Burlington, MA (December 13, 2023)—Following a public preview throughout October’s Audio Engineering Society Convention, Avid has added a new integrated Dolby Atmos renderer to Pro Tools. The new immersive mixing tool debuts with the newly launched 2023.12 Pro Tools Studio and Ultimate software update. The release also brings new features to Pro Tools Sketch, adds new Markers functionality, I/O Setup and Routing color coding, Same as Source bounce support for H.264 video, and support for Native Instruments S-Series controllers.
The new integrated Dolby Atmos renderer is intended to improve immersive mixing workflows by simplifying setup, mixing, and monitoring. Users can now render and monitor Dolby Atmos mixes within Pro Tools without having to roundtrip to an external renderer. A new window provides visualization of Atmos mixes from various perspectives and enables switching between multi-speaker and binaural headphone monitoring. Additionally, a new I/O Setup tab speeds the configuration of beds, objects, groups, trim, and downmix settings and saves them as part of the session.
Early adopters of Sketch (which Mix reviewed yesterday) will find a number of changes and additions to the fledgling software. Users can now drag and drop instrument clips as audio or MIDI into the timeline from Sketch. Conversely, when dragging audio clips from Pro Tools into the Sketch window, they have the option to render the full signal chain (including plug-in processing, Elastic Audio, clip effects, and so on) to maintain their processed sound. Finally, improvements to the desktop Media Browser make it easier to access loops and samples, including monthly Pro Tools Sonic Drop sound content.
Meanwhile, Track Markers—which lets one leave detailed, color-coded comments within a track—has also been updated with more marker rulers for better visibility, allowing for each ruler to have a specific purpose with more space for text to be displayed. Markers are also said to be easier to find in the Memory Location window through improved sorting and filtering options.
The 2023.12 software update also introduces I/O Setup and Routing color coding that enables users to identify where any track is bussed or routed at a glance. The release also offers Same as Source bounce of H.264 video files, allowing the picture to pass through untouched without needing to re-encode the frames or change the original video’s timestamp. Finally, Pro Tools has been updated to support the new Native Instruments Kontrol S-Series MK3 controllers.
