Pro Tools


Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation developed and released by Avid Technology for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture and, more generally, sound recording, editing, and mastering processes.
Pro Tools operates both as standalone software and in conjunction with a range of external analog-to-digital converters and PCIe cards with on-board digital signal processors. The DSP is used to provide additional processing power to the host computer for processing real-time effects, such as reverb, equalization, and compression and to obtain lower latency audio performance. Like all digital audio workstation software, Pro Tools can perform the functions of a multitrack tape recorder and a mixing console along with additional features that can only be performed in the digital domain, such as non-linear and non-destructive editing, track compositing with multiple playlists, time compression and expansion, pitch shifting, and faster-than-real-time mixdown.
Audio, MIDI, and video tracks are graphically represented on a timeline. Audio effects, virtual instruments, and hardware emulators—such as microphone preamps or guitar amplifiers—can be added, adjusted, and processed in real-time in a virtual mixer. 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit float audio bit depths at sample rates up to 192 kHz are supported. Pro Tools supports mixed bit depths and audio formats in a session: BWF/WAV and AIFF. It imports and exports MOV video files and ADM BWF files ; it also imports MXF, ACID and REX files and the lossy formats MP3, AAC, M4A, and audio from video files. The legacy SDII format was dropped with Pro Tools 10, although SDII conversion is still possible on macOS.
Pro Tools has incorporated video editing capabilities, so users can import and manipulate 4K and HD video file formats such as DNxHR, DNxHD, ProRes and more, either as MXF files or QuickTime MOV. It features time code, tempo maps, elastic audio, and automation; supports mixing in surround sound, Dolby Atmos and VR sound using Ambisonics.
The Pro Tools TDM mix engine, supported until 2011 with version 10, employed 24-bit fixed-point arithmetic for plug-in processing and 48-bit for mixing. Current HDX hardware systems, HD Native and native systems use 32-bit floating-point resolution for plug-ins and 64-bit floating-point summing. The software and the audio engine were adapted to 64-bit architecture from version 11.
In 2015 with version 12.0, Avid added the subscription license model in addition to perpetual licenses. In 2022, Avid briefly stopped selling Pro Tools perpetual licenses, forcing users to subscription licenses to a subscription model. After considerable customer uproar, in 2023 Avid reintroduced selling perpetual licenses via resellers. Pro Tools subscription plans include Artist, which costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year; Pro Tools Studio, which costs $39.99 per month or $299 per year; and Pro Tools Flex, which costs $99.99 per month or $999 per year. Later in 2022, Avid launched a free version: Pro Tools Intro.
In 2004, Pro Tools was inducted into the TECnology Hall of Fame, an honor given to "products and innovations that have had an enduring impact on the development of audio technology."

History

The beginnings: Digidrums (1983–1985)

Pro Tools was developed by UC Berkeley graduates Evan Brooks, who majored in electrical engineering and computer science, and Peter Gotcher.
In 1983, the two friends, sharing an interest in music and electronic and software engineering, decided to study the memory mapping of the newly released E-mu Drumulator drum machine to create EPROM sound replacement chips. The Drumulator was quite popular at that time, although it was limited to its built-in samples.
They started selling the upgrade chips one year later under their new Digidrums label. Five different upgrade chips were available, offering different alternate drum styles. The chips, easily switchable with the original ones, enjoyed remarkable success between the Drumulator users, selling 60,000 units overall.

Digidesign Sound Designer (1985–1989)

When Apple released its first Macintosh computer in 1984, the pair thought to design a more functional and flexible solution which could take advantage of a graphical interface. In collaboration with E-Mu, they developed a Mac-based visual sample editing system for the Emulator II keyboard, called Sound Designer, released under the Digidesign brand and inspired by the interface of the Fairlight CMI. This system, the first ancestor of Pro Tools, was released in 1985 at the price of US$995.
Brooks and Gotcher rapidly ported Sound Designer to many other sampling keyboards, such as E-mu Emax, Akai S900, Sequential Prophet 2000, Korg DSS-1, and Ensoniq Mirage. Thanks to the universal file specification subsequently developed by Brooks with version 1.5, Sound Designer files could be transferred via MIDI between sampling keyboards of different manufacturers. This universal file specification, along with the printed source code to a 68000 assembly language interrupt-driven MIDI driver, was distributed through Macintosh MIDI interface manufacturer Assimilation, which manufactured the first MIDI interface for the Mac in 1985.
Starting from the same year, a dial-up service provided by Beaverton Digital Systems, called MacMusic, allowed Sound Designer users to download and install the entire Emulator II sound library to other less expensive samplers: sample libraries could be shared across different manufacturers platforms without copyright infringement. MacMusic contributed to Sound Designer's success by leveraging both the universal file format and developing the first online sample file download site globally, many years before the World Wide Web use soared. The service used 2400-baud modems and 100 MB of disk space with Red Ryder host on a 1 MB Macintosh Plus.
With the release of Apple Macintosh II in 1987, which provided card slots, a hard disk, and more capable memory, Brooks and Gotcher saw the possibility to evolve Sound Designer into a featured digital audio workstation. They discussed with E-mu the opportunity of using the Emulator III as a platform for their updated software, but E-mu rejected this offer. Therefore, they decided to design both the software and the hardware autonomously. Motorola, which was working on its 56K series of digital signal processors, invited the two to participate in its development. Brooks designed a circuit board for the processor, then developed the software to make it work with Sound Designer. A beta version of the DSP was ready by December 1988.

Digidesign Sound Tools and Sound Designer II software (1989–1990)

The combination of the hardware and the software was called Sound Tools. Advertised as the "first tapeless studio", it was presented on January 20, 1989, at the NAMM International Music & Sound Expo. The system relied on a NuBus card called Sound Accelerator, equipped with one Motorola 56001 processor. The card provided 16-bit playback and 44.1/48 kHz recording through a two-channel A/D converter, while the DSP handled signal processing, which included a ten-band graphic equalizer, a parametric equalizer, time stretching with pitch preservation, fade-in/fade-out envelopes, and crossfades between two sound files.
Sound Tools was bundled with Sound Designer II software, which was, at this time, a simple mono or stereo audio editor running on Mac SE or Mac II; digital audio acquisition from DAT was also possible. A two-channel digital interface with AES/EBU and S/PDIF connections was made available later in 1989, while the Pro I/O interface came out in 1990 with 18-bit converters.
The file format used by Sound Designer II became eventually a standard for digital audio file exchange until the WAV file format took over a decade later. Since audio streaming and non-destructive editing were performed on hard drives, the software was still limited by their performance; densely edited tracks could cause glitches. However, the rapidly evolving computer technology allowed developments towards a multi-track sequencer.

Deck, Pro Tools, Sound Tools II and Pro Tools II (1990–1994)

The core engine and much of the user interface of the first iteration of Pro Tools was based on Deck. The software, published in 1990, was the first multi-track digital recorder based on a personal computer. It was developed by OSC, a small San Francisco company founded the same year, in conjunction with Digidesign and ran on Digidesign's hardware. Deck could run four audio tracks with automation; MIDI sequencing was possible during playback and record, and one effect combination could be assigned to each audio track.
The first Pro Tools system was launched on June 5, 1991. It was based on an adapted version of Deck along with Digidesign's new editing software, ProEdit, created by Mark Jeffery; Sound Designer II was still supplied for two-channel editing. Pro Tools relied on Digidesign's Audiomedia card, mounting one Motorola 56001 processor with a clock rate of 22.58 MHz and offering two analog and two digital channels of I/O, and on the Sound Accelerator card. External synchronization with audio and video tape machines was possible with SMPTE timecode and the Video Slave drivers. The complete system was selling for US$6,000.
Sound Tools II was launched in 1992 with a new DSP card. Two interfaces were also released: Pro Master 20, providing 20-bit A/D conversion, and Audiomedia II, with improved digital converters and one Motorola 56001 processor running at 33.86 MHz.
In 1993, Josh Rosen, Mats Myrberg and John Dalton, the OSC's engineers who developed Deck, split from Digidesign to focus on releasing lower-cost multi-track software that would run on computers with no additional hardware. This software was known as Session and Session 8 and was selling for US$399.
Peter Gotcher felt that the software needed a significant rewrite. Pro Tools II, the first software release fully developed by Digidesign, followed in the same year and addressed its predecessor's weaknesses. The editor and the mixer were merged into a single Pro Tools application that utilized the Digidesign Audio Engine created by Peter Richert. DAE was also provided as a separate application to favor hardware support from third-party developers, enabling the use of Pro Tools hardware and plug-ins on other DAWs.
Selling more than 8,000 systems worldwide, Pro Tools II became the best-selling digital audio workstation.