Pro Tools Intro - Expert Review
A free version of Pro Tools? It’s not a new idea, in the early 2000s Digidesign launched a copy of Pro Tools, called Pro Tools Free. This was a trimmed down version of Pro Tools 5 LE that let you record up to 8 audio tracks, 48 MIDI tracks, up to 5 inserts and 5 sends per track and 16 busses to route to. It worked with 16-bit or 24-bit sessions of audio, had RTAS support and worked with any interface, not just Digidesign interfaces.
There wasn’t a Pro Tools demo of the full version because you could download Pro Tools Free and install it on your Mac OS 9 or Windows 98 computer. Pro Tools Free was discontinued in 2003 when Pro Tools moved to Mac OS X and Windows XP. It was very popular, in fact many members of the Expert team started out using Pro Tools Free before investing in paid for Pro Tools versions.
Several years later Pro Tools Free was discountinued and in 2015 a new version was announced, Pro Tools First. We were never enamoured by Pro Tools First, you can read our review of it here. Here’s some of the conclusion of our Pro Tools First review.
“So in conclusion Pro Tools First had the potential to get a whole new generation of users on Pro Tools and start a recording journey with Avid, but these restrictions, especially the session interchange one make that far less likely. Even if this appears as a cloud feature then it's still not going to attract anywhere near as many to using it as it could have simply by sharing the files. One can't help feel that the Avid Everywhere vision has become a restricting dogma that has in turn, crippled Pro Tools First.
It is a free version of Pro Tools that I feel sure many people will use in some way or other, but sadly (and I really mean that) the likelihood of Pro Tools First converting people to Pro Tools in the kind of numbers Avid needs has been scuppered. Avid should have taken a leaf out of PreSonus' book when it comes to session interchange and then Pro Tools First could have been seen on nearly every music making computer on the planet.”
Enter Pro Tools Intro
About a year ago Avid ended Pro Tools First, leaving a hiatus as to how they would replace it. Now we have a new free version of Pro Tools, namely Pro Tools Intro.
There’s not a lot to say about Pro Tools Intro and for one reason, it’s a cut down version of Pro Tools without any of the annoying restrictions that made Pro Tools First such a bad idea. So in fact, it is now Pro Tools, just with less tracks and missing some of the features, such as surround, required in high end recording and mixing.
Pro Tools Intro Features
Stereo Only
8 Mono or Stereo Audio Tracks
8 Instrument Tracks
8 MIDI Tracks
4 Aux Tracks or Routing Folders
No VCAs
1 Master Fader
4 Simultaneous Recording Inputs
2000 Basic Folders
Clip FX - Playback Only
Third Party Hardware Support (Core Audio, ASIO, WASAPI)
ARA2 Support for Melodyne, but no bundled version of Melodyne. If you have a copy it will integrate
Bundle of 35 Core effect plugins
Xpand! 2 virtual instrument Plugin
Highlights
With Pro Tools Intro you can send a session to someone using another version of Pro Tools and it will work without any issues. No need for cloud, no stuck using restricted plugins, you can use ANY AAX plugin. Support for ARA is included, so if you have a copy of Melodyne (and we expect other ARA plugins support will come) on your machine, then it will work.
Pro Tools Intro ships with the highly versatile and often underatted Xpand! rompler, which has a great selection of sounds and plenty of tweakable parameters to give you a decent palette when composing.
Pro Tools Intro also supports Core Audio, ASIO and WASAPI, so that’s a huge range of audio interfaces covered, or no interface at all if you just need to do some basic recording and mixing on a laptop.
Pro Tools Intro also ships with 35 plugins, more than enough to help get a mix into shape.
Who Is Pro Tools Intro For?
Now here’s the interesting thing about Pro Tools Intro, given that it has no restrictions for plugin usage and sports many of the features found in Pro Tools, as long as you are working in stereo and don’t need high track counts, then Pro Tools Intro is for you. We came up with quite a list;
Songwriters
Voiceover artists
Video editors working on short form or commercial work.
Mastering engineers
Podcasters
Home musicians making demos
Talking book creators
Radio editors
Recording seminars and live spoken word events
Recording small live bands
Schools and colleges
In fact, even if you are sent over a stereo pair of a track you need to record a part for, then Pro Tools Intro may just fit the bill.
In short, Pro Tools Intro is all the things that Pro Tools First should have been some seven years ago. It’s a free version of Pro Tools with some restrictions, our advice is go grab it.
Expert Panel - Hit or Miss?
In every Expert review we ask three of our team of contributors to give their first impressions of the product. We ask them to give the product a hit or miss, based on factors such as originality, innovation, usefulness, quality and value for money. For each hit the products gets an Expert Award. One hit and it gets our bronze award, two hits gets silver and for a hit from all three of the panel it gets a coveted gold award. Of course if there’s three misses, there’s no award.
Russ Hughes On Pro Tools Intro
Pro Tools Intro is a no-brainer install for anyone needing a copy of Pro Tools on their machine. It brings the industry standard DAW to the masses without any of the silly stuff that made Pro Tools First such a miss. I’ll be installing a copy on my machine and recommending everyone else does too. Who knows, for a lot of the work I do, then Pro Tools Intro is all that I’ll need. HIT
Julian Rodgers On Pro Tools Intro
I'm not going to say much which hasn't already been said in summing up my thoughts on Pro Tools Intro. It was a much needed part of the lineup, Pro Tools First wasn't the product which was needed and a return to something which takes what was so good about Pro Tools Free and brings it into the 21st century is great.
It's the free version which was missing. As long as it’s licensed on the machine you’re using it’s the version you get access to if you don't have a valid licence for your higher tier version, so if you are on your laptop and away from the studio (and the iLok) you’’ll still be able to access a version of Pro Tools. In a past life as a Music Tech lecturer who designed and ran courses this free version was the product I was screaming out for to encourage students who didn't yet have a DAW of choice to choose Pro Tools. Few of them chose Pro Tools simply because other DAWs were easier to access. Hopefully Intro will change this. HIT
Mike Thornton On Pro Tools Intro
This is what Avid should have done instead of going down the Pro Tools First route in 2015 and shows to be that Avid is in much better hands now than it was when it released Pro Tools First.
Pro Tools Intro reminds me of the free version of Pro Tools that Digidesign released on a CD back in back in 1997. That version had a similar track count spec to Pro Tools Intro, and whilst it was available enabled a lot of independent radio production companies to be able to make excellent radio programmes for the BBC using that free version of Pro Tools.
Where they have improved the free offering with Pro Tools Intro is the clever idea that every version of Pro Tools will default to Pro Tools Intro if its licence expires or isn’t available, meaning that, for example, subscription customers who allow, intentionally or unintentionally, their subscription to lapse, would still be able to access a basic version of Pro Tools.
Unlike some free DAW offerings, Pro Tools Intro supports 3rd party plugins and also comes with a great bundle of 35 stock plugins, which will be enough to get most users going. I am especially pleased that they have left in the new ARA support, albeit understandably, without bundling a version of Melodyne.
This is a big hit for me. Well done, Avid. HIT
Three hits means that Pro Tools Intro gets our Expert Gold Award