solution could be Media Bins, which are used by Avid in Media Composer. As Avid already has such powerful tools in-house why not bring some of that experience over to Pro Tools? 

A bin is a logical container for media. All the data (i.e the files on the hard disc) are managed by Media Composer but references to those media can reside in any bin or bins (an alias to a clip can exist in as many bins as you like). You can create as many bins as your workflow needs and nesting bins within bins is also possible. You can organise your media in any way you see fit. The search tools are powerful and finding and organising your media is easy.

What we like about this system is that it is logical - in that you are organising references to media rather than the media themselves. While we want folders in the clips list we don’t want it to reflect or affect the organisation of my media on the drive.

Integrated Dolby Atmos workflow Including 7.1.4 Beds

Dolby Atmos continues to grow as a workflow in both music and post-production workflows. We already have a lot of great content on Production Expert, if you want to learn more about Dolby Atmos do check out our dedicated Dolby Atmos page.

With the recent release of Logic Pro 10.7, which brought integrated Dolby Atmos workflows to Logic Pro X, together with Steinberg Nuendo 11 and Davinci Resolve 17, both of which, already have native Dolby Atmos support (by that we mean there is no need to have the separate Dolby Atmos Production Suite or Dolby Atmos Mastering Suite, everything you need is built into Nuendo, Resolve and Logic Pro), unlike Pro Tools, which although first to market with Dolby Atmos support, has been overtaken by Apple, Steinberg and Blackmagic Design, as Pro Tools still needs either DAPS or DAMS to enable you to create Dolby Atmos content in the Avid DAW.

The other limitation in Pro Tools, with Dolby Atmos workflows is that the maximum channel count for a track is 7.1.2. However, both Nuendo 11 and Resolve 17 support 7.1.4 beds into their respective Dolby Atmos renderers, and more channels than that on the busses in their mixers.

Avid, please can we have at least 7.1.4 bed tracks and preferably up to 9.1.6 that can also feed an integrated renderer? This would reduce the number of static objects required and streamline the Dolby Atmos workflow.

4K Monitor Support

Although Pro Tools 2019.10 brought support for 4K video files for the Avid Video Engine, we still do not have official support for 4K monitor screens with Pro Tools. Officially the maximum supported resolution is 1920x1080.

There have been a number of requests in the Pro Tools Feature Request lounge in the Avid Link app. These are just a sample…

“4K Monitors Support - Please add support for 4K Monitors at both 3840 x 2160 and 4096 x 2160 px resolutions.”

“Bigger cursor in MIDI Editor - Cursor in MIDI Editor needs to be bigger/bolder! At least on Retina and 4k displays. I always lose it and can’t see where it is on the screen, it’s frustrating.”

“4k display cursor too small - On my 4k display the cursor is too small (selector tool etc...)  I did a ticket with avid and they said to post here as a feature request.”

They all highlight an issue with monitor screens because as screen resolutions get bigger, it means that elements of the Pro Tools GUI effectively get progressively smaller. For example, if you have a 21” screen that is at 1280x720, the Play button will be bigger on the screen than a 21” screen set at 1920x1080 resolution. Something needs to be done to resolve how the Pro Tools GUI looks on high-resolution screens especially now we have 4K screens as if Avid do nothing that Play button is going to be tiny.

One option is bigger screens, as that will effectively have the impact of fewer pixels per inch, but it isn’t always possible to have large screens as there isn’t space where they are needed.

Experiences using unsupported 4K resolution screens have been mixed with some users reporting no problems and others having to manually adjust the screen resolution away from the screen’s native resolution to get a workable solution.

When it comes to Windows there is a known issue with 4K screens. In an Avid Pro Tools and 4K Resolution Monitors on Windows Knowledge Base article Avid say…

“At the moment, the user interface of Pro Tools is not supported in ultra high-definition monitors (specifically on 4K and above). The highest screen resolution where the user interface is not distorted is in 1920 x 1080. If an ultra-high display resolution is desired, then the display scaling needs to be manually adjusted.”

to the question “why does the Pro Tools user interface appear distorted in a 4K or 5K screen resolution?”

The Knowledge Base article then goes on to explain the current workaround to get rid of the Pro Tools GUI distortion of ultra high-res screens.

Improved Data Interchange Between Sessions (Better Import Session Data Functionality, Multiple Sessions Open At The Same Time With Drag & Drop)

This was first suggested in the Pro Tools Ideascale 10 years ago, with the suggestion that there should be “the ability to open 2 sessions at the same time with only one session being active - the other one inactive (active/inactive switch). You then could compare two sessions and copy/paste instantly regions/region groups etc. without having to import/export whole tracks”.

One of the comments added, “Even just the ability to open the edit window of another session in order to copy/paste out of it into your current one would be very helpful”.

Another suggested tabs “Almost exactly like tabbed browsers like Firefox, Safari, or IE, we should have the ability to open new sessions in a TAB. Would be an awesome convenience to switch quickly from other sessions”. Perhaps like the mockup above?

This then appeared in the 2017 ACA Vote and was listed in the top 10 as ‘New Post workflows offering folder tracks, multiple sessions open at one time’. This is long overdue and is one of the options that has been on the previous 2 ACA surveys in 2017 and 2018.

In 2018, this feature was the 6th most popular feature request on the Pro Tools Ideascale yet to be implemented.

It would be great to be able to drag and drop clips, tracks, plug-ins etc from one Pro Tools session to another by having them both open at the same time. Although the Export Track option is a significant improvement by enabling you to work in the source session, choosing the elements you needed and then exporting them from that session into the destination session, improving the ability to move a wide variety of content from one session to other, especially with drag and drop, would be very welcome.

Support For APFS For Media Drives

Although Avid supports APFS as an approved disk format for boot drives, they still do not support it for media drives.

What Is APFS?

The Apple File System (APFS) is the default file system for Mac computers from macOS 10.13 (High Sierra). It features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing and improved file system fundamentals. While APFS has been optimised for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage. macOS 10.13 or later supports APFS for both bootable and data volumes.

The clever thing about APFS is that it allocates disk space within a container (partition) on demand. When a single APFS container has multiple volumes, the container’s free space is shared and automatically allocated to any of the individual volumes as needed, so no need for fixed-size partitions anymore, each container can grow as required until the whole drive is full. Each volume uses only part of the overall container, so the available space is the total size of the container, minus the size of all the volumes in the container.

You can easily add or delete volumes in APFS containers. Each volume within an APFS container can have its own APFS format — APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case-sensitive) or APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted).

The reality is that the previous Mac hard drive formatting options, like HFS plus, were really designed for older HHDs, whereas APFS has been designed primarily for SSDs. Most of us are now using SSDs for media drives, but currently Avid still does not support APFS for Media drives. That said, we have seen reports of people using APFS on Media drives without incident, but it would be great if Avid could support this officially.

Post Production

Integrated Conforming And Re-conforming

It would be so much easier if Pro Tools had integrated conforming and re-conforming rather than to have to use 3rd party tools to achieve this.

What Is Conforming?

Conforming, sometimes called assembly, is the process of taking edits made by a picture editor hearing a guide audio track, and imposing the same edits onto multitrack source audio files, so that a high-quality version of the same soundtrack can be produced.

You can learn much more about conforming in our article What Is Conforming.

What Is Re-Conforming?

In theory, there is a stage in every production where the video editor confirms that there will be no more changes to the picture EDL (Edit Decision List), so enabling the audio post-production process to proceed in the safe knowledge that nothing is going to be changed or moved.

However, it is virtually unheard of to find that this so-called ‘locked picture’ proves not to be so final after all, with picture editors changing their minds even once the audio post-production gets underway. When this happens, you can find yourself having to redo a lot of work, which is very frustrating.

What is needed is a tool that will compare two video EDLs and produce a set of changes that can be imposed on the Pro Tools session to trim, expand or move sections of the session to match the picture changes, so you don’t lose the work you have done.

You can learn much more about re-conforming in our article What Is Re-conforming as well as the 3rd Party apps that enable you to be able to reconfirm your Pro Tools session when the picture cut changes at the last minute. Also in one of our Expert Panels, we discussed how we use re-conforming to deal with the lack of a ‘picture-lock’.

Currently, in the Pro Tools workflow, the conforming/assembly and reconforming processes all depend on 3rd party software, wouldn’t it be good if Avid could integrate these, especially reconforming into Pro Tools, as you can in Nuendo 11?

It would save so much aggro, where 3rd party tools have to manipulate Pro Tools sessions externally to complete a re-conform. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could do a re-form of our sessions when the picture gets changed?

Integration Of 3rd Party Video Engines

This was one of the suggestions, that came out of the 2019 ACA Vote but wasn’t particularly well defined. Looking back, with the release of Pro Tools 11, Avid brought the video engine from Media Composer, which was supposed to banish video problems from the Pro Tools workflow. Instead, we seem to have some users who are able to run video on their Pro Tools rigs without any issues, whilst others have all kinds of issues.

What does Avid mean by 3rd party video engine? Could it mean, that Avid would allow you to use another manufacturer’s video engine? For example, what if you could replace the Avid Video Engine with the Non-Lethal Applications’ Video Sync 5?

Music Production

MPE Support - Are Pro Tools Users Missing Out On The Future Of MIDI?

In the fourth annual customer vote put out by the Avid Customer Association in December 2020, one of the 8 options in the Pro Tools For Music section was support for the new MIDI 2.0 spec, allowing 2-way and higher resolution communication between devices and support for MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) for advanced MIDI controllers.

There are even a couple of posts on the Pro Tools Ideascale from back in 2015 relating to adding MPE support into Pro Tools, so this issue has been around for a while.

MPE support (seaboard, linnstrument etc) 

“Now that alternative midi controllers are coming of age, it would be great to see support for MPE (multidimensional polyphonic expression). Bitwig's implementation is pretty good, AVID could more or less do the same, and maybe add some sort of snap/quantize to note editing.”

Allow Midi Omni as Midi Output (MPE Roli Linnstrument Compatibility)  

“The reason I am suggesting this feature is primarily to allow much easier integration with new multi-channel (MPE) midi controllers such as the Roli Seaboard Rise and LinnStrument. This feature could also be very useful with multi-channel sequencers, drum machines and electronic drum sets as well.”

More recently, on the Avid Link Pro Tools Feature Request Lounge, there have also been some requests for MPE support, like this one…

“MPE - so we can use controllers like Roli Seaboard. All other daws are using MPE. Pro Tools should include this in the next update.”

What Is MPE Support?

In case you are not aware of MPE Support, it is a relatively new MIDI protocol that has been dubbed Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression or MPE for short and has been co-developed by a consortium of brands including Apple, Bitwig, Moog Music, Roger Linn Design and ROLI amongst others.

MPE is described as a method of using MIDI which enables multidimensional devices like the ROLI Seaboard to control multiple parameters of every note within MPE-compatible software.

In traditional MIDI, channel-wide messages (such as pitch bend or modulation) are applied to all notes being played on a single channel. In MPE, each note or instrument voice is assigned its own MIDI channel so that those messages can be applied to each note individually allowing for ‘never before seen’ levels of expression within purely virtual instruments. The MPE consortium of developers publicly says that...

“We've taken a pragmatic approach where we kept the best of what is already in practical use today and structured it in so that adding support for MPE would be the least possible effort, while providing the most possible benefit.”

Although we don’t think that MPE can still be described or dismissed as ‘bleeding edge’ technology owing to the full support it receives from major DAWs such as Logic X, Mainstage, Bitwig, Reaper, Garageband and Cubase and even selected third-party virtual instruments such as Spectrasonics Omnisphere & Trillian, UVI Falcon, Softube Modular, EastWest Play 5 and many more as you can see from all the icons in the image above, it would be nice if Avid could add MIDi 2.0 and MPE Support to Pro Tools sometime soon.

What About You?

These are some of the suggestions that we would like to see Avid take up and add to Pro Tools, some of which have been on the list for a very long time. But these are our suggestions, what about you? Do you agree with ideas laid out here, or do you have your own ideas, if so, what new features would you like added to Pro Tools?

Please do share your thought in the comments below, all we ask is that your suggestions are positive, constructive feedback and feature requests. All moaning and negativity will be deleted, both here and across our social media channels, as that doesn't help anyone.

But it would be great to hear what you would like added to Pro Tools, especially, as we know that key Avid personnel do read this blog, so you have an opportunity to make suggestions, knowing that Avid are likely to read them.