Real-Time AudioSuite (RTAS) is an

audio plug-in An audio plug-in, in computer software, is a plug-in that can add or enhance audio-related functionality in a computer program. Such functionality may include digital signal processing or sound synthesis. Audio plug-ins usually provide their o ...

format developed by

Digidesign Avid Audio (formerly Digidesign) is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum mac ...

, currently

Avid Technology Avid Technology is an American technology and multimedia company based in Burlington, Massachusetts, and founded in August 1987 by Bill Warner. It specialises in audio and video; specifically, digital non-linear editing (NLE) systems, video ed ...

, for their Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered systems, although they can be run on Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools TDM systems. RTAS plug-ins use the processing power of the host computer rather than DSP cards used in the Pro Tools HD systems. As the name suggests, the plug-in architecture is designed to be run in

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

, mimicking hardware inserts on traditional

mixing console A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic inst ...

. This is in contrast to rendering files out of time with effects applied directly to the audio, which in Pro Tools is facilitated by AudioSuite Plug-ins. Avid's AAX format, which runs on both native CPU and Pro Tools HDX DSP, is the replacement for RTAS.

Obsolescence

On April 7, 2013, Avid announced

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture ( sound design, audio post-prod ...

11. From this version forward, Avid has made the AAX plug-in the only format supported by Pro Tools. At launch, many third-party plug-in developers have yet to port their software to the new AAX format, so Avid will sell Pro Tools 11 with both an 11 and 10 license, allowing users to run Pro Tools 10.3.8, which is the last version that will support RTAS.

Licensing

Most plug-ins employ some form of

copy protection Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media. Copy protection is most commonly found on ...

, notably the PACE

iLok Ilok () is the easternmost town in Croatia forming a geographic salient surrounded by Vojvodina. Located in the Syrmia region, it lies on a hill overlooking the Danube river, which forms the border with the Bačka region of Serbia. The popula ...

dongle A dongle is a small piece of computer hardware that connects to a port on another device to provide it with additional functionality, or enable a pass-through to such a device that adds functionality. In computing, the term was initially synonym ...

. Though there are some plug-ins available

free of charge The English adjective ''free'' is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (''gratis'') and "with little or no restriction" (''libre''). This ambiguity of ''free'' can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it ...

, there is no accompanying

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

or programming documentation available to the general public. Developers must contact Avid for the SDK. There are terms of disclosure on releasing information about Avid's development materials, making official RTAS development incompatible with

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Ope ...

Virtual Studio Technology Rewrapping

FXpansion Audio produces a

VST VST may refer to: * Vancouver School of Theology, a theological graduate school in British Columbia, Canada * VST, Stockholm Västerås Airport in Sweden (IATA airport code) * Vehicle safety technology * Virtual Studio Technology, Steinberg's stand ...

to RTAS converter which allows the use of plug-ins developed under

Steinberg Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops music writing, recording, arranging, and editing software, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It als ...

's development environment inside of Pro Tools, expanding the DAW's processing capabilities. FXpansion has stated that an RTAS to VST converter can not happen "for both technical and legal reasons."VST–RTAS Adapter FAQ
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Competing technologies

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

Audio Units Audio Units (AU) are a system-level plug-in architecture provided by Core Audio in Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. Audio Units are a set of application programming interface (API) services provided by the operating system to generat ...

LADSPA LADSPA is an acronym for Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API. It is an application programming interface (API) standard for handling audio filters and audio signal processing effects, licensed under LGPL-2.1-or-later. It was originally d ...

, DSSI and

LV2 LV2 (LADSPA Version 2) is a set of royalty-free open standards for plug-ins and matching host applications. It includes support for the synthesis and processing of digital audio and CV, events such as MIDI and OSC, and provides a free alternat ...

for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direc ...

* Steinberg's

Virtual Studio Technology Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizers and effects units into digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional rec ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Real Time Audiosuite Music software plugin architectures MacOS APIs Digital audio workstation software