Phase 3 of the Pro Tools Expert site in now underway so there will be no more posts here. All future posts will be on the new Pro Tools Expert site. We have created categories there so that if you only want to follow Post related posts then you can, we have a Post specific RSS feed

Wow, what a lot has happened in the few months since Pro Tools 10 and Pro Tools Expert were launched on the same night with that marathon web forum. We announced the plan to create a new Pro Tools Expert site and with Phase 1 we produced a mini site and a Pro Tools Expert Twitter feed.   With phase 2 we produced an aggregated site as a start towards providing a worldwide Pro Tools community with a true ‘one stop shop’ for news, reviews, tricks & tips for the beginner and expert alike, whether for music or post applications.   Now we have phase 3 a fully integrated site that will give you that fully 'one stop' Pro Tools experience where we can concentrate on our respective skills and take out the duplicated effort. 

Avid have finally done it. On the Avid Store there is now a product which enables you to upgrade from DV Toolkit 2 to Complete Production Toolkit for £529 or $799.   Create even larger sessions and get many of the same features of Pro Tools|HD* systems with the Complete Production Toolkit, a powerful expansion option for Pro Tools software. Have the flexibility to work on studio-created sessions anywhere using just your computer or Pro Tools mobile rig. Get the same high Pro Tools|HD track counts, full session compatibility, and support for all track types, including VCA groups. And enhance your production with 7.1 surround mixing, advanced editing and automation tools, and more.

In case you aren't sure what EdiCue does, this is what they say....   EdiCue enables sound editors to create ADR Cues and Department Notes within Pro Tools. It can create PDF scripts in various formats and generate files that trigger audio beeps or vision wipes to assist the recording process. Here is their intro video.... So back to the group buy.... Sounds In Sync is currently offering a Group Buy for its ADR cueing software EdiCue. The more people that purchase while the group buy is available, the cheaper each license becomes. Here’s how it works:

Synchro Arts are beta testing their new product ReVoice Pro which is their new Vocalign tupe product. So what does it do?     ReVoice PRO is a revolutionary new audio processing program for professional audio editors. It supports the efficient use of two unique automated processes: Audio Performance Transfer (APT) Gives an audio signal the selected timing, pitch and/or loudness characterics of a "Guide" audio signal.  APT is powered by and includes an improved version of VocALign. Realistic Doubler Instantly creates natural-sounding double tracks. Link plug-ins are in development that transfer audio between Revoice PRO and audio editing systems. (they are available for Pro Tools in v49 and later of the beta product).

Our AAX plug-in database on the Pro Tools Expert site continues to grow, I have added 3 more entries in the last 24 hours BUT it seems that developers are in no hurry to produce AAX Native plug-ins and even less hurry to produce DSP versions.  Matt from iZotope has said "While I know this is something we'd like to do, I have not been made aware of any timetables for such features in any of our plug-ins."   Eventide when asked on their forum "will the AAX license be only AAX-native or will there be AAX-DSP as well? Would be nice to know while thinking about HD->HDX card upgrade." - Their response was "We can't make any announcements regarding AAX-DSP support at this time. We're looking into it, but I would not purchase it with the expectation that AAX-DSP support is coming soon."   Antares in response to an email question on the subject said "Antares is currently formulating our AAX strategy for the release of AAX plug-ins. Please check our website for coming news about AAX plug-ins. We are sorry to not be able to give you a more concrete answer at the moment."

  The Digital Production Partnership (DPP) – a partnership between ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC – has unveiled its new Technical and Metadata Standards for File-based programme delivery in the UK.   Through the DPP, seven major broadcasters (BBC, ITV, C4, Sky, Channel Five, S4C and UKTV), have all agreed the UK’s first common file format, structure and wrapper to enable TV programme delivery by digital file. These new guidelines will complement the common standards already published by the DPP for tape delivery of HD and SD TV programmes.

Well Gobbler after a very long beta test cycle have finally opened for business and are taking paying customers.   It is really heartening that in these financially hard pressed times a company has taken the time to develop a product with the help of the community before asking people to pay for it. I am using their service and at last have an off site backup service that already understands Pro Tools sessions to a point as well as offering a file delivery service.   I look forward to further developments of the service and if you have any thoughts there is an excellent community forum where you can post your thoughts, feedback and ideas on how to make Gobbler better.    Don't forget you an with a free 5 gig account too

Jean-Charles Deshaies has just released v2.5 of his excellent "ProTools Prefs & Database Helper" free application for Pro Tools 10 which is so much better than the "command line" application from Avid that has no graphical interface.  

The Gobbler Team is launching monthly pricing on Monday morning.  Monthly accounts will start at $8 per month for a 25GB storage/monthly transfer account.  They will continue to have 5GB freemium accounts for new signups. So up until Monday morning, they will be offering our super-sweet reduced annual pricing, which is up to 70% off the monthly subscription price (if you were to purchase through the whole year).  Please reach out to anyone who might be interested in snatching-up this deal.  

My Pro Tools Expert colleague Russ Hughes has done an extended interview with Bobby Lombardi from Avid that you really should watch. It is over 16 minutes long but I wish this video had been around when Pro Tools 10  was launched.   Bobby explains that HD users aren't going to abandoned that they will support the HD platform for another 3 years including bringing out fixes and updates. He also has gone a very long way to restore my confidence in Avid and that they do care about the user and especially the pro user.   If Avid had gone on camera at the Pro Tools 10 launch and explained things as Bobby has done on this video I don't think we would have had half the problems and bitterness that has been banded about.   Also top marks to David Gould for getting the feature that came out from the Pro Tools in house 'hackerthon' so we could easily see where our routing is coming from and going to, a little talked about feature in Pro tools 10

The Loudness Management Batch processor is an application that can analyse, correct and log baches of audio files and audio embedded in video files and correct them to your desired loudness spec. Supporting multiple format audio and video LMB can batch analyse and automatically correct to LKFS/LUFS and true peak criteria with drag and drop interface and 'hot folder' facility.     Integrated loudness correction True-peak limiter Optional script-driven automation Detailed custom configuration LRA Targeting Short-term loudness correction Hot-folder auto fixing Supports multiple standards     System Requirements LMB is available as a stand-alone program for PC and Mac. Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 Pentium 1.4 GHz, 512 MB RAM or Mac OSX 10.4.x, G4 1.4 GHz or Intel® Core™ Duo 1.66 GHz, 512 MB RAM   Supported formats WAV AIF OGG WMA ACC AU FLAC M4A MXF MOV AVI MPEG 3GP MPEG WMV 3GP ASX M4V MKV MP4 Video formats automatically demuxed to wav for processing  

Apple was the only major computer manufacturer to ship more machines in the UK PC market during the final three months of 2011. Figures from Gartner, a market watcher, showed declining sales for the four others in the UK top five. Apple's shipments rose 17.2 per cent from 228,000 units in Q4 2010 to 267,000 in Q4 2011. and note that these figures don't include iPad shipments.  If Apple continues to grow, it is likely to pass 4th placed Toshiba, but it's unlikely to pose much of a threat to Dell, let alone HP.

Only two days left to save $50 on any iZotope product priced over $100. To redeem, use coupon code ZFF2-NU93DAV3 at their online store through February 8th Coupon code valid once per customer. Requires minimum purchase of $100 USD. Offer expires 2/8/2012.

In my post about the 10.0.1 update from Avid for all non HDX users, I asked if the new plug-ins had been included in the upgrade installer and thanks to Ole E. Flaten and Claus it would appear that Avid haven't included the latest plug-ins in the installers.  However good news for non HDX Pro Tools 10 users I have found urls for several of the 10.1 AAX plug-ins....   Classic Compressors Bundle 10.1 Installer 36.9 MB HEAT 10.1 Installer 6.6 MB Impact 10.1 Installer 9 MB Pultec Bundle 10.1 Installer 32.7 MB Reel Tape Saturation 10.1 Installer 14.9 MB Reel Tape Suite 10.1 Installer 36.4 MB Reverb One 10.1 Installer 12.3 MB ReVibe 10.1 Installer 14.4 MB Smack 10.1 Installer 35.6 MB Hope these help.....

This is what they have said in their latest newsletter.  The last sentence is what is important for Pro Tools users...   We are pleased to announce that 64-bit versions of our Mac AU and VST plug-ins are now available: Power Suite 5.60 Master Restoration 5.60 Tube Saturator 1.10 Dialog 1.10 These can be found on our Downloads page, and are a free upgrade for existing customers of these products (i.e. version 5 of any Power Suite and Master Restoration plug-ins, or any version of Tube Saturator or Dialog). This update also fixes AudioSuite compatibility with Pro Tools 10. Thank you, The Wave Arts Team    

Avid have announced an update for Pro Tools 10 for both Mac & windows and for PT10 and PT10HD.  Please see kb432331 for more info. Note that this is NOT for HDX users who should be running 10.1 which is is only for HDX systems. It will be interesting to see if they have included the latest AAX plug-ins that are in the 10.1 installer in this 10.0.1 installer. Please let me know what you find.

  Following on from my research and Russ Hughes' conversations and interviews at NAMM 2012 we have set up  a database on our Pro Tools Expert site which will be crowd sourced information so please follow the link to check on the latest news about your favourite plug-in and whether and when it will be available as an AAX plug-in. I have transferred and updated all the information that was here to the Pro Tools Expert database. Everyone os welcome to contribute users and manufacturers alike.

I have been following a number of threads on both the DUC and Linked In groups and like me there are a good number of HDX early adopters who are not very happy with the lack of AAX plugins especially AAX DSP ones that will run on our shiny new HDX cards.  One of the contributing factors for me deciding to go with HDX now was the sales pitch that there were already 35 plus manufacturers with AAX plugins ready to go or very nearly ready.  We now have a crowd sourced database on our Pro Tools Expert site where you an go and check the status and progress of your favourite plug-in on its journey to AAX.         Now for me going to the HD Native card instead of HDX won't solve it because my biggest problem is the number of TDM only plug-ins that mean I have a raft of sessions I cannot open. The main culprit being SoundToys' Pitch Doctor.  Yes, I can run RTAS versions of the rest which I could on an HD Native system, so that doesn't fix it for me.

Keyboard Editing Shortcuts - Pro Tools lets you edit audio from the keyboard, without even touching the mouse. Here’s how.   Our Mike Thornton writes the Pro Tools Notes, Techniques and Workshop articles for Sound on Sound as well as reviewing many of the new Pro Tools related products. Note that you will need to be a subscriber to view the recent articles or you can choose to Click & Buy individual ones.