If you've ever asked yourself "what's the difference between Pro Tools Ultimate and the standard version", this video is for you. We'll look at track counts, limitations, inputs and outputs available, automation and hardware amongst other things.

I'm coming at this from a music production perspective, let me know your thoughts? Is it worth upgrading or are we alright sticking with the standard version

i/o Differences

From 2021.6 onwards AVID are allowing pro tools standard users the ability to support up to 64 channels of i/o using any hardware they wish. Previously this was restricted to 32 channels. For most people this will be more than enough. HDX users will be able to support up 192 channels across 3HDX cards which should be more than enough for most users, especially when considering surround sound and Dolby Atmos. You will need ultimate for this

Maximum i/o with Standard - 64 i/o on Pro Tools 2021.6 - Earlier versions you have access 32 i/o

Maximum i/o on Ultimate - HD Native Cards and Core Audio sound cards - 64 i/o for these configurations. HDX users 192 i/o with 3 HDX cards (64 i/o er card). ]

Hardware

Apart from the Carbon interface, all the AVID hardware avid makes for Pro Tools is only really available for Pro Tools Ultimate users. This means that the HDX cards, HD Native Cards (PCIe or thunderbolt) and HD io units will not be supported within pro tools without a HD license. I know waves sound grid offer a workaround with the old 192 interfaces where they'll offer a hardware conversion on their system to their sound grid platform and there may be something similar on Dante but this is somethign to be mindful of if you're thinking about buying Avid hardware, you will need to account for an ultimate upgrade/subscription in your budgeting for your business.

Voice count

In the latest update - Pro Tools 2021.6 standard has upped the voice count in standard to 256 channels of audio and this is across all sample rates, you aren't punished for using a higher sample rate for your session which was something of an issue previously. Similarly to avoid any confusion with Pro Tools Ultimate, one of the benefits of standard is that they have done away with splitting channel values by whether it's mono (1 voice) or stereo (2 voices) so it means you could have 256 stereo channels in a session and not be penalised. Previously this would have meant you'd only have 128 stereo channels available to you. 

Ultimate you have access to 2048 voice but the way in which voicecounts and channels different  relates to the width of the channel. Mono has 1 voice, stereo is 2 voices, 7.1 surround sound = 8 voices. The reason for this is because of the manner in which the DSP cards were designed. Pro tools ultimate may see a lot more use in surround sound setups and with the configuration of their DSP mixer Pro Tools needed to allocate a specific number of voices for each of their cards and be able to guarantee the system would work. 

Carrying on from this Ultimate has access to surround sound and ambisonic workflows. This leads it well into post production work, foley and other areas. 

Pro Tools Standard only focuses on stereo mixing for audio applications. For the budget conscious engineer interested in working with surround sound and ambisonic setups, this is where reaper might be worth a consideration. 

Summary - PT Standard  - 256 Mono or stereo channels
PT Ultimate - 2048 Voices = 2048 Mono Channels, 1024 Stereo Channels.  

AUX and Routing Folders

Standard lets you have 128 aux and folder channels whilst ultimate has 512 available. From my sessions, I’m never running close to 128 auxes or folders so this isn’t a huge worry for music users.

Record Modes  

IN addition to the standard recording modes, (quick punch, loop record and standard). Pro Tools Ultimate has a couple of other additional recording modes to consider. Track punch and destructive punch

 Track punch lets you arm multiple tracks for recording but can switch the record element on and off during playback. So far the only time I’ve used this has been in a mastering environment where I might want to setup the processing for multiple tracks, run off the mastering environment and switch between recorded masters on the fly and not have to enable or disable recording or processing each channel at a time. 

Destructive punch effectively overwrites and permanently deletes what was ever in the audio clip befor the recording. As the word destructive kind of suggests, this is something I'd only consider if you were short on space or extremeley confident in what you were doing. With that in mind one of the benefits of destructve punch is  it almost harkens back to a tape machine like workflow. If you wanted to overdub a mistake you were usually happy to commit to the recording and make decisions. 

Clip Effects 

Clip FX (OPT+ NUMPAD 6) - Pro Tools standard will let you read the clips if someone has added clip fx to specific clips but you won’t be be able to edit them. The clip FX at the moment are adding the channel strip plugin elements to specific clips only. This could be useful when exploring re-recording/foley or dealign with re-recorded parts tht differ slightly from the original and need to be more closely matched without having to deal with automating plugins. 

Automation modes

 Trim is available, this is an automation mode within pro tools that can be extremely useful at the time of revisions. Put the plugin in trim, increase of decrease the value and that will allow you to adjust all parameters across the mix. There is a workaround in standard involving VCAs that can do the same thing so its not the end of the world. The other option for standard is adding a trim plugin to the end of the plugin lists and adjusting the values accordingly so this isn't really the end of the world and not something I'd consider something I'd need to upgrade for. 

Additionally if you press CMD + NUMPAD 4 on the keypad. In ultimate the automation modes are more comprehensive and you have some more creative options to choose from. Some of the automation modes I'm using from here are "write on stop" and I can choose to change values of automation to everything before position of the playhead, after it or even choosing to write and fill automation for a selected session.

Available Plugins

Pro tools ultimate comes with the complete plugin bundle as standard. This is available as an extra annual subscribption for Pro tools standard users for around £50 for the year. Prices may vary from the time this article was written. As far as I know, this includes all AVID made plugins, some of the ones I really like in this bundle are the Pro series plugins, Compressor, Limiter and Space. I’m also partial to the moogerfooger delay, SPACE convolution reverb and some of the pedal plugins (green distortion, fuzz).

Similarly HEAT is included as standard on an Ultimate subscriptions but is available as a separate purchase for standard users. For now I won’t get into HEAT at the moment, but I’ll link a video in the cards for you to check out. 

Final Thoughts

For most people I think Pro Tools standard will be more than what they need these days. The biggest gripe for some higher end users and myself included was regarding the channel limitations of 32 channels. As someone who runs an SSL Sigma and also runs an Allen Heath QU16 for headphone mixes I need in excess of 32 output channels for what I need. Up until the latest release of Pro Tools, the i/o limitations meant I needed Ultimate in order to accommodate this and was one of the reasons I chose to upgrade. As I'm also working out of other studio and I want to take my mac with me having the HD Native card means Iit's a lot easier for me to patch my system into their convertersthan having to deal with more complicated setups around my patchbay. Needing to run Pro Tools hardware in this manner has meant having Ultimate make sense for me in my music production workflow.

The other main consideration for Ultimate really comes into it's own is regarding surround sound. If you're not working in surround then the chances are the Standard version will be fine for you. If you did want to work in surround sound and also be compatible with other studios, post houses and mixers then this is the other area where PT Ultimate will make sense. Otherwise I'd argue stick with standard and you'll be fine.