Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign)[1] for Microsoft Windows and macOS.

Pro Tools operates both as standalone software and in conjunction with a range of external analog-to-digital converters and PCIe cards with on-board digital signal processors (DSP).

[5] Like all digital audio workstation software, Pro Tools can perform the functions of a multitrack tape recorder and a mixing console along with additional features that can only be performed in the digital domain, such as non-linear[6] and non-destructive editing (most of audio handling is done without overwriting the source files), track compositing with multiple playlists,[7] time compression and expansion, pitch shifting, and faster-than-real-time mixdown.

[15] In 2004, Pro Tools was inducted into the TECnology Hall of Fame, an honor given to "products and innovations that have had an enduring impact on the development of audio technology.

"[16] Pro Tools was developed by UC Berkeley graduates Evan Brooks, who majored in electrical engineering and computer science, and Peter Gotcher.

[17] In 1983, the two friends, sharing an interest in music and electronic and software engineering, decided to study the memory mapping of the newly released E-mu Drumulator drum machine to create EPROM sound replacement chips.

[21] In collaboration with E-Mu, they developed a Mac-based visual sample editing system for the Emulator II keyboard, called Sound Designer, released under the Digidesign brand[22] and inspired by the interface of the Fairlight CMI.

[18] Brooks and Gotcher rapidly ported Sound Designer to many other sampling keyboards, such as E-mu Emax, Akai S900, Sequential Prophet 2000, Korg DSS-1, and Ensoniq Mirage.

[23] With the release of Apple Macintosh II in 1987, which provided card slots, a hard disk, and more capable memory, Brooks and Gotcher saw the possibility to evolve Sound Designer into a featured digital audio workstation.

Two interfaces were also released: Pro Master 20, providing 20-bit A/D conversion,[32] and Audiomedia II, with improved digital converters and one Motorola 56001 processor running at 33.86 MHz.

[36] In 1993, Josh Rosen, Mats Myrberg and John Dalton, the OSC's engineers who developed Deck, split from Digidesign to focus on releasing lower-cost multi-track software that would run on computers with no additional hardware.

Pro Tools II, the first software release fully developed by Digidesign, followed in the same year and addressed its predecessor's weaknesses.

[20] The editor and the mixer were merged into a single Pro Tools application that utilized the Digidesign Audio Engine (DAE) created by Peter Richert.

[20] In 1994, Pro Tools 2.5 implemented Digidesign's newly developed time-division multiplexing technology, which allowed routing of multiple digital audio streams between DSP cards.

[39] The wider bandwidth required to run the larger number of tracks was achieved with a SCSI expansion card developed by Grey Matter Response, called System Accelerator.

[47] The migration from traditional, tape-based analog studio technology to the Pro Tools platform took place within the industry:[21] Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" (1999) was the first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single to be recorded, edited, and mixed entirely within the Pro Tools environment,[49] allowing a more meticulous and effortless editing workflow (especially on vocals).

[50] While consolidating its presence in professional studios, Digidesign began to target the mid-range consumer market in 1999 by introducing the Digi001 bundle, consisting of a rack-mount audio interface with eight inputs and outputs with 24-bit, 44.1/48 kHz capability and MIDI connections.

[18] Following the launch of Mac OS X operating system in 2001, Digidesign made a substantial redesign of Pro Tools hardware and software.

[53] The use of PCI Express connection reduced round-trip delay time, while DSP audio processing allowed the use of smaller hardware buffer sizes during recording, assuring stable performance with extremely low latency.

Some advanced software features, such as Automatic Delay Compensation, surround mixing, multi-track Beat Detective, OMF/AAF support, and SMPTE Timecode, were omitted.

[62] The "Complete Production Toolkit", introduced with Pro Tools 8, added support for surround mixing and 128 tracks (while the system was still limited to 128 voices).

A second line of PCIe cards, called HD Native, provided low latency with a single FPGA chip but did not mount DSP (audio processing relied on the host system's CPU).

[69][48] Pro Tools 11, released in June 2013, switched from 32-bit to 64-bit software architecture with new audio and video engines, enabling the application and plug-ins to fully take advantage of system memory.

[13] A free starter edition providing the essential features of Pro Tools, called "First", was launched in 2015 and discontinued in December 2021 for being "unviable to continue on a technical level".

[85] Audio clips can be converted to MIDI data using the Celemony Melodyne engine; pitches with timing and velocities are extracted through melodic, polyphonic, or rhythmic analysis algorithms.

It also can show additional controls for the inserted virtual instrument, mic preamp gain, HEAT settings, and the EQ curve of supported plug-ins.

[91] Each track inputs and outputs can have different channel depths: mono, stereo, multichannel (LCR, LCRS, Quad, 5.0/5.1, 6.0/6.1, 7.0/7.1); Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics formats are also available for mixing.

For example, virtual instruments can be frozen to free up system memory and improve performance while keeping the possibility to unfreeze them to make arrangement changes.

Dolby Atmos/Ambisonics In the mid-1990s, Digidesign started working on a studio device that could replace classic analog consoles and provide integration with Pro Tools.

Command|8 (2004) and D-Command (2005) were the smaller counterparts of Control 24 and D-Control, connected with the host computer via USB; Venue (2005) was a similar system specifically designed for live sound applications.