Digidesign announced at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) conference on Friday Pro Tools 7, a new version of the company’s digital audio workstation software. The new version delivers significantly expanded MIDI and audio recording and editing capabilities, greater mixing power and flexibility, enhanced efficiency and improved ease of use, according to Digidesign.
Compatible with Mac OS X Tiger, Pro Tools 7 adds new music creation tools such as Instrument Tracks for simple and straightforward integration of virtual instruments, non-destructive real-time MIDI processing, and the ability to work with industry-standard REX and ACID files, according to Digidesign General Manager, Dave Lebolt.
Lebolt said the new version also includes optimizations for the host processing engine that boosts RTAS plug-in counts by as much as 150 percent on multi-processor computers.
“In many cases, that means we can now run more than twice as many RTAS virtual instruments or signal processing plug-ins as in previous releases on a given CPU,” said Lebolt. “Pro Tools 7 software is power-packed to give our users more flexibility to create completely within the Pro Tools environment.”
The new software will be available for Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools LE, and Pro Tools M-Powered systems. Digidesign only said the software would be “shipping soon.”
Anyone who purchased a new Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools LE, or an upgrade to Pro Tools TDM 6.9.x or Pro Tools LE 6.9x software, from an authorized dealer on or after September 1, 2005, is automatically eligible for a free upgrade to the corresponding version of Pro Tools 7 software. Current Pro Tools M-Powered customers are eligible for a free update to Pro Tools M-Powered 7 software. Complete upgrade information will be available when Pro Tools 7 software ships.