Avid Pro Tools 2018 Released

[Guy Rowland]

A new numbering system, and a fair few new features. Most significant, perhaps, is Track Presets. What, you say, only now releasing something every other DAW has had for years? Well yes, but I have to say having tried it, that its implementation is second to none. It can store all info including sends, inserts, routings etc. You can then right click a blank send, select new track, choose an effect track preset and lo and behold it appears, all routed correctly. That is ruddy lovely.



Also they fixed a Windows Access Violation Error bug that had been stopping me in my tracks for the last 2 versions. For my money, 2018.1 is the best PT update since PT10.

A full list of new features:

New Features in Pro Tools 2018

Capture Performances Retroactively: Get ideas out of your head, into Pro Tools, and turn them into music. Capture MIDI performances even when you’re not recording.

Take Deeper Control of your MIDI: Looking to improve your MIDI editing workflow? In Pro Tools 2018, you can easily edit MIDI notes with key commands, transpose in-key, and quickly build chords so you can tweak your performance to perfection and develop ideas.

Build Sessions on the Fly with Track Presets: Want to reuse that perfect sound from a different session or project? Save it as a track preset and load it up wherever you need it. Spend less time configuring tracks and remove mundane tasks so you can spend more time being creative, developing ideas, and finishing projects.

Comp Together the Best Takes: Looking to speed up your comping process? Easily and speedily comp together the best takes while saving valuable screen real estate in Waveform view.

Get a Better View of your Mix: Get an at-a-glance view of your mix with new color indicators and Mix Window EQ Curves that display combined EQ effects on each track.

Start Collaborating More Easily: Select File > Start Collaboration, and Pro Tools will automatically save your current session, close it, and reopen it as a project in the cloud, with all tracks converted and ready to be shared.

iLok Cloud With the introduction of Pro Tools 2018, we’re doing more than just improving your workflow with new features, we’re also changing how you work. Pro Tools and all Avid audio plug-ins now support iLok Cloud. That means you now have the option to work iLok-free, and gives you the freedom to work “on the go,” wherever you have internet and Pro Tools. Or, if you prefer, continue using your iLok as before.

http://www.avidblogs.com/introducing-pro-tools-2018/

http://www.avidblogs.com/pro-tools-2018-1-ilok-cloud/

[Killiard]

I almost downloaded it today but thought better of it since I’m mid project.

Slight tangent but I recently got myself a 4K screen which is absolutely brilliant. PT looks great on the Mac but under W10 it falls foul of some issue PT has with scaling on Windows at 4K. I’ll need to check if this update addresses it in any way.

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, I'm aware of the hack but couldn't get too excited about that, it was just a nice-to-have. But the real version is, imo, 100x more useful than the hack. It delights and thrills me that I can right click an aux send and create any track with my effect (or effect chain) set up perfectly, everything routed correctly and inserted into the project. that reduces several clicks to 1. And the significance of that it's so easy, it negates a need to have everything already set up in a template. Just build as you need it, knowing everything is one click away.

Then there's the tags. As I'm using it right now, that's no big deal - if I only have 10-15 presets of favourites, tagging is overkill. But it opens the possibility of having literally your entire arsenal tagged as a track preset - every patch. The tagging tool is what makes that possible. No more scrolling through 1000 channels, add track and find it in a second or two.

BTW, I forgot another important feature of 2018.1, which is iLok cloud, it is now possible to use PT dongle-less (will update the OP). I'm a little dubious of this myself, Avid's track record of cloud-working-perfectly isn't so hot, and internet connection generally can be problematic in many circumstances away from base. EDIT - also all your other iLok plugins that you use in PT will need to also be compatable with iLok cloud, and as of right now none are.

[Guy Rowland]

...yes, track presets should really help there Anders as there's a new option to just import sends or inserts. Just right click a send / insert and there it is. The more I realised what I could do, the more I began to see it as a revolutionary feature.

[Guy Rowland]

Just as an FYI, did some tests yesterday. Created Track Presets for multichannel instances of Omnisphere and Superior Drummer 3, the former with 8 midi tracks / auxes, the latter with 1 midi track and 5 auxes. Both work like a charm. Except - if I have more than one of the same track preset and then try to delete them both, I get a crash. Everything else I've tried with Track Presets has worked flawlessly, but this does look like an early doors glitch.

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, have it all working fine in PT - sometimes. I have 2 issues which might be related. In a large project, opening a K5 instance from quick load causes a PT crash, but fine on a blank instance. Deleting 2 or more multichannel instances from a track preset of any VI also causes a crash. Have a case open about it, passed to their engineering dept.

It was a clean PT install, but could be system related somehow and the 2nd issue goes back several versions for me. But aside from these VI-related issues, 2018.1 going well! Obviously too early for me to think about migrating yet though.

[X-bassist]

Yes, have it all working fine in PT - sometimes. I have 2 issues which might be related. In a large project, opening a K5 instance from quick load causes a PT crash, but fine on a blank instance. Deleting 2 or more multichannel instances from a track preset of any VI also causes a crash. Have a case open about it, passed to their engineering dept.

It was a clean PT install, but could be system related somehow and the 2nd issue goes back several versions for me. But aside from these VI-related issues, 2018.1 going well! Obviously too early for me to think about migrating yet though.

Can you run PT12 and PT2018 on the same machine? Finally updated myself and after a day of upgrading my system and Pro Tools, I’m suprised how both are so similar to PT11.3.1 on Mavericks (now Sierra). A few new features (like 2018) but that’s about it. Really spent the money just to make they system run a bit smoother with VE Pro 6, which it idoes. Now I’m wondering whether I should tryout PT2018 as well especially if they will both work on the same system.

But honestly I also did the upgrade to grab 12.8.3 while they are still giving you easy downloads of that and the newer version. I use to wait until the .1 version, now they seem to start with that , so I may wait a bit more.

[Guy Rowland]

Sorry, missed this yesterday X. I believe that there is a way to run two versions of PT but it involved a bodge which scared me so I've never gone down that road.

You're right that there aren't dramatic differences between 11 and 2018 - I think PT will always look and feel like PT, there won't be any major UI or structural changes. But that said, the experience of working with the two might be drastically different - for the longest time video was near-impossible to work with in 11. I think the best advice on going forward is always keep your old installers - versions which are best for some seem to be unusable for others.

Doing sound work at the moment at a dubbing suite running 2018 on a Mac, all has been very smooth except for one project - turned out it was looking for files on a removable drive which shouldn't have been a problem with caching, but clearly it was.

[X-bassist]

Cool, thanks guy. I’m actually thankful that it’s been consistent, not falling pray to trying to look different just to justify a big upgrade price. Although it would be good if they would add skin customization. After a few days of using 12 the smoothness of slip editing is noticablly improved. And although I never had a problem with video and audio in 11.3.1, once I started adding midi template tracks (usually 50 or 60 at a time) Pro Tools would start having issues, then VE Pro would crash, then PT would follow, then after a restart I would begin again. Happened often enough to make the $266 upgrade seem like a deal.

But the gem is surely the ipad app. mixing and quickkeys, once customizable it will really help workflow.

BTW: Three times today I’ve written a long reply on this site and when I accidentally touch the text screen (on an ipad) it erases a big chunck of what I’ve written. Gone. Weird. Is there an ‘undo’?

[Guy Rowland]

(On the last para - I think I've had that once or twice too, though not for a while. Sadly I don't think so... phpBB is pretty basic when it comes to this, which is both a good and a bad thing at times).