Pro Tools 2021.6 M1 support and 2048 tracks in Ultimate

[Guy Rowland]

A significant update to Pro Tools in 2021.6. While all full-featured versions of others DAWs have unlimited tracks, Pro Tools has always been limited. It still is, but those limits have increased - 256 tracks in regular Pro Tools (up from 128), 2048 in Ultimate (up from 384). I/O increases from 32 to 64. There is also M1 support, and a few other changes.

Details here - https://www.avid.com/resource-center/wh ... -pro-tools

EDIT - a lot of problems reported on the DUC with the video engine in particular. And M1 doesn't support video at all. I'll likely wait for the dust to settle.

[Geoff Grace]

Yeah, it looks promising once the bugs have been worked out. Thanks, Guy!

Best,

Geoff

[IFM]

A significant update to Pro Tools in 2021.6. While all full-featured versions of others DAWs have unlimited tracks, Pro Tools has always been limited. It still is, but those limits have increased - 256 tracks in regular Pro Tools (up from 128), 2048 in Ultimate (up from 384). .

The bigger point there is in regular PT those track counts are now at all sample rates instead of only 44.1 for maximum track voices.

[Guy Rowland]

I'm not mid-series of anything and the reports for Windows looked good, so I've made the jump. I was keen to test the new feature that dragging an insert from a mono to a stereo track automatically now loads the correct version of the plugin. This is what I posted on the DUC:

Everything working fine here seemingly, including video. The dragging an insert from a stereo to a mono track (or vice versa) is great - it does indeed load the other version of the plug in.

At least usually - I have found some fails, and also some punch-the-air joys. Loading an Ozone 9 EQ on a mono track drags perfectly to a stereo one, loading the stereo version. Dragging it back again to mono also works. Great. However, curiously loading a stereo version on a stereo track FIRST will then not drag to a mono track, producing an error that "there is not a matching version at this track width". Oh.

This isn't the case with a Waves Q plugin - that can happily drag from a stereo to a mono track. But this is the fun bit. If I set L and R separately on the stereo track and drag to mono, it inherits the L only settings (which is fair enough). Voodoo-like though, if I then drag it back to stereo, it remembers the original L and R settings. But it gets better - I can then drag it back to mono, change something, drag it back to stereo and the change proportionately affects the L & R correctly. No idea how it does it, but perfect from a user perspective.

One continuing gripe though - the installer. It's always been painfully slow and painfully grumpy, and it still is. Even unzipping it takes about 10-15 mins on a fast W10 system. Just for fun, I tried simply running it without uninstalling the previous version first, restarted and was rewarded with a Procedure Entry Point error instantly on attempting to launch. I uninstalled, restarted, reinstalled, restarted and all was well. Now, I know the advice - always uninstall first, but why? In 2021, is it really not possible to build an installer that checks for a previous version and uninstalls it if it finds one?

[Guy Rowland]

BTW - just noticed that in Ultimate the number of midi tracks is still capped at 1024, when audio is double. This is indefensibly stupid. Instrument tracks at 512. Stops it even being a contender for serious media composition with VIs.

[lofi]

BTW - just noticed that in Ultimate the number of midi tracks is still capped at 1024, when audio is double. This is indefensibly stupid. Instrument tracks at 512. Stops it even being a contender for serious media composition with VIs.

Works fine here.
Have never needed more than 1024 midi tracks.
I think I use roughly 200 active tracks for most media compositions, that's included audio and aux tracks.
Remember you can still have a billion inactive tracks in protools and activate when needed.


I'm still on intel, Mac mini, running HDX and Graphics in one of those Thunderbolt to PCI thingies.
Just delivered a music mix with lots of plugins, automation and a few post-prod episodes with video without a single hiccup.
Always have a backup system when upgrading mid projects, but the last few protools updates have been flawless.

Hava a M1 system and will test it this summer.
With everything in external chassises changing "brain" is fast and easy.
"One cable to rule them all"

Best,
Anders

[Guy Rowland]

Anders - that's true about inactive tracks. But why have the limit? It's another keypress every time you want to use it.

I'm talking about large VI template users here obviously - mine in Cubase is around 1,300 tracks I think and I know I'm a lightweight compared to many. PT has never been in that market, and one of the reasons why is the track count issue. A 1024 limit just seems pointlessly arbitrary to me.

[lofi]

Anders - that's true about inactive tracks. But why have the limit? It's another keypress every time you want to use it.

I'm talking about large VI template users here obviously - mine in Cubase is around 1,300 tracks I think and I know I'm a lightweight compared to many. PT has never been in that market, and one of the reasons why is the track count issue. A 1024 limit just seems pointlessly arbitrary to me.

Fair enough, I just don’t understand the +1000 active tracks per que. Not arguing that some use that, just don’t understand why
Apple script and stream deck (or Eucon) equals no more key presses for activate/deactivate or committing tracks.

/Anders

[Guy Rowland]

Just a status update - 2021.6 has been rock solid for me in Windows 10. Looks like almost all the reported issues (and there are many) are with M1 and Big Sur. If you're not on one of these, pretty safe to update I'd say, but if you are then avoid.

[srkrishnan]

Does protools have negative sample delay for midi tracks as in Cubase?

[Guy Rowland]

Does protools have negative sample delay for midi tracks as in Cubase?

Yes it does. You need to show Track Delay Compensation in the mixer, then you can manually change the User Offset value which is set in samples.

[lofi]

2022.4

42CF78D1-FF1D-4CE7-8A00-FD1F4CA6269A.jpeg

Finally!
Let’s see how they’ve implemented it.

/Anders

[Guy Rowland]

Amazing!

Their website is down at the moment. Looks like more increases on track counts and I/Os - 256 now for Ultimate, which might be significant for some people. Also new subscription tiers. I'll post a new thread when everything is back up (unless someone gets there before me).