Digidesign announces Pro Tools 7

Digidesign today announced Pro Tools 7 software, which it says is an "evolutionary leap" in the creative power of the industry-standard digital audio workstation software. Pro Tools 7 software introduces a set of new features and enhancements that delivers expanded MIDI and audio recording and editing capabilities, greater mixing power and flexibility, enhanced efficiency, and improved ease of use. Pro Tools 7 will be available for Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools LE, and Pro Tools M-Powered systems and will offer new features and enhancements in all versions of Pro Tools 7 software (i.e. Pro Tools HD 7, Pro Tools LE 7, and Pro Tools M-Powered 7 software). The company said the software is "shipping soon" and will run on Mac OS X 10.4 (as well as Windows XP).

The software adds new music creation tools such as Instrument Tracks for simple and straightforward integration of virtual instruments, non-destructive realtime MIDI processing, and the ability to work with industry-standard REX and ACID files. It also includes new optimizations for our host processing engine that boosts RTAS plug-in counts by as much as 150 percent on multi-processor computers, according to the company:

"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. Pro Tools 7 software is power-packed to give our users more flexibility to create completely within the Pro Tools environment.”

“The quality and performance of plug-ins, especially of software instruments, is now even more impressive,” states Ed Gray, Digidesign Director, Partnering Program. “Although most of our developers don’t need to do anything to see performance improvements, many are working closely with us to go a step further by optimizing their plug-ins to gain even more instance counts within Pro Tools 7 software.” There are also many new products on the way for Pro Tools 7 from some of the best names in the audio industry: Antares, Arturia, Audio Ease, DUY Labs, fxPansion, Massenburg DesignWorks EQ, McDSP, Native Instruments, Neyrinck Software, Sony Oxford, Synchro Arts, TC Electronic, Trillium Lane, Unique Recording, Waves, and other companies.

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.

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