The Pro Tools 9 product range is refreshingly simple. There are no longer separate LE and MPowered versions, just a single product with a single installer disc. As before, those who have an HD system get all the features. Those who have the basic Pro Tools 9 licence get slightly fewer — albeit many more than in LE or MPowered — but, by buying the optional Complete Production Toolkit 2, can get the full feature set except for features that are dependent on HD hardware, such as TDM plugin support. All versions are now authorised to iLok, and a Pro Tools 9 HD licence will authorise the full Complete Production Toolkit 2 on a native system — so many HD users will no longer need to buy a separate LE system to work on the road.
Avid provide a helpful comparison chart listing the features of the three different systems, and their counterparts in Pro Tools 8, at www.avid.com/us/products/family/ProTools/compare. I won’t reproduce it in detail here, but will highlight a few key points. For anyone running Pro Tools on HD hardware, changes are relatively few. Compared with Pro Tools LE, however, the basic native Pro Tools 9 is a lot more powerful.