Pro Tools 10

Recently, Avid has released Pro Tools 10, a digital audio workstation used for recording and post production. This has come as a shock to many people. Just last ear, Avid released Pro Tools 9. This new version seems to have come out of nowhere.

Though this new release comes with a lot of interesting and very useful things, I feel it is not the smartest business move for Avid. The new software costs $699. If you’re not lucky enough to be one of the people that has bought Pro Tools 9 recent enough to get a free update, it’ll run you close to $300, if not more. I don’t see many studios, large or small, wanting to fork out the money to update. With the economy the way it is at the moment, I think Avid should have waited to release this update. They could have done a lot more with it, especially with the introduction of the new Native and HDX systems.  Cross grading to the new system can run from $6,000 to almost $8,000.

The new systems and cards allow for much bigger sessions on fewer cards. This, in the end, will make it cheaper to have big sessions than previously before. However, if you already have a system, it is still going to run you a lot. Upgrading to the new system will take a huge hit on any company’s budget.

It is very important that Avid has opened up Pro Tools to other software. With the release of Pro Tools 9, the software became open to interfaces not made by Avid. This extra step may be a good selling point for Avid. Though the new additions to Pro Tools are certainly helpful. I think Avid still just has it’s timing a little off.  It’s too soon to be putting out a new program. 

Resources:

Avid releases pro tools 10 and aax plug-in format. (2011, October 21). Retrieved from http://www.kvraudio.com/news/aes-avid-releases-pro-tools-10-and-announces-aax-plug-in-format-17524

Introducing the biggest advancement in daw recording since pro tools|hd [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/protools10/

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AEA Listening Room

Often times, a audio engineer will hold off on buying a microphone until they know how it sounds and have seen reviews on that. Well, AEA has an answer to this problem now. AEA, a ribbon microphone company has recently debuted their online listening room.

This online listening room allows for the buyer to hear the certain microphones before they buy it. At this time, there are not many mics to listen to, but it is still a very interesting concept. The online listening room offers some samples with just the microphones and some that also use AEA preamps. The samples with the preamps are especially interesting. For some samples they not only include the isolated instrument track, but they also include the full mix so you can hear how the recorded instrument sits in the mix.

As the author of the Mix Magazine article on this topic pointed out, the listening room uses SoundCloud to post the samples. Though SoundCloud yields lower quality than desirable, AEA has made high quality, uncompressed files to download.

I think it is helpful that they used SoundCloud for a few reasons. For one, many, many people are now using it. It can be helpful to hear how the sound of the microphone is going to compress down to that formatting. It is very important to still have good sound on something like SoundCloud or whatever other site an artist uses to broadcast their music. Another reason I think using SoundCloud for this project is good is because people listening to the samples can easily comment on the sample tracks. These comments may help other customers. If there are any questions, they can be asked right on the track at the specific time that their question pertains to. It would make easy for people to discuss things about the microphones. This could cut down on people having to do more outside research on the microphone (though it would be wise to still do more research).

Overall, I think this online listening room is a fantastic idea. It allows for a new level of communication between the manufacturer and the customer. 

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