Digidesign Pro Tools 8 DAW Software Review
Latest Version of the World's Most Popular Digital Audio Workstation
Jul 14, 2009
Digidesign’s Pro Tools digital audio workstation has been the industry standard professional audio recording and mixing software for years.
With the release of Pro Tools 8, Digidesign has added many new features to help solidify this reputation but this new version makes some significant leaps for the Pro Tools platform in the arenas of music creation and audio production.
What’s new in Digidesign’s Pro Tools 8
Pro Tools 8 is widely regarded as a massive upgrade for Digidesign’s flagship DAW. There are dozens of additions to and improvements over previous versions of Pro Tools. Besides the obviously overhauled graphic user interface, the new features making the most noise (pardon the pun) are the long-awaited addition of full MIDI implementation and the new bundled collection of plug-ins and virtual instruments.
New Pro Tools DAW is Finally a Serious MIDI Sequencer and Editor
Although the ability to edit MIDI was incorporated into Pro Tools in version 5, Pro Pools 8 is the first version upgrade with a massive focus on updating MIDI features. The biggest MIDI news in Pro Tools 8 is that users can now edit MIDI data graphically in its own Edit window. This new MIDI Editor window can also be integrated into the familiar Edit window allowing users to edit MIDI and audio in the same window space.
Digidesign has even pushed the MIDI envelope a bit by including some MIDI features not available in some of the other MIDI-based DAWs. For example, while working with MIDI tracks in this new Edit window, Pro Tools 8 users can now simultaneously view and edit the contents of multiple MIDI tracks.
To top off this Pro Tools MIDI evolution, Digidesign has incorporated professional notation/scoring in Pro Tools 8 via a new Score Editor window powered by Sibelius.
Free Virtual Instruments and Loops included in the New Version of Pro Tools
For the first time ever in a Pro Tools release, a suite of virtual instruments, plug-ins and loops are included free of charge in Pro Tools 8. This addition of free composition tools aligns Pro Tools with the ranks of other major DAWs (such as Logic Pro and Cubase) allowing their users to start creating music right out of the box.
Pro Tools 8 comes bundled with no less than five new virtual instruments including an analog-style drum machine/sequencer, a tonewheel organ emulator with rotating speaker simulation, an acoustic grand piano, a monophonic vacuum tube synthesizer, and a multitimbral synth and sample workstation,
Pro Tools 8 users will also be pleasantly surprised by the 8 GB library of pro-quality audio loops and a host of new effect/utility plug-ins, including the Eleven Free amp emulator.
Other Powerful New Features in the Pro Tools 8 DAW
Aside from the changes to the graphic interface, MIDI implementation and bundled plug-ins, there are several less flashy yet important new features in Pro Tools 8.
- The track count for Pro Tools LE and M-Powered has been boosted significantly to 48 simultaneous tracks.
- Increase in the size limit on single file recordings from 2 GB to 3.4 GB.
- Increase in track inserts from five per channel to ten per channel.
- In Pro Tools 8, any changes to the mix configuration can be made on the fly whereas previous versions required stopping playback to add, remove or re-order tracks.
- Now possible to open a session with all of the plug-ins deactivated allowing users to quickly view elements of a session instead of waiting for all the plug-ins to load.
With the host of new virtual instruments and MIDI features added to version 8, Pro Tools is no longer only a professional application for just recording and editing audio. Pro Tools 8 is a full-featured DAW with the potential to excel at music creation and production, all without losing any of the practicality that has made it the world's favorite DAW software.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
