Avid, creators of the legendary Pro Tools audio recording, editing and mixing system, last week furthered their quest to eliminate the inherent latency of typical USB and FireWire audio interfaces by announcing a pair of new Pro Tools HD Native interfaces that take advantage of the ultra high-speed Thunderbolt connection standard found on the current crop of computers.
Don’t get too excited though, because even if you were able to purchase one of the new Thunderbolt interfaces, which come in either desktop box or PCIe core card format, as a single item, you’d still need to purchase an additional Pro Tools HD I/O audio interface to hook it up to. As it is, you can only buy them as part of a bundle – the new ‘interfaces’ do not have any audio in or out connections themselves, they’re just bridging devices, a means of utilising the speed of the data throughput of the Thunderbolt port on current computers, in preference to latency-prone USB and FireWire ports. This means that the price of the cheapest available bundle, consisting of Thunderbolt interface, Pro Tools 10 software and compatible HD OMNI audio interface, comes out at a whopping $4999USD (around £3300GBP).

UK Pricing:

Pro Tools|HD Native + HD OMNI System £3,299.00 (£3,958.80 inc. VAT)
Pro Tools|HD Native + HD I/O 8x8x8 System £3,999.00 (£4,798.80 inc. VAT)
Pro Tools|HD Native + HD I/O 16×16 Analog System £4,599.00 (£5,518.80inc. VAT)
Pro Tools|HD Native + HD MADI System £4,599.00 (£5,518.80 inc. VAT)
Mbox Family / 00x to HD|Native + HD OMNI Exchange £2,599.00 (£3,118.80 inc. VAT)

For the moment at least, Avid are not offering the unit on its own to accommodate the needs of Continue reading →