Pro Tools Review

Pro Tools is Avid's digital audio workstation for recording, editing and mixing music, offered as a free entry tier plus three subscription tiers. What decides whether it suits you is largely which tier's instrument count and Dolby Atmos access matches your work, since Pro Tools is sold mainly by subscription rather than as a new one-time purchase.

What is Pro Tools?

Pro Tools is made by Avid Technology, headquartered in the United States. It is an installed application for Mac and Windows; an Avid account is used for licensing or subscribing, but the software runs and edits locally.

Making music in Pro Tools

Pro Tools records inspired audio and MIDI performances and includes MIDI effects such as arpeggiators, chord generators and note repeaters. It ships 110 or more instruments and effects in the Artist tier, rising to 130 or more in Studio and Ultimate, and hosts AAX plugins alongside Melodyne for note-level stretching, shifting and re-timing through ARA 2 integration. RePitch corrects vocal pitch while preserving tone and emotion, so vocals sit in key without sounding processed.

Dolby Atmos mixing and rendering is built into the Studio and Ultimate tiers, letting you mix and deliver in Atmos without leaving Pro Tools, and AvidPlay releases that Atmos music directly to Apple Music, Tidal, Spotify and Amazon. Pro Tools has no stem-separation feature, no AI session-player feature and no score or notation view.

Working with other people

Pro Tools integrates with Splice for sample content, with Melodyne through ARA 2, and with Dolby Atmos and AvidPlay for surround mixing and release. There is no shared cloud collaboration workspace built for Pro Tools projects. It runs on Mac and Windows.

Pro Tools pricing: what each plan gives

Pro Tools Intro is a separate free download, free forever, aimed at more casual creators rather than a limited trial of the paid tiers. Above that, Pro Tools is sold as three subscription tiers billed per account each month: Artist at $9.99, Studio at $34.99 and Ultimate at $99, with Dolby Atmos mixing available only on Studio and Ultimate. Avid also offers a perpetual-licence upgrade, but only to existing owners of Pro Tools 12 or newer, or Pro Tools Ultimate 12 or newer, whose support plan has expired; it is not a way for someone without an existing licence to buy Pro Tools outright.

Privacy and support

Pro Tools runs and edits your sessions locally on your own machine. Avid's privacy policy addresses the GDPR, stating that Avid Technology International B.V. acts as controller for data protection purposes in Europe, the Middle East and India, though that applies to Avid's accounts and services generally rather than to session files inside the app itself. Beyond that, Pro Tools does not raise the training question the way a cloud service would, since your sessions stay on your own machine. Support runs through Avid's help centre and knowledge base, plus its user communities.

Who Pro Tools suits

Pro Tools suits musicians and engineers who want to start free with Intro and step up to a subscription tier as their needs grow, particularly anyone who wants Dolby Atmos mixing and delivery through AvidPlay, which is available from the Studio tier up. Melodyne's ARA 2 integration and Splice access also suit vocal-heavy and sample-based production.

It suits less well anyone who wants to buy a fresh perpetual licence outright today, since only existing owners with an expired support plan can buy a perpetual upgrade. It also suits less well anyone who wants AI stem separation or a notation view, since Pro Tools has neither.

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