Recording - June 2016 - 19

You can have up to three projects at a time in the cloud for free, using up to 500
MB of space (Pro Tools | First relies on this). There are upgrade options to increase
storage and project count, but these limits only reflect projects that you own; collaborating on other projects will never count against your project count or storage space.
Upgrade plans include five Projects with 20 GB total storage for $9.99/month, and
ten projects with 60 GB total storage for $24.99/month.
Once you start a project and have some tracks you want to upload for collaboration, you can press the cloud icon on the desired tracks. For a collaborator to see
the tracks, you must invite them for sharing through the chat window. Offline commit
and freeze features become vital when collaborating online, allowing processing to
translate from user to user without losing plug-in data.
In my experience, it is easier to freeze and upload stems from the desired project,
rather than uploading and sharing every individual track. That way collaborators
can play back the frozen stems while creating new tracks to add a guitar, bass, or
vocal part, or anything else they might want to add to the mix. Once they are finished with the tracks that they want to contribute, they can upload to the cloud. As
the owner of the project, you will get a notification that new tracks are available,
and you can bring them into your session directly. For seamless integration, the contributor should either commit or freeze the track before uploading to ensure all processing will be transferred to the project owner.
Existing tracks that have been edited or changed in real time by another contributor in the cloud will be shown with their avatar next to the track name. This indicates
that there have been changes made to that track by another user, and you can click
the down arrow to download those changes and apply them to the most current project. As a collaborator, if you make edits to an existing track, press the up arrow to
upload those changes and share with the owner.
The entire operation is very intuitive and easy to use. This is an amazing way to
seamlessly work with other musicians across the globe. Everything is secure, and
only those you invite to your project are able to add or edit tracks in the session.
Cloud collaboration has been highly anticipated in the Pro Tools community, and my
initial experiences with this new feature have been very smooth. I'm excited for the
possibilities that will arise as the community grows and becomes more collaborative.

Final Thoughts
Pro Tools 12 is a great followup to
version 11. Its new features take offline
bouncing to the next level, and there are
endless opportunities to create within the
new Cloud space. Avid is taking full
advantage of the 64-bit platform,
enhancing features that audio professionals use (or will use) in their everyday
workflows.
Users upgrading from Pro Tools 10
will take a hit in their bank accounts to
update all of the necessary PCIe cards
and hardware, but a lot of users should
find a clean and affordable transition
from version 11... especially if they have
subscribed to the yearly update plan.
With more ways to pay, educational discounts, and even a free version in Pro
Tools | First, there's now a way for any
audio professional or first-time user to
get on board with the latest software.
Pro Tools 12 is a big step in upgrading the efficiency, productivity, and creative workflow aspects for Avid's industry-leading DAW; its upgrades and new
features are going to be most welcome
as the Pro Tools community evolves.
Prices: see above
More from: Avid, www.avid.com

http://www.avid.com http://www.mil-media.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2016