AudioSuite has been around a long time. AudioSuite plugins are the offline counterparts to the AAX plugins we are all familiar with in Pro Tools. Introduced in 1997, at a time when being able to edit and process audio on a computer was an achievement in itself, the fact that this was an off-line process (i.e. not in real time) wasn't a disadvantage compared to real-time plugins. It was just the way most software audio processing happened at this time. Computers weren't fast enough to deal with real time audio in those days. Unless you’ve been using Pro Tools for quite some time you won’t remember the subsequent real-time variant of AudioSuite - RTAS, or Real-Time AudioSuite plugins, which were replaced in Pro Tools 11 with AAX.

The idea of having to process your audio and ‘bake it in’ to a rendered audio file for playback rather than just instantiating a real-time plugin seems very inflexible in 2024, but AudioSuite is still around and, while most of the time it’s overlooked in favour of real-time processing, it can still be useful.

Many people who have always taken real-time processing for granted might imagine that offline is more restrictive than it actually is. You can preview processing in real time using AudioSuite and if you change your mind about a particular choice you can re-trace your steps easily enough. But no one is suggesting that AudioSuite is as convenient as AAX. So in 2024 why do people still use AudioSuite at all? Here are the Pros and Cons:

What Are The Disadvantages Of AudioSuite?

Can’t Audition In Context With The Mix- This is a big one, we all understand that it’s important to audition in context with the rest of the mix and not to work in solo, but while you can audition using the Preview button in the footer of an AudioSuite plugin window, and Bypass and Compare just like using an AAX plugin, AudioSuite previews the clip on its own rather than in context with the rest of the mix.

‘Baked In’ Processing - While this is the point of AudioSuite, it’s also something of a downside as it isn’t a flexible or convenient as real-time processing. The results don’t overwrite your source clips unless you want them to. Only if the File Mode Selector in the plugin window header is set to ‘Overwrite’ will the processing be destructive. The other settings of ‘create continuous files’ or ‘create individual files’ will create new files with the processing applied, these new files will be appended with an abbreviation of the plugin name to denote that AudioSuite processing has been applied. If you want to be able to get back to your unprocessed original then duplicating your playlist and processing that is a simple way to revert to your original version.

Can’t Automate - Dynamic Automation is important. Being able apply changes which do more than instantaneously switch between settings isn’t possible with AudioSuite. However, much of the automation used in mixes switches between settings instantaneously and this is something for which AudioSuite is well suited. There are many times where a particular plugin setting is needed at one point only and applying that setting using AudioSuite is often simpler than using regular plugin automation. Level changes used to be a prime candidate for this using the Gain AS plugin but the more recently introduced Clip Gain is a much more convenient way to achieve this. Clip Effects are a halfway house between real-time plugins and AudioSuite but as they are limited to EQ and dynamics they don’t really replace AudioSuite.

Can’t Process Or Audition A Chain Of Plugins - While you can open multiple AudioSuite windows by deselecting the Target button, you are restricted to auditioning and processing one plugin at a time.

Rendered Results Take Up More Disk Space - In 2024 this isn’t much of a consideration. Disks are large and inexpensive. What is still a potential disadvantage is the added clutter offline processing adds to the clips list and the Audio Files folder.

Reverb/Delay Truncation - Because AudioSuite processing is clip-based, and because clips have specific in and out points, it is easy to accidentally truncate the reverb tail or the delay repeats off the end of a clip when using Reverb or Delay under AudioSuite. It’s easy to avoid this happening, just extend the Edit Selection beyond the end of the clip by an amount longer than the reverb or delay will require and you’ll get a rendered clip with the tail intact. But you do have to remember to do it!

What Are The Advantages Of AudioSuite?

Baked In Results - To counter this point’s inclusion in the disadvantages of AudioSuite, the fact that the results are ‘baked in’ means that they are committed, and in exactly the same way as committing plugins using the, much more recently introduced, commit function on Pro Tools, AudioSuite achieves this by default. This is good for collaborative projects when using non-stock plugins, and for archiving. Using Alternative playlists or using inactive hidden tracks can preserve the unprocessed version, and the unprocessed versions stays in the clips list unless it’s deliberately removed.

No CPU Overhead - This is less important than it used to be, modern computers are powerful enough for us not to have to watch the processor overhead in the same way as we used to, and with Track Freeze and Commit available this is no longer a compelling reason to use AudioSuite.

Some Processes Suit Offline - If you study the AudioSuite plugins list you’ll find that, while it basically mirrors your real time plugins list, there are a few which aren’t available as real time plugins. Some are processes which can’t exist as ‘real-time’ processes, by which I mean ones which you could use while tracking. Reverse is a great example. A good tip to mention here is that AS reverbs and delays have a reverse button which you can use to create creepy reverse reverb effects and the like. Vari-Fi is another example of a process which you couldn’t do in real time.

Some plugins need to base their processing on an overview of the entire file. For example Normalise can only ensure that the highest peak sample is a set value below full scale once the whole file has been analysed to establish what the loudest sample value is. And there are some process you just don’t need to hear at all, for example DC Offset Removal.

AudioSuite Can Be Faster Than Real Time - This is related to the previous point. Plugins like the Pro Limiter Loudness Analyser plugin can be more convenient than their real-time equivalents. AudioSuite used to exist because real-time was too fast for the computers of the time. It now has an advantage over real time because, for some processes, real-time is inconveniently slow! 

There is a more modern way of giving a plugin process all the information about an audio file through its whole duration. Real-time plugins can’t ‘see’ the whole file for its entire duration but ARA can and uses real-time processing.

Process Modes And Flexibility

If you are doing the kind of work for which it would be a benefit, and much mixing work doesn’t fall into this category, there is a lot of power in the flexibility presented by AudioSuite processing. It’s very worthwhile getting to know the significance of the Process Mode button, which controls whether the processing treats a selection which spans more than one clip as a single entity or applies independent processing to each clip, a good example being the results you get when using Normalise.

Equally useful is the Selection Reference control which controls whether the processing is applied to clips on the audio track’s playlist, or only to the clip in the Clips List. Lastly the Whole File button renders a clip of the same length as the original clip but processes the whole file, allowing the clip to be trimmed out to the length of the original whole file if necessary. The option also exists to add ‘Handles’ to rendered files of the subclip’s original length. Handles are additional rendered sections of the audio file which extend out beyond the clip boundaries to allow extra flexibility when creating crossfades, avoiding the ‘Invalid Bounds” error message when there isn’t enough underlying audio beyond the clip boundary to create the crossfade. Handles are only created when working in the Clip By Clip rendering mode and in Continuous File mode.

The reasons for using AudioSuite may have changed but there are still times when it’s the most efficient choice and even in 2024 it’s definitely worth getting to know. Let us know if you have reasons you favour AudioSuite over the alternatives.