Pro Tools Flex

[digiot]

Trying to figure out what exactly was added to my Ultimate license. According to the email I got, I was upgraded to Flex! When I launch Protools 2022.4 the splash screen still says "Ultimate". When I use my other iLok key that previously had a "regular" Protools license, the splash screen now says Studio. My iLok account has no changes and I see no other new licenses. To me it looks like the Studio upgrade form Protools has quite a lot of new features that were previously Ultimate only.
Other then the email I got I see no reference to Flex anywhere!

[nsureit]

Have you refreshed your iLok yet?

[RobertDorn]

There is no Pro Tools Flex. Flex is the name of the subscription tier. Which includes Pro Tools Ultimate.

I also don’t know which marketing wizard came up with this idea, to name 2 subscription tiers after the actual Pro Tools editions and the third tier Flex, with the pro tools edition being ‘Ultimate’

:)

[danyg]

There is no Pro Tools Flex. Flex is the name of the subscription tier. Which includes Pro Tools Ultimate.

it took me 3 days to understand this LOL

[digiot]

Yeah I kinda suspected this to be the case. So basicaly not a lot of new "Ultimate" only features this time around.

[RobertDorn]

Well, an I/O bump from 64 channels to 256 channels.

For those doing immersive audio that’s quite huge.

But other than that, no new features and just a few bug fixes.

[Dizzi45Z]

So far, for me the bug fixes have been huge. I have struggled with the past 4 versions of Pro Tools. Even though I am still getting several crashes, many annoying issues I am so sick of are resolved in this update. For me, it feels a tad snappier working with MIDI. I would always rather get bugs fixed and resolved over new features. The new keyboard shortcuts window has been a huge help in being able to blacklist some of the keys I accidentally hit all the time (“N” for example).

[RobertDorn]

Originally Posted by Dizzi45Z

So far, for me the bug fixes have been huge. I have struggled with the past 4 versions of Pro Tools. Even though I am still getting several crashes, many annoying issues I am so sick of are resolved in this update. For me, it feels a tad snappier working with MIDI. I would always rather get bugs fixed and resolved over new features. The new keyboard shortcuts window has been a huge help in being able to blacklist some of the keys I accidentally hit all the time (“N” for example).

Well, spoken about MIDI and automatic delay compensation, that's still a disaster. I work a lot with arpeggiated MIDI patches, being it an arp-patch in Omnisphere or a Session guitarist patch in Komplete Kontrol. When I don't commit that to audio, it runs compleeeeetely out of sync once there are plugins with quite some plugin-delay in the Pro Tools session.

Same goes for every plugin that needs midi-bpm sync, like xfer LFO Tool, soundtoys tremolator, waves one knob pumper, sugar bytes effetrix etc. They only work when they are on the first insert slot. Put a plugin with plugin-delay above them and the whole thing is out of sync.

Pro Tools is the only DAW I've worked with that has this delay compensation issue. Not so fun to produce music with for me.

[Dizzi45Z]

Originally Posted by RobertDorn

Well, spoken about MIDI and automatic delay compensation, that's still a disaster.

Yes, I also do tons of MIDI production in Pro Tools and I admit that this is a problem. I'm always having to freeze those types of tracks.

I also hate that if you arm an instrument track to record, it does not have auto low latency like audio tracks do. So if you have a send on the instrument track that goes to an Aux with a plugin that has some latency, the instrument track will have unbearable latency.

BUT...

They still fixed tons of other things for me (some I don't think are listed). For example, the playback while punching in on audio tracks is now accurate. Before it didn't transition with the playback on the punch in time, it was like 1/3rd of a second late.

The annoying VCA graphic and large Black boxes in the MIDI windows are fixed. (Still some occasional black boxes remain, but much better than before)

Creating time changes in the MIDI window was extremely glitchy before and seems to be working right now.

Setting pre-roll in areas that had time changes would typically have the pre roll go somewhere other than where you clicked when option clicked before the insertion point. That seems to be fixed.

MIDI editing doesn't seem as laggy in this version as prior versions.

I love the Aux defaulting to Solo-Safe.

I'm sure there are others I'll continue to realize too as I go.

[glasswing]

Originally Posted by RobertDorn

Well, spoken about MIDI and automatic delay compensation, that's still a disaster. I work a lot with arpeggiated MIDI patches, being it an arp-patch in Omnisphere or a Session guitarist patch in Komplete Kontrol. When I don't commit that to audio, it runs compleeeeetely out of sync once there are plugins with quite some plugin-delay in the Pro Tools session.

Same goes for every plugin that needs midi-bpm sync, like xfer LFO Tool, soundtoys tremolator, waves one knob pumper, sugar bytes effetrix etc. They only work when they are on the first insert slot. Put a plugin with plugin-delay above them and the whole thing is out of sync.

Pro Tools is the only DAW I've worked with that has this delay compensation issue. Not so fun to produce music with for me.

So, Instruments / VI's are working for you, Robert? I read somewhere that they crashed on Apple Silicon.