The Pro Tools Ideascale page is a fantastic place to get a sense for what the Pro Tools community really wants to see incorporated into the software.  One of the longest-standing and most desired feature requests that was satisfied in Pro Tools 10 was Audiosuite handles.  What are audiosuite handles, and why are they such a fantastic thing to have?  Let’s look…

First let’s quickly review what Audiosuite is all about.

Most audio plugins in Pro Tools can function in two main modes: as real-time live effects or as rendered effects that create new audio files.  These two main methods of applying effects are found in almost any type of media application, from drop-shadows in Photoshop to film-grain effects in Final Cut Pro to reverb in Pro Tools.  They can all be either live dynamic effects that happen in real-time, or can be rendered into the media in a more “permanent” sense.

Real-time live inserts in Pro Tools function via the RTAS, TDM, or AAX engines.  These are dynamic, automatable, non-permanent effects that can be demanding on system resources but can be changed or removed at any time.

The alternative is the “offline” rendered effects engine in Pro Tools, referred to as “AudioSuite.”  The obvious advantage to AudioSuite is that once the effect is applied, the system resources are freed up again.  The disadvantage is that you are now locked into the changes that were made.

Still, there are plenty of circumstances where it’s just fine to commit to a rendered effect.  You might even want to render a given effect such as EQ or limiting to all the clips in your sequence.  Unfortunately, there has always been one MASSIVE drawback to using AudioSuite in this way: you lose your clip’s handles!  What do I mean by that?  I mean that once you’d rendered a clip of audio in Pro Tools with an AudioSuite plugin, you could no longer use the trim tool and extend the clip on the left or right side.

   

Normally if there’s any additional audio in the original file that a clip references, you can use the trim tool to “pull out the handle.”  This gives you the freedom to modify the edit as you see fit.  However, once you render a clip with an AudioSuite effect in Pro Tools 9 or older, you are locked into the duration of the clip on your timeline; you’ve lost your handles.

This has traditionally greatly limited the utility of AudioSuite for post production sound.  Having editing flexibility is critical for us, because you never know when a client might request that you modify the sound edit.

“Can we fade into that more slowly?”

“That word seems to be chopped off – can that be changed?”

“What does he say before that?”

“Can that transition be smoothed any further?”

It’s hard to explain to a client that you can’t address their edit request because you’ve already rendered an audio effect.  They don’t really understand, they’re simply hearing “no” when they were looking for “yes.”  So staying flexible with your sound edit is clearly key.

Enter Pro Tools 10 and its introduction of AudioSuite Handles!  This obscure-sounding feature addition turns out to be truly monumental for post sound.  We are no longer committed to our edit if we choose to render an effect.  In fact, we can even apply an effect to our entire session and still keep our edit and our handles fully intact!  It’s amazingly powerful.  So how does it work?

 First, pick an AudioSuite effect that you’d like to process your audio with.  One common issue with location sound is that it can be full of random ticks from radio interference on the wireless lavalier mics.  This is the kind of problem you want to correct with AudioSuite, because you simply want it fixed.  You don’t need the dynamic flexibility of a live-inserted plugin for this issue.  A great tool for cleaning up ticks is the iZotope RX Declicker.  Here’s the AudioSuite version of that plugin.

As it’s currently configured, it will behave just as AudioSuite plugins always have; it will render a new continuous clip with no handles, and will also over-write my fades and render them into the selected area as well.  It will even include silence in the new clips it creates, making it hard to tell exactly where the audio actually begins and ends.  So if I took these clips:

and I processed them with the iZotope RX Declicker as configured above, the result is this:

The clips have been consolidated together into new continuous media.  The AudioSuite effect has been applied, but the edits and handles are now lost.

Preserving the basic edit has always been possible by modifying a few settings in the AudioSuite Window Header section of the plugin.  That refers to the top portion of the AudioSuite window that has all the grey pull-down menus.  Changing the settings on two of those menus allows for the preservation of the edit.  Those two menus are the File Mode Selector and Process Mode Selector.  On the previous example, they were set to “create continuous file” and “entire selection”.  If we change them to “create individual files” and “clip by clip,” the AudioSuite process will now apply to each clip individually and leave its edit points intact.  Here’s how the iZotope RX Declicker looks when configured this way:

Processing with an AudioSuite plugin configured this way will preserve most of the edit, although fades caught in the selection boundaries will no longer be viable.  The ultimate goal is to get AudioSuite to process the audio on the timeline, as well as the handles for those clips.  This allows you to maintain flexibility with the edit and keep all fades fully intact.

There are two options for how an AudioSuite plugin can be applied to the underlying handles of selected clips: It can process the whole underlying file, or it can process just a certain amount of additional time before and after the current clip boundaries.  These two options are available directly to the left of the “render” button on any AudioSuite plugin in Pro Tools 10 and later.

At first consideration you may be inclined to choose “Whole File,” in order to give you maximum flexibility.  However, this can potentially create huge amounts of media you don’t need, wasting drive space.  Also, it doesn’t function very reliably in certain versions of Pro Tools 10 (causing crashes, throwing audio way out of sync, and other potential problems).  Lastly, it can end up taking a really long time!

A better bet is to define a handle length that is adequate without being excessive.  I usually specify between 2 and 5 seconds.  You can just type the number into the box between “Whole File” and “Render.”  Like so:

Now when I process the audio with the Declicker, I get this result:

 

The way the clips are edited is still completely intact, and all the fades are still present.  In fact, the only obvious indicator that anything has changed is the addition of “RX2DECLICK” to each clip name.  And most importantly, I can still pull out handles!  Check it out:

 

I’m guessing by now you can see the possibilities.  Being able to render AudioSuite effects without losing your edit is hugely powerful, and enables great new workflows.  One of my personal favorites is noise reduction work, because it’s possible to receive the dialog from the sound editor, process it as much as necessary, and still leave the handles intact in case the mixer wants to make edit changes.  This is also terrifically useful for processing high-pass or low-pass EQ, rendering mild compression, processing dialog with a futz such as SpeakerPhone or FutzBox, or anything else where you know you want to just render an effect and be done with it while keeping the edit intact and modifiable.

Hooray for AudioSuite Handles!  Thanks Avid!!