Avid unveils Pro ToolsHDX and Pro Tools 10 at AES
Published: ASIA
WORLD: On the eve of the 131st Audio Engineering Society (AES), Avid unveiled both the Pro Tools|HDX digital audio workstation and the new Pro Tools 10 software at the Frederick P Rose Hall in New York’s Lincoln Center.
Dubbed as ‘industry leading solutions that make a big leap in sound and speed,’ the one-hour Avid lecture provided those who attended with a complete rundown of the manufacturer’s new additions’ performance, sound quality and ‘innovative’ new capabilities. In addition to the packed seminar room, some 6,200 on-line viewers tuned in to be some of the first to hear about the new products.
Following chief operating officer Kirk Arnold’s introduction, senior VP of products Chris Gahagan from Avid’s AV engineering, program and product management team – together with product manager Dave Gould – explained to the audience the features of the software packages.
‘Today's audio post and music professionals are faced with evolving challenges and much more demanding productions that require more power, extended capabilities, and better sound quality than ever before,’ announced Mr Gahagan. ‘Pro Tools | HDX and Pro Tools 10 software mark an enormous leap forward in sound quality and efficiency, enabling our top professional customers to deliver their best sounding, most creative work in less time,’ he furthered.
Offering 50 new features, Pro Tools 10 software adds several new tools and timesaving workflows, such as Clip Gain, which separates pre-mix levels from Pro Tools software’s mixing automation, thus greatly speeding up and improving the workflow between sound editors and mixers. Avid states that users can also obtain higher sound quality and better performance when recording, composing, editing, mixing or playing back sessions.
Whilst pre-mix and editing workflows are now sped up with Clip Gain, the manufacturer insists that better sound is now ensured by using multiple file formats and mixed bit depths in the same project – including interleaved –without converting files. Meanwhile, recording, editing and mixing can be conducted in higher resolution with 32-bit floating-point file format support, whilst a System 5 console EQ and dynamics are also included with the Avid Channel Strip plug-in.
The Pro Tools|HDX system represents a milestone in Avid’s development of DSP-accelerated hardware, delivering up to five times more DSP per card, over a thousand dB of additional headroom and up to four times the track counts and two times the I/O compared to its Pro Tools | HD Accel predecessor. The system can be scaled to increase track counts, power and I/O, using up to three Pro Tools | HDX cards and multiple Pro Tools HD Series interfaces.
Users can choose the Pro Tools | HD Native system if they need the advanced workflows and sound quality of Pro Tools HD, or they can choose the new DSP-accelerated Pro Tools | HDX system if consistent peak performance and near-zero latency are required for large and complex productions. Recording and mixing audio quality is further enhanced with over 1,000dB additional headroom and higher resolution sound, as a result of integrating the new floating-point architecture.
Together with the launch of the new solutions, Avid has also announced the Avid Vantage Program, which is an annual membership program for Pro Tools customers offering unlimited online technical support, in addition to discounted expert phone support and access to a collection of audio plug-ins.