Updated - This feature has become available with the release of Pro Tools 2022.9 on 28th Sept.

Avid are announcing the addition of what is probably the most requested feature in Pro Tools of them all - ARA support. Having seen the implementation we have to say it looks like the wait was worth it.

What Is ARA?

ARA stands for Audio Random Access and is a data exchange extension for digital audio workstations. It was jointly developed in 2011 by Celemony, the makers of Melodyne, and PreSonus, the makers of Studio One. That first iteration of ARA has since been superseded by ARA 2 in 2018 and it is ARA 2 which powers the integration between Pro Tools and Melodyne. To find out more about ARA check out our article 5 Technologies which disrupted the Audio Industry in which we discuss ARA.

ARA allows analysis and processing of audio which isn’t possible with conventional real time plugins and in particular allows the manipulation of the pitch and timing of performances without the need for laborious transfers of audio out to third party software and back again, a process commonly referred to as ‘round tripping’.

The integration which has been announced is between Pro Tools and Melodyne, other ARA software is not compatible with Pro Tools at this stage. This Melodyne integration will be coming to the next version of Pro Tools. Having seen it in use we can confirm it is deep, elegant and flexible and includes some clever tweaks to the Pro Tools UI which hint towards further developments building on the work which has been done with Melodyne. It’s going to make tuning vocals, tweaking timing and creating harmonies from within Pro Tools fast and easy. We can’t wait to try it out!

What Is Different About ARA Integration?

Instead of having to transfer your audio from Pro Tools to Melodyne and back again, pitch and timing correction can be performed within Pro Tools using a workflow which, while new, feels very familiar. Melodyne processing can be applied to entire tracks or on a clip by clip basis, in much the same way as Real Time MIDI Properties can be applied. This track or clip based workflow is a feature found in Melodyne where it is called Track Mode and Clip Mode. To find out more about it in Melodyne read this excellent support article on working with ARA on the Celemony website. After analysis by Melodyne. Melodyne note data is displayed overlaid with the waveform in the Pro Tools clip and a small icon in analysed clips denote their analysed status.

New Tabbed Editors

To edit in Melodyne from within Pro Tools a new Tabbed Editors area has been created at the bottom of the Edit Page which can be toggled using the shortcut Option+8 (Alt+8 on a PC). Previously occupied by the Docked MIDI editor, this area now has three tabs for the MIDI Editor, Melodyne Editor and the Clip Effects Editor has now been moved from the previous position it shared with the Universe view at the top of the Edit Page down to this new position at the bottom. This tabbed system has room for further expansion and if and when further ARA integrations are implemented this would be their home.

To access Melodyne editing in Pro Tools for a whole track there is a new addition to the Elastic Audio menu in the track header, Melodyne editing and elastic audio cannot be used on the same track. Editing individual clips in Melodyne is accessed from the right-click contextual menu or from the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+A (Start+Shift+A on a PC). 

To access these features you do of course need a copy of Melodyne. Pro Tools subscribers and perpetual licence holders with an active support plan have access to Melodyne Essential, which can perform tuning and timing correction of monophonic sources. If you have another of the Melodyne family of products which offers greater functionality than Essential, Pro Tools will integrate with that via ARA so for example you can edit and correct polyphonic content if you have a Celemony product which supports that. Also as a part of the work Celemony have done with Avid they have added support for wider than stereo track widths up to 7.1.2.

Melodyne ARA In Pro Tools In Use

In use the ARA integration is very thorough and thought through. If you save and close a session with uncommitted Melodyne edits in place they will be recalled with the session. Melodyne settings can be saved as track presets and imported via Import Session Data. It should be noted though that Melodyne doesn’t like sample rate conversion so if you have sample rate differences between sessions you’ll have to work around that.

The analysis of audio in ARA is reminiscent of Elastic Audio and indeed Melodyne can be used as an alternative method of timing correction but the powerful pitch correction of Melodyne offers essential production workflows which are fast and tightly integrated. Beyond the speed, one of the most convenient features of the Melodyne integration is the way zooming and selections are linked between the Edit Window and the Melodyne Editor, if you make a Edit Selection in the edit window, the same range is displayed in the Melodyne Editor, the same goes for zooming and transport is linked between the two applications. This can be disabled if you prefer but much like linking Edit and Timeline Selections, I’d expect most people would choose to leave them linked.

Menu items are available to bypass, clear or commit Melodyne processing and if you turn Melodyne processing off on a track you’ll be prompted with a warning and offered the choice to commit the changes. In short it’s a robust system which protects the user from inadvertently losing work. The way this ARA implementation works means that if you don’t want to have Melodyne analysing or processing your tracks any more than you have to, you can use the Clip by Clip processing to apply Melodyne processing only to specific sections or, if you want to, you can process entire tracks. It’s up to you. Most of all it is fast, meaning that having to break your flow to round trip audio out to Melodyne and back again can become a thing of the past.

Melodyne ARA implementation in Pro Tools is expected in the next Pro Tools release and will be available to all subscribers and perpetual Licence holders with active support and update plans.