Audio post consoles: manufacturers targeting audio post are gearing up for the next wave of demands

Post, Feb, 2004 by David John Farinella

DIGIDESIGN

"We haven't announced anything for 04, but Digidesign is dedicated to the control surface concept," says Digidesign senior product manager, post products Scott Wood. "We feel that the approach of having a digital audio workstation that can record, edit, process, mix and deliver in a total recall situation is the foundation that we're developing our future on. Digidesign plans to continue to expand its offerings based on that same concept."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Not only that, Wood adds that he feels the entire industry, and their customer base, is moving that way. "We feel that our customers are looking for an integrated, completely recallable, completely software-configurable situation, including the control surfaces. So, when we talk about mixing, it's not an isolated thing in our mind. Mixing is a part of the task of delivering the project and where a lot of people consider it a specific function, Digidesign as a company approaches it as an integration with everything else that the audio professional needs to do."

Digidesign's (www.digidesign.com) most popular product continues to be Pro Tools with Pro Control24. "Pro Control is widely adopted by rooms that are client driven, because it has what I call the 'LPD factor'--lights per dollar," Wood explains. "A client is not educated in the business of really what the person is doing. He really walks into a room thinking, 'Is this worth $300 per hour?' On a big film stage if you walk in there and see a [Mackie] 1402VLZ, no one is going to pay $1,000 an hour. Even though I'd trust a top quality professional with a PortaStudio over a geek with Pro Tools, the client needs a certain amount of LPD. You've got to deliver that; it's just part of the business.

"We are in the entertainment business and a lot of people look at it only as the tape that they are delivering, but in truth we are entertaining our clients," he continues. "The audio guy is entertaining his client in that room and he has to have something that makes his clients feel good. We have to deliver a feature film that makes the guy in the theater feel like he got his 10 bucks worth and we have to make the guy who walked into the sound studio feel like he got his $300 an hour worth. It sounds wacky, but it's true."