Pro Tools 8 In Review

The Look

After spending a couple of days with Pro Tools 8, I have to say I am extremely impressed, and enthusiastic about staying in its new environment for all my audio needs. Digidesign started by refining their overall look, and toning down the brightness of the whole program. Instead of a bland white/grey background, the new look sports different shades of grey, with hints of black. I assume the new color scheme serves two purposes: it is much easier on the eyes, and less taxing on the computer's resources. The buttons and faders have been styled to suit the new look, and the pans have been completely redesigned to look like authentic pan pots.

The Plugs

This version of Pro Tools comes stocked with A.I.R effects and instrument plug ins. The numerous effects include: three types of reverb (Spring, Basic, & Non-Linear), two delays, a multitude of modulation effects that deal with phasing, flanging and filtering, as well as a talkbox, a bit reducer, and the list goes on. The plug ins GUI's have been suited to the new Pro Tools 8 look, and consist mainly of analog style buttons, and knobs giving them more character and personality.

Along with the 20 effects, Digidesign has also included 6 instruments as part of the Pro Tools 8 package. Xpand!2 and Structure Free need no introduction, and out of the remaining four only one is really worth spending time with. Aside from Vacuum, which will be covered below, the remaining three instruments include:

Boom - a very basic drum machine with control over level, pan, decay, & tune
DB33 - a tone-wheel organ that could sound thicker
Mini Grand - an acoustic piano which could sound more authentic

As Digidesign releases updates for Pro Tools, these plug ins will definitely sound better, and one should keep in mind these plug ins are probably meant as a springboard to get your ideas down, and for that reason they suit their purpose very well.

The final instrument, Vacuum, is a a Vintage Tube Synth. Containing 2 VCO's, HPF with saturation, LPF with saturation, VCA, 2 ENV's, LFO, 2 slot MOD Matrix, Basic ARP, and a module that allows you to add a certain amount of drift to the VCO's, as well as a final parameter labelled DUST, which I can't really tell what effect it has over the sound when turned up. Vacuum is capable of reproducing smooth as well as screaming leads, a thick bass with all the right harmonics, and luscious pads. Being that the ARP is very basic (Up, Down, Rnd, U&D), a little tweaking of the synth's envelopes and mod matrix, along with the ARP, will allow for more interesting textures.

The Mix & Edit

The Edit window features a number of new additions, besides the sleek new look of course. For instance the individual components of the tool bar can now be arranged to suit your preferences, by simply command-click (Mac), control-click (Windows), on the component, you are able to drag it into the area of your choosing. Elastic audio, with improved algorithms, now allows you to alter pitch as well as time, Strip Silence is down to -96db, and several indicators have been added to the tool bar that allow control over midi note duration, note velocity, and whether the note being edited is played or not. Another great feature is being able to open as many automation lanes for the track you are working on. Further, an additional collapsable midi editor is located at the bottom of the window for more precise editing. This window allows the user to select which midi tracks they want to view in the window, thus enabling more than one midi region to appear on the same piano roll. Midi notes also vary in shade depending on the note's velocity. Finally, Pro Tools 8 expands the number of inserts you are allowed to open on any individual track from 5 to 10.

Audio regions now allow you to view the waveforms in either peak, power, or rectified view. Peak view shows the positive and negative renderings around the zero crossing line, while power is the RMS calculation of the audio waveform, a useful diagnostic tool for mastering. Rectified on the other hand collapses the waveform so that the negative and positive values are summed. Editing waveforms has also been simplified by allowing the user to select the Grid mode alongside any of the remaining three modes. Doing so allows you to move regions around the session while being constrained by Grid mode, however when editing a region is only affected by the other selected mode (this saves having to switch back and forth between modes). Finally, for all those instances where one might end up losing their edit selection (this happens to me at least once a session), a new key command "Restore Last Selection" has been implemented to remedy such an issue.

Overall

Though a number of new features have been covered already, there are a few more that should be mentioned before drawing this review to a close. LE and M-Powered users can now enjoy an increased track count of 48 up from 24, as well as better distribution of your PC's resources to handle the increased track count and plug in processing. This became evident with the first session I worked on in Pro Tools 8; with 27 stereo tracks, about 10 plug ins, at a 512 buffer size, my CPU was peaking at around 30%, compared to a peak of nearly 50% while running Pro Tools 7.4. Those that work with external synths and drum machines can now enjoy individually offsetting the beat clock going to the separate midi outs. Sessions can now support file sizes upto 4 GB, as well mixed file formats without having to convert them.

All in all it seems that Digidesign geared Pro Tools 8 to corner more of the producer market, while maintaining the industry standard of professionalism that audio engineers, on all levels, can appreciate. As a matter of fact during my second mix session, in version 8, for a producer that works strictly in Ableton Live, he seemed to take a liking to the new look and it's ease of use. By the end of our session it was made very clear that though he was always intimidated by Pro Tools in the past, Pro Tools 8 M-Powered would be the next addition to his workstation.