New Pro Tools Interfaces Launched

If you are a Pro Tools user than you probably were aware of all the rumors that swirled around leading up to Tuesday’s launch of Avid’s latest line of HD interfaces. These are truly the first new interfaces for Pro Tools coming under the re-branded name Avid and that’s a big deal. And despite the fact that most home studio Pro Tools users are not using Pro Tools HD, I thought this was an important update to discuss none-the-less.

Phase One For Avid Pro Tools

The new line of HD interfaces and even Pro Tools HD 8.1 are really just phase one for Avid’s “takeover” of the Pro Tools name. All of us LE and M-Powered users shouldn’t get fussy that we only see HD updates because this is likely only the first phase of a complete overhaul of the Pro Tools hardware line. It would make sense for Avid to release updates to their flagship product first, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.

These new interfaces seem much more practical for the smaller project studio as well, which bodes well for the end user. I believe it means Avid understands that portability, feature set, and audio quality all need to improve in the new line if Pro Tools hardware, and they seem right on track. So even though us non-HD users don’t have anything to gain from these new boxes we can be encouraged that Avid is moving in the right direction.

What To Expect Next

The big question is what can we expect to roll out in the next phase of Avid’s new line of products. No one really knows, but here are a couple of guesses I have:

• New LE interfaces out soon. It’s been about 3 years since the 003 was released, and about 5 years since the Mbox 2 was launched, and despite some variations of these products, we haven’t had any new LE boxes since then. I expect a major overhaul of everything as Avid has an opportunity to start from the ground up like it did with the HD line.
• Potential re-branding of Pro Tools LE and M-Powered as simply Pro Tools Native. Now this might be a stretch anytime soon, but the idea is that they would make one native version of Pro Tools and package it with the Avid hardware (like LE currently does) and then allow M-Audio users to purchase it separately alongside their M-Audio interface of choice.
• Major Pro Tools 8 software updates. I believe there will be some serious updates coming for Pro Tools as version 8 hits the two year mark this fall. Not sure if they would jump straight to version 9, but at least better performance and more features.

At the end of the day the only thing that is for sure is change. This has finally been the year that Avid got rid of the Digidesign brand, merged the websites, fired and hired new people, and now are releasing new Pro Tools products. Change is happening and I think it is for the better. Stay tuned to Avid.com for more updates, but be encouraged. Pro Tools is the world’s most popular pro recording platform and it is only improving!