New Avid Pro Tools HD Series Interfaces Advance Quality and Performance of World’s Most Popular Digital Audio Workstation

Breakthrough HEAT software option lets customers add vintage analog warmth to the Pro Tools mixer, enhancing sound and simplifying settings management

BURLINGTON, MA—August 17, 2010— Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today introduced a series of newly-designed hardware and software solutions designed to enhance the quality and performance of Pro Tools|HD, the industry’s leading digital audio workstation. The new HD Series interfaces—HD I/O, HD OMNI and HD MADI—offer customers flexible configurations to support a variety of analog and open digital formats for audio recording, mixing and playback. Additionally, new HEAT (Harmonically Enhanced Algorithm Technology) software allows customers to add the realism of vintage analog sound to the Pro Tools® mixer via a single global control—eliminating the time consuming and complex task of managing plug-in changes across multiple tracks and allowing customers to remain focused on the craft of mixing.

Pro Tools HD Series Interfaces—Next-Generation A-D/D-A Conversion for the Highest Quality Sound

HD I/O, HD OMNI and HD MADI interfaces for Pro Tools|HD enable customers to achieve the highest-quality audio with improvements to digital audio conversion quality, a variety of new configuration options and increased support for open digital standards like the popular MADI protocol. Features include advances in design, filtering and clocking and flexible digital I/O connectivity, which offers support for a variety of formats. Additionally, Curv, a new soft-knee analog limiter in HD OMNI and HD I/O, cuts the time customers spend re-recording and editing by tracking hotter signals when recording, preventing distortion when overloading inputs. The new I/O options include:

·     HD I/O: Enables customers to achieve the highest-quality audio record and playback with the option of three space-saving configurations—16x16 analog, 16x16 digital and 8x8x8 analog and digital—in a 2 RU rack mountable interface.

·     HD OMNI: Frees up customer workspace by integrating the functionality of numerous costly outboard components into an all-in-one premium sound solution for recording, mixing and monitoring. Features include state-of-the-art conversion, two world-class mic pre-amps, headphone outputs, a full-featured surround monitor section and a 14x26 channel persistent mixer that functions even when the computer is off—letting users listen to CDs, MP3 players, keyboards and drum machines without the need for an additional mixer. 

·     HD MADI: Opens up workflows and speeds production time for broadcast, live sound and post production sound professionals by offering the ability to easily connect Pro Tools|HD systems to industry-standard MADI infrastructures, without the need for a format converter. Built-in sample rate conversion on all inputs and outputs allow customers to integrate into workflows with multiple sample rates (upstream and downstream) using a single, 64-channel 1 RU rack mountable interface.

HEAT— Premium Analog Warmth in a Digital Package, Minus the Plug-Ins

Designed in collaboration with digital/analog engineer Dave Hill of Crane Song, the HEAT software option for Pro Tools|HD systems is an innovation for mixers who value the warmth and sound qualities of tubes, tape machines and analog consoles, but want to eliminate the complications and expenses of using tape machines and vintage outboard processors, or managing track changes across multiple plug-ins. Customers can now directly add the best sounding euphonic qualities to every track in the Pro Tools mixer using a single, global control, dramatically enhancing sound quality and improving settings management. 

What Customers are Saying

Early reviews are in, and the industry’s hottest producers and sound engineers are excited about new Pro Tools|HD hardware and software options:

According to Butch Vig, Garbage drummer and Grammy winning producer of Green Day’s “21^st Century Breakdown”: “Anybody who is a dedicated producer or audio engineer wants the purest and most natural sound they can capture when they record, and Avid’s new HD I/O converter sounds really natural and transparent. These new interfaces have a really nice, smooth air to them—a silky quality that blows away the competition.”

Dave Cooley, producer for Silversun Pickups’ “Canavas” and “Swoon” albums and mastering engineer for the Polyphonic Spree’s “Wait EP,” among others, says: “I’ve been looking for a flexible software solution for years that could add some of the energy back that I get from using hardware and vintage equipment. HEAT brings me what I’ve been looking for – an analog sound that can be added quickly and effectively to get the job done. I can’t wait to start using it on mixes right away.”

R&B songwriter and producer Mischke, whose credits include work with Michael Jackson and the Pussycat Dolls, adds: “HD OMNI will make it a whole lot easier to make music. To have one piece of Pro Tools HD gear that combines all of the monitor controls, preamps, as well as analog and digital I/O, in a single unit is incredible.”