Avid Pro Tools 10

For many musicians, recording engineers, and producers alike?at Abbey Road Studios and Skywalker Sound, right on down to the smallest bedroom studios?Pro Tools feels like home. Avid Pro Tools 10 ($699), the latest version, includes numerous enhancements. Collectively, they're significant, even if they don't approach the scale of Pro Tools 9 in terms of improvements. Pro Tools 9 was a huge leap forward in its ability to work with any audio hardware, not just Avid or M-Audio-branded, for the first time. While Pro Tools remains expensive, it's definitely a case where you get what you pay for, particularly when it comes to audio recording and mixing workflow. As a result, Pro Tools 10 is our Editors' Choice for PC-based recording software; while it's equally awesome on the Mac side, Apple Logic Pro 9 ($199.99, 4.5 stars) slightly edges it out there thanks to its extremely low price.

System Requirements and Packages
For this review, I tested Pro Tools 10.2 on two machines: a custom-built Core i7 PC with 16GB RAM, 2.7TB of hard disk space (including a 240GB SSD system drive), and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium SP1; and an 8-core Mac Pro with 6GB RAM, 2TB of internal storage, and Mac OS X 10.7.4 (Lion). For audio interfaces, I tested Pro Tools 10 with an Avid Mbox Mini ($299.99, 3.5 stars) and an M-Audio Fast Track ($149.99, 4 stars). Avid optimizes Pro Tools to work seamlessly with the company's hardware, including HD and its new third-generation lineup of Mbox systems, all at extremely low latencies. That bore out in testing: All configurations ran Pro Tools 10 flawlessly, and I never saw it crash once, even during heavy use of massive third-party plug-ins like EastWest's PLAY engine.

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With Pro Tools 10, you can play back up to 96 simultaneous stereo tracks at 48kHz, 48 tracks at 96kHz, or 24 tracks at 192kHz, with up to 32 tracks of simultaneous recording. Professional-level customers will want to look at Pro Tools HD 10, which can be used either natively or with new HDX hardware ($9,999 and up, depending on configuration) in addition to Avid's long-running HD and HD Accel lineup (which Digidesign introduced back before Avid bought the company). Pro Tools HD 10, which comes with the company's high-end hardware interfaces, bumps the track count to 256/128/64 (for 48/96/192kHz), or 768/384/192 when paired with new HDX hardware, as well as the simultaneous virtual instrument count to 128. Avid's Complete Production Toolkit ($1,999) adds support for 64 video tracks and 7.1-channel surround, plus many workflow improvements geared toward video, post-production, and otherwise ultra-large project files.

Existing Pro Tools users can upgrade to version 10, but at a high cost. The least expensive upgrade is from the full version of Pro Tools 9, and even that costs $299, which will likely give many current users pause. Crossgrades from less expensive LE and Express versions cost $399. Existing Pro Tools HD users can upgrade to 10 for a staggering $999 to $2,499, depending on the prior version, although at least that includes the Complete Production Toolkit.

The good news is that so much of Pro Tools 10 is now available without Avid's high-end HD and new HDX interfaces; you can run just about any feature natively now. In an interview with PCMag, Avid media programs manager Mark Williams emphasized the importance of this, even as the company still recognizes and supports the need for high-end hardware. For example, Williams said engineers working on James Cameron's Avatar were pushing 500 tracks, all fully loaded with plug-ins. That's still well beyond what any multi-core PC could handle even today.

Unfortunately, all versions of Pro Tools 10 require an iLok key, which is a USB copy protection dongle. That's not a problem if you're using a desktop machine, and at least iLok is a fairly widely used standard. But it's still an annoyance if you're using a laptop, particularly one with just one or two USB ports, such as with most Ultrabooks and the MacBook Air. Another downside: While you can buy SONAR X1 and Logic Pro as online downloads, Pro Tools 10 requires a retail store or mail-order purchase, though at least you don't need an optical drive the way you do with Steinberg Cubase 6.5 ($499, 4 stars).

New Features, Audio, and MIDI
So what's new in Pro Tools 10? Most of it isn't visible up front, but taken together, the upgrades address a number of long-standing issues. A big one is Clip Gain, which lets you adjust clip volumes on the fly using a pop-up volume slider, without having to install Gain plug-is or manually add automation data everywhere. (Clips are what Avid used to call Regions.) Another one of our favorites is Avid Channel Strip, a new AAX plug-in that mimics Avid's ultra-high-end System 5 console's EQ, dynamics, filter, and gain effects. While it's not automatically built into every channel the way ProChannel is with SONAR X1, you can always add it. Channel Strip sounds excellent and is almost infinitely flexible.

Other upgrades: You can also record and master audio in 32-bit floating-point format, and record in a new ultra-low latency mode with direct monitoring for third-party interfaces. Plus, a new disk engine improves responsiveness on slower hard drives. It loads audio files from each project into RAM, which greatly speeds up response times. You can assign the cache up to the maximum memory in your machine, minus 3GB on Macs and 4GB on PCs. Avid also claims to have improved the responsiveness of fade-heavy sessions, and you can create long-format projects via a new 24-hour timeline. Interestingly, the disk caching system is 64-bit underneath the surface, but Pro Tools itself remains a 32-bit app, which poses a problem when loading up large sampled instruments. All of the other major sequencers are now 64-bit; this is something Avid should rectify sooner rather than later.

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