Pro Tools 9 Review

I received my copy of Pro Tools 9 around six weeks ago and have been using it quite regularly and now feel that an accurate review is something I am able to give. So far for me, the experience of PT9 has been a roller-coaster of joy and frustration.

Upon ordering the update, I was thrilled and oozing anticipation for all the wonderful things that Pro Tools 9 could be bringing. I thought surely this would instantly increase my ability as an engineer 10 fold (kidding). When it was delivered however, I waited to install it because I had a session coming up and didn’t want to dive into a whole new version of PT and possibly risk some backwards compatibility issues with the older PT version at the studio. And as it turns out it was a good thing to wait until my schedule wasn’t so pressing to install it because unlike I previously said, Pro Tools 9 is not just an update, but it really is a brand new program. And figuring this out, led into the first dip of the roller-coaster..

The first problem I had was with the interface and Pro Tools seeing each other. Now I know most of you might be thinking, “hey, did you install the new drivers?” and the answer is yes, yes I did. I did not however run something called the Setup Assistant, I still am not sure what that is or what it did, but I do know, that I never had to do it before. The second problem was not really the direct fault of PT9, but it was a problem created by the new PACE iLok requirement that Avid integrated into Pro Tools 9. I do not like the face that Avid was playing the “now, no hardware needed to run!” line as much as they were, when they were actually requiring you to buy ANOTHER, new piece of hardware. Kinda sends the wrong message and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, I was faced with a dilemma of buying another iLok at my local Guitar Center (with a discount) OR wait a week and pay twice as much for the new iLok 2. Ultimately, I decided to save a few bucks and support my friends at GC Concord.

After all the setting up was finished, and I opened a session with 9 for the first time, I browsed around and explored the new features (specifically ADC) and boy oh boy is that a cool thing to see in your Options drop down. Another nice feature is the huge increase in bus count, that is something that was long overdue since the number of inserts was increased from five to ten back in LE8. And the final new feature I tested during my first session was the bounce to MP3 option. It did exactly what it is supposed to… until you try to record (and on a few occasions play anywhere) in the session after the bounce had been completed. The first time I got an error message saying something along the lines of the internal sample rate of the session had been changed. Originally I thought it was just a small bug I stumbled on, because I had intentionally bounced an mp3 with a different sample rate than the audio files in the session that I was using, but I then tried bouncing with the same sample rate and I got the same error behavior (session freezing) with no error message. I have tried to get the error message again but I have not been able to. Anyone else get this error?

I have also found that the out of the box default output of tracks to “Bus 1-2″ to be somewhat annoying, but that is something that can and was changed easily. Something that is not as easily changed is the I/O settings of a session. It is no longer a one click fix to change I/O Settings, while this is nice and does offer a whole much more flexibility and compatibility, I find myself not being happy  by this reduction in convenience.

All in all I believe this is a giant win for Pro Tools and engineers who use Pro Tools. Being able to run a PT session on a laptop (with ADC) monitoring through the 1/8th out headphone jack, with nothing but your iLok plugged in, is a huge break through. Although it has some bugs, like any early version of a piece of software, it will be polished and eventually worth every penny.