Avid are continuing their drive to improve Pro Tools with regular releases by announcing the latest update to Pro Tools 2018.10. This update is mainly a bug fix release, that Avid wanted to get out to users now rather than wait until they have finished the qualification work for macOS 10.13.6 and 10.14.

That said, there is one feature enhancement included in Pro Tools 2018.10 that live sound users will appreciate and was alluded to in the Venue 6.0 Release notes.

Live Sound New Feature

Connecting the E6L or E3L, and using it as the selected Playback Engine in Pro Tools, will now allow simultaneous record up to 128 tracks, without the needing a Live Sound Production Toolkit iLok authorisation.

What About Support For The New Versions Of macOS?

We know that Mac users will have been hoping for support for macOS 10.13.6 and macOS 10.14 and as you can see that isn’t included in the Pro Tools 2018.10 release. We asked Avid why this was and they gave us this exclusive statement…

Pro Tools 2018.10 delivers important bug fixes and includes improvements to Live Sound and Dolby Atmos workflows. We are continually working to improve Pro Tools stability and performance, and we did not want to delay this release while we continue to work towards supporting the latest macOS and Windows versions. We understand you may have questions about releases and compatibility. Please refer to Pro Tools System Requirements for the latest updates.

Pro Tools 2018.10 Bug Fixes

Atmos Workflows

Tightened pan accuracy when sending data to the Dolby Atmos Production Suite or RMU

Knife-edge pan automation is now maintained when importing from an ADM file

Control Surfaces

Fixed an issue where parts of the Pro Tools UI and EUCON surface updates would become sluggish over time

D-Control, D-Command, and C|24 can now be claimed on Windows OS when Secure Boot is enabled in the computer's OS

Crashes and Errors

Save Copy In of sessions containing media with resource forks will no longer crash if a Save Copy In was done from an SMB mounted volume

Save Copy In will no longer crash after importing and converting the sample rate of an audio file on macOS

Live Sound

Fixed an issue where Pro Tools would continue stop and restart recording when issuing a stop command from the S6L.

Synchronisation

Satellite systems will no longer get into a state where the "Satellite can't currently play" dialog can't be dismissed. This would occur if another satellite transport was record armed during playback, but no tracks are record armed.

LTC will now consistently lock when the session length is set to 6 hrs

Miscellaneous

Recorded material on the track can now be heard when the tracks are record enabled and the "Allow Sends to Persist During LLM" preference is enabled

Fixed a case where there would be a small gap in the recorded audio when stopping the transport during a destructive punch

Fixed an issue that caused the file size of audio media to be slightly smaller after mounting any volume, which resulted in triggering redundant file system backups by 3rd party software

Fixed an issue that cause the UID from OMFI files to be cleared when mounting any volume

Errata

In the Pro Tools 2018.10 Read Me document there are some corrections to previous document highlighted…

The following guides have the following erroneous information about targeting playlists:

What’s New in Pro Tools 2018.7.pdf (Part Number 9329-65978-00 REV A)

Pro Tools Reference Guide.pdf (Part Number 9329-65976-00 REV A)

The following:

To target the same playlist in all audio tracks:

In Playlists view, Shift-click the Target button for the playlist you want to target.

Should read:

To target the same playlist in all tracks:

In Playlists view, Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) the Target button for the playlist you want to target. Hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows), click on the Playlist Selector menu, then click the Target Playlist sub-menu and click on the playlist you want to target.

The following:

To target the same playlist in all selected audio tracks:

In Playlists view, Option-Shift-click (Mac) or Alt-Shift-click (Windows) the Target button for the playlist you want to target.

Should read:

To target the same playlist in all selected tracks:

In Playlists view, Option-Shift-click (Mac) or Alt-Shift-click (Windows) the Target button for the playlist you want to target. Hold Option-Shift (Mac) or Alt-Shift (Windows), click on the Playlist Selector menu, then click the Target Playlist sub-menu and click on the playlist you want to target.

The following should be deleted:

To target the same playlist in all tracks of the same type (audio, MIDI, Instrument, or Video):

Shift-click the playlist you want to target in the Playlist selector menu.

To target the same playlist in all selected tracks of the same type (audio, MIDI, Instrument, or Video):

Option-Shift-click (Mac) or Alt-Shift-click (Windows) the playlist you want to target in the Playlist selector menu.

Pro Tools 2018.10 On Its Way

All Pro Tools Standard and Pro Tools Ultimate users with an active upgrade plan or those on rental subscription plans should find the Pro Tools 2018.10 installers in your Avid Master Account, as well as in your Avid Link app very soon, if they are not there already by the time you read this..