The Sketch feature adds a whole new window to the Pro Tools working environment, and is available in all versions, including Intro.
With the new Sketch window and app, Pro Tools enters the world of clip launching.
At the end of August, Avid gave us a sneak peek at Pro Tools Sketch, a feature slated for inclusion in the (at the time of writing) upcoming Pro Tools 2023.9 software, scheduled for September. Pro Tools Sketch is a non‑linear creation tool similar to Ableton Live and Bitwig, or the Live Loops feature in Logic Pro. It adds a whole new window to the Pro Tools UI, which isn’t something that happens often. We get additions to the Mix and Edit windows regularly, most recently the tabbed Melodyne ARA view, but the last completely new window I can think of was the MIDI Editor, introduced all the way back in Pro Tools 8.
However, Sketch is more than just a window. It’s also an iPad app, which will eventually support the iPhone and Android platforms too. While the free Avid Control app has been available for some time, that only allows control of mix parameters in Pro Tools, not manipulation of audio and MIDI itself. By contrast, the Sketch app allows musical ideas to be worked on in, and transferred between, an iPad and a computer running Pro Tools.
...the Sketch app allows musical ideas to be worked on in, and transferred between, an iPad and a computer running Pro Tools.
Pro Tools Sketch is featured in all Pro Tools versions, including the free Pro Tools Intro. The working method will be familiar to anyone who has used similar features elsewhere. A grid of cells can be populated with audio or MIDI clips. A library of content is provided, and clips can be previewed in sync with the Sketch from the library before being dragged to one of the cells in the Sketch grid.
Any individual cell can be triggered from any of up to 16 tracks, and playback loops in sync with the Sketch. Horizontal rows of the grid can be triggered as Scenes, which can be sequenced into an arrangement by dragging them to the Arrangement lane at the top of the window.
The Sketch app running on an iPad. Projects can easily be shared between the app and Pro Tools.
Integration
These types of music‑creation apps have been available for a long time, and you might wonder whether Sketch offers anything that isn’t already possible using third‑party apps and tempo‑sync tools such as Ableton Link. The difference with Pro Tools Sketch is that you are already working within Pro Tools rather than alongside it. This I see as central to what Avid are trying to achieve with Sketch. The strength of Pro Tools as an editing and mixing platform is well known, but historically, a very common approach has been for users to compose and create in another DAW and move over to Pro Tools to mix the composition. Sketch seeks to bring the composition process in‑house and to make it easier for creators to stay within Pro Tools for the whole production. So how does this integration work?
Pro Tools Sketches are saved with the file extension .ptsketch. Unlike Pro Tools sessions, which reference media stored elsewhere, Sketch files are self‑contained including all content. This makes file exchange simpler. They can be saved to the cloud or transferred via email if you are transferring between a computer and an iPad. For archiving, the .ptsketch file can be saved with the session folder. Sketch files are separate from PTX sessions, but they can be ‘pinned’ to one or more Pro Tools sessions, which will result in the Sketch automatically opening along with the Pro Tools session. This is a nice touch, and the fact that a Sketch can be pinned to multiple sessions avoids unnecessary duplication and makes version management easier.
If you are creating on the iPad rather than in the Sketch window in Pro Tools, a completed arrangement can be exported as a WAV file. Sketches can be played back in sync with a Pro Tools session, combining the best of both linear and non‑linear workflows, and for more detailed editing Sketch clips, scenes, or entire arrangements can be dragged and dropped into the Pro Tools Edit page, where the full capabilities of Pro Tools can be accessed.
Making Arrangements
The included library that installs with the Sketch app contains content from Avid’s Sonic Drop initiative, in which producer Matt Lange creates free monthly ‘drops’ of content for current subscribers and users with update plans. It’s enough to get you started, but creating your own content is simple. Pro Tools is an excellent place to create loops, and being able to work with them on the fly is fast and effective.
MIDI content can be recorded in live, or drawn in and edited. PlayCell and SynthCell are the two MIDI instruments available, and in the mixer tab, any of nine included effects (Chorus, Compressor, Crunch Crusher, Delay, EQ, LoFi, Multimode Filter, Reverb and Saturation) can be used to further shape the sound, alongside reverb and delay which are always available as global effects. Piano‑roll editing of MIDI data can be performed, and audio editing, including timing correction and time‑stretching, is also available within the Sketch app.
Having used the Sketch app quite a lot, I can confirm that it is very immediate in use, thanks especially to the ability to mix and match elements freely and to experiment with the order of sections.
Having used the Sketch app quite a lot, I can confirm that it is very immediate in use, thanks especially to the ability to mix and match elements freely and to experiment with the order of sections — something that isn’t convenient in the strictly linear Pro Tools Edit window, where the lack of a convenient place to create alternative arrangements discourages experimentation. Studio One has its Scratch Pad feature, which provides an alternative timeline on which to experiment, but in Pro Tools the best method for alternative arrangements is to create a duplicate playlist for all the tracks in the session and to use Shuffle mode with the All group enabled. It works but can get messy in a session that already contains multiple playlists, and firing off scenes and clips in real time is better while ideas are still being formed.
Avid have been criticised in the past for catering primarily to professional users, but the introduction of Sketch shows that they are serious about providing tools that are relevant and useful to the next generation of artists, producers and beat‑makers too. Sketch certainly enhances the core functionality of Pro Tools to better serve this important group. Pro Tools isn’t moving away from the pro market, but they are clearly trying to broaden their appeal.
Pro Tools 2023.9 wasn’t yet released at the time of writing, but the tech preview of Sketch, taken in combination with the introduction of Intro and Artist, the release of the Cell series of instruments and the new Sonic Drop programme, show how Avid are working to improve the appeal of Pro Tools to creators. Expect a full review in these pages soon!
STG Acquire Avid
While I’m not party to the internal discussions within Avid, you would have to have been under a rock during August not to have heard the news that Avid has been bought by private equity firm STG.
Details from Avid are restricted by their current position as a publicly traded company, which means they have a legal obligation not to make comments that could influence their share price. That of course doesn’t dampen the online speculation about what this sale might mean. From the perspective of the customers, the most significant fact which has emerged about the sale is that Avid will return to private ownership and, as a result, will no longer be restricted by the abovementioned obligations.
Using the Pro Tools Sketch technology preview as an example, the reason Avid have shared this preview prior to release is that they are confident that they can deliver it within a known timeframe. If they didn’t manage to deliver an important new feature that might influence the perceived value of the company (and by extension their share price), they could be accused of manipulating the market. One of the most immediate benefits to the customers of Avid returning to private ownership is that they will be able to be more open about their future plans, technology, and features which might be coming in the more distant future.
As customers we all like to feel optimistic about the future of the DAW we use, and feeling better informed and more included can only benefit that. The completion of the sale is still in progress and Avid are in a position where they probably can’t share as much as they would like to but, without getting too far into business law, having an understanding of why things happen at the speed they do helps contextualise what is happening.