San Francisco, CA, AES Convention, Booth #701 — Digidesign today announced the D-Command® Producer’s Desk, a stylish, ergonomically functional add-on option for the acclaimed ICON D-Command® and D-Command® ES consoles.

Responding to feedback from users worldwide, the D-Command Producer’s Desk provides a Pro Tools® Custom (QWERTY) keyboard, mouse pad area, USB hub, and space for a computer monitor or note taking, enabling users to perform editing functions on the same surface level as their faders and encoders, and have an optimal space for their monitor. The Producer’s Desk is designed to match the D-Command form factor, and is available in two color schemes: the original blue color for D-Command and a darker scheme for D-Command ES.

“It’s essential for music and post-production professionals to maintain a position in the sweet spot while they’re working,” explains Max Gutnik, Digidesign’s marketing manager for professional products. “The D-Command Producer’s Desk creates a truly ergonomic work environment. By placing the control surface, keyboard, and mouse all within easy reach, and the monitor at a comfortable height and distance, the Producer’s Desk delivers an efficient and comfortable working environment for D-Command users.”

The D-Command Producer’s Desk is shipping soon and currently available for pre-order, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $3,995. Visit Digidesign at this year’s AES Convention in San Francisco, Calif., in booth #701. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid®, Digidesign, M-Audio®, Pinnacle Systems®, Sibelius®, Softimage® and Sundance Digital®. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

San Francisco, CA, AES Convention, Booth #701 — Digidesign today unveiled the third and newest member of its acclaimed Digidesign® 003® family — 003® Rack+ Factory. Featuring eight high-quality microphone preamps, 003 Rack+ Factory is a powerful option for those needing additional mic inputs to handle more complex recording projects.

“Today, Pro Tools LE users are taking on more demanding recording projects than ever before — both inside the studio as well as on stage,” says Dusty DiMercurio, Digidesign’s marketing manager for personal studio products. “The 003 Rack+ addresses a common customer request for additional microphone inputs to record more sources simultaneously without relying on additional outboard gear. We’re very excited to offer the 003 Rack+ Factory to these users as the next evolutionary step in our 003 product family.”

With 18 simultaneous channels of I/O, 003 Rack+ boasts the most extensive array of analog and digital audio I/O ever available from a Pro Tools LE® system, making it the ideal nexus of any home or project studio. Topping the I/O list are eight studio-quality mic preamps, which each feature switchable 48V phantom power and 20 dB pads, high-quality analog high-pass filters, and front-panel trim controls. For instruments and line-level connections, it offers eight analog DI/line inputs and outputs, including one DI/line input on the front panel for quick and easy plug-and-play recording. Digital connections include eight channels of ADAT optical I/O and two channels of S/PDIF digital I/O, along with 16 channels of MIDI I/O.

Dedicated studio monitor outputs and alternate control room outputs allow for connecting two sets of speakers, and dual discrete headphone outputs are ideal for providing separate mixes for the artist and recording engineer. Also included are a host of professional features, including BNC Word Clock I/O and alternate source input for external device monitoring.

003 Rack+ Factory comes bundled with Pro Tools LE 7.4 software; initial purchasers will be eligible to receive a free software upgrade to Pro Tools LE 8 when it becomes available. 003 Rack+ Factory also includes over 80 professional effects and virtual instrument plug-ins (valued at over $3,000), supports a wide variety of third-party plug-ins and software options, and allows for powerful expandability through Digidesign toolkit software options.

003 Rack+ Factory is available for pre-order, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $1,695. Digidesign has also reduced the price of the 003 Rack Factory to $1,495 (reflecting a $200 price drop). In addition, Digidesign offers a unique hardware exchange program, allowing legacy Pro Tools LE and select competitive product owners to trade in their hardware for a discount toward the purchase of a new 003 system; the program will be extended to include the new 003 Rack+ Factory as well.

Visit Digidesign at the AES Convention in San Francisco, Calif., in booth #701 to see 003 Rack+ Factory and Pro Tools® 8 software in action. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid®, Digidesign, M-Audio®, Pinnacle Systems®, Sibelius®, Softimage® and Sundance Digital®. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

San Francisco, CA, AES Convention, Booth #701 — Digidesign, a part of Avid Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID), today offered a preview of Pro Tools® 8, the next evolution of the widely-used music creation and audio production software. Completely updated with a new user interface, over 70 plug-ins and virtual instruments, fully-integrated MIDI and score editors, and an expanded array of editing features, the new Pro Tools 8 software (which includes Pro Tools|HD®, Pro Tools LE®, and Pro Tools M-Powered™), provides everything users need to create, compose, score, record, mix, produce and broadcast all in one powerful application.

“Pro Tools 8 benefits from the valuable feedback we received from our dedicated Pro Tools creative community, along with Avid’s passion for creating great audio and video tools that move technology forward,” explains Dave Lebolt, Avid senior vice president and chief technology officer. “Our customers provide a comprehensive real-world knowledge base that we draw upon for inspiration and guidance. It’s a synergy of size and scope unique to Pro Tools in the world of audio. We are very excited to deliver the latest results of this partnership back to our customers in the form of Pro Tools 8.”

At first glance, the most noticeable new feature in Pro Tools 8 is its striking user interface, which has been stylishly enhanced with a more modern color palette, as well as higher-contrast text and graphics. This redesigned user interface frames a dramatically expanded set of creative tools and a host of features for music creators, editors, mixers, and post production professionals. All the key Pro Tools functions that users rely on are still right where they should be, but enhancements, such as dockable Editor windows and a configurable Edit window toolbar, make it easier to navigate than ever before.

For composers and musicians, Pro Tools 8 provides powerful functionality for streamlining the creative process, as well as a robust bundle of over 70 plug-ins and virtual instruments, which deliver the most versatile sonic palette ever available out-of-the-box for Pro Tools. New music creation features include:

•Fully integrated, dockable MIDI and Score Editor windows for greatly enhanced MIDI editing functionality and professional score editing and printing

•A sizable collection of music creation and sound-processing plug-ins, including 20 all-new AIR effects and five new virtual instruments—Mini Grand piano, Boom drum machine, DB-33 tonewheel organ, Vacuum tube-modeled synthesizer, and Xpand!2™ sample player

•High-quality amplifiers simulation thanks to Digidesign’s acclaimed new guitar amp emulator Eleven™ Free as well as Tech21 SansAmp® amplifier emulator by Bomb Factory®

•A large bundle of high-quality loops

For music and post production professionals, Pro Tools 8 offers:

•Revolutionary new Elastic Pitch makes it easy to transpose music in real time right in the Edit window

•10 inserts per channel

•Enhanced controller integration with Digidesign® and M-Audio® control surfaces

•ICON integration enhancements that dramatically increase speed and efficiency

•HD QuickTime support on Mac OS X for dramatically increased versatility

Pro Tools|HD 8 enhances the extensive capabilities of Digidesign’s flagship Pro Tools|HD audio hardware, with support for the new Satellite Link option, which allows users to control up to five Pro Tools|HD systems as one. For the ultimate in post production efficiency, the Media Composer®-based Video Satellite option brings Avid® HD/SD video playback into the Pro Tools|HD audio workflow, while the Video Satellite LE option brings QuickTime HD/SD or Avid SD video playback into the Pro Tools|HD audio workflow, all without sacrificing audio track counts or processing power.

For project studio owners, Pro Tools LE 8 and Pro Tools M-Powered 8 have been expanded to support up to 48 simultaneous audio tracks. Adding the new Music Production Toolkit 2 or DV Toolkit™ 2 (Pro Tools LE only), gives users access to up to 64 audio tracks. And for serious Pro Tools LE users, the new Complete Production Toolkit (Pro Tools LE only) combines the content of both toolkits above, and offers up to 128 simultaneous audio tracks AND 7.1 surround mixing.

Pro Tools 8 software is expected to be available in late 2008 for Windows Vista- (32-bit Business or Ultimate), Windows XP-, and Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)-based Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools LE, and Pro Tools M-Powered systems.

Visit Digidesign at AES 2008 in booth #701 to see Pro Tools 8 software in action. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid®, Digidesign, M-Audio®, Pinnacle Systems®, Sibelius®, Softimage® and Sundance Digital®. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

Tewksbury, MA – Avid Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID), today announced that all of the Emmy Award winners across 31 Outstanding Picture Editing, Outstanding Sound Editing/Mixing, and Outstanding Program categories at the 60th Annual Emmy® Awards used at least one system from Avid® – or its Digidesign®, Softimage®, Sibelius® and M-Audio® brands – to create this year’s top television programming. A majority of these programs employed workflows consisting of multiple systems from the various Avid brands. In total, more than 140 nominees in 38 categories used Avid brand systems. From first-time nominees and winners such as Pushing Daisies, Damages or Flight of the Conchords, to repeat honorees such as 30 Rock, Lost or South Park, editing, audio and animation professionals continue to choose systems from the Avid family to achieve creative excellence.

“Once again, our customers continue to push the envelope and demonstrate the highest level of creativity that television has to offer,” said Gary Greenfield, CEO of Avid. “We congratulate these talented professionals on their continued success at this year’s Emmy Awards. The Avid family is thrilled to have supported them in the realization of their dreams.”

In recent years, it has become increasingly common for television production teams to use a range of Avid film, video, audio, animation, and broadcast solutions to meet their needs. For example, the team behind the hit TV series Lost, which received a 2008 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One-Hour)” and was nominated in several other categories, used Avid systems for editing, finishing and shared storage, and Digidesign Pro Tools® systems and M-Audio recorders and headphones to capture, mix and deliver the production’s highly realistic soundscapes.

To read profiles of 2008 nominees and winners – and quotes from the creative minds behind programs such as Lost, Pushing Daisies, Deadliest Catch, Flight of the Conchords, The Simpsons, South Park, John Adams and American Idol – please visit http://www.avid.com/emmys.asp?cmpid=emmy08pr_02

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems, Sibelius, Softimage and Sundance Digital. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar® statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy® and Emmy award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

Tewksbury, MA — Generating a combined revenue of more than $3.68 billion at the U.S. box office, the top 28 highest-grossing movies this summer were created by customers of Avid Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID) using systems from at least one Avid® brand. From The Dark Knight – the second film in history to top the half-billion dollar mark – to The House Bunny, the majority of these films deployed workflows consisting of multiple Avid systems. Among the systems customers used were Avid® Media Composer® systems, Avid DNxHD® 36 codec or Avid Unity™ MediaNetwork for video editing and shared storage; Digidesign® Pro Tools® for editing and mixing sound; Sibelius® 5 for music composition and scoring; and SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® for 3D animation, 3D design and visual effects.

”Our customers continue to thrill and entertain audiences around the world by using our integrated media tools in their creative process,” says Gary Greenfield, CEO of Avid. “Just as our customers achieve industry-defining success by leveraging the strength of each of our brands, Avid is committed to delivering the open and flexible solutions that will help our customers harness their creative talents and bring their dreams to reality today and in the future.”

To create The Dark Knight, the latest film in the Batman franchise, the team led by Lee Smith, A.C.E., used an Avid editing and Avid Unity shared-storage workflow to balance action-packed visual effects sequences with a dark and contemplative tone. Adding to the complexity of the project, the team was charged with creating an IMAX version in addition to the conventional film release. Originally the team ran 16 video tracks for different elements; however, that process soon became unwieldy trying to manage the content for two versions of the film. So, a color-coding scheme was developed on a single Avid timeline that helped create both an IMAX and a conventional theatrical release simultaneously. “When we could simply select the two vision tracks and go back and forth between the two, it made the entire process incredibly seamless,” says Smith.

For composer Hans Zimmer, creating the score for The Dark Knight involved a degree of complexity exceeding any of his previous projects. With literally stacks of proprietary sample playback machines delivering hundreds of outputs, the demands of multi-track recording could only be entrusted to Pro Tools|HD®. “Ultimately, the final project ended up containing well over 1,000 tracks, which is an organizational challenge in itself,” says Zimmer’s Technical Score Engineer, Peter “Oso” Snell. “We used five Pro Tools rigs for playback, and a sixth for capture. Pro Tools gives us the ability to stream and mix a tremendous number of tracks, using a range of TDM plug-ins. We depend on Pro Tools [hardware] as a rock-solid platform – ¬when we hit play, we know it will work.”

For the live-action, CG-heavy feature, The Incredible Hulk, four editors worked with six companies employed to handle 667 visual effects shots, 400 of which included CG characters. In addition, the creature design of Hulk and his nemesis, the Abomination, were both created using SOFTIMAGE|XSI software; and the sound for the film was mixed using Pro Tools hardware.

To handle the complex project of editing the film, nine Avid Media Composer Adrenaline™ systems connected to an Avid Unity MediaNetwork with 17 terabytes of shared storage enabled the four editors and a team of assistants to simultaneously access media and flexibly share projects on the fly. Shot on 35mm, anamorphic film, the filmmakers chose to edit in HD, using the Avid DNxHD 36 compression format to allow the creative team to view the most visually rich images during offline post, while taking advantage of a streamlined and storage-efficient editing environment.

The use of HD material also helped streamline the screening process, whether previewing dailies or the complete film. For example, during production in Toronto, the editing team created a selects reel in the Avid DNxHD 36 format and delivered it on a FireWire drive to a facility that had its own Avid setup connected to a large monitor for viewing dailies. “It made it so easy to get a good sense of all the material and be able to discuss it right away,” says Rick Shaine, one of the editors, who had never edited in HD before. “We were able to capture and work with the full extent of the image all along the way. So every monstrous pore, every twitching muscle, every textured lock of hair could be seen just as the filmmakers intended. It was a giant filmmaking task, fit for a super-hero.”

For the stereoscopic 3D film, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Quebec’s Hybride, one of the companies at the forefront of stereoscopic 3D, used SOFTIMAGE|XSI to create a range of objects in the film, such as a dinosaur skull, giant carnivorous plants and a flock of magical glowbirds. They also created several virtual environments, including a chamber of diamonds, a volcano and a thermal river. In all, a team of 80 people at Hybride spent more than 15 months creating 234 scenes in stereoscopic 3D for this film.

“One of the things that always helps make our job easier is SOFTIMAGE|XSI software,” says Philippe Theroux, Lead 3D Supervisor at Hybride. “SOFTIMAGE|XSI is the heart of Hybride’s pipeline. Everything revolves around it. Every aspect of our process is done around XSI, and we have to ensure that all our software is compatible with it.” The team at Hybride uses XSI for everything from modeling to texturing and rendering. And, of course, they use it extensively for animation. “All of the tools we have for animation in SOFTIMAGE|XSI are extremely helpful. In particular for this film, we were able to create rigs that were light and easy to work with for our animators and this was really great for these complex scenes,” adds Theroux.

Hancock, starring Will Smith, was edited on Avid systems, scored by legendary film composer John Powell and his orchestral team using Sibelius software, and mixed in Pro Tools. “Some of the features of Sibelius 5 that I find most useful and time-saving are the filter functions and the ability to change the appearance of rhythmic groupings in MIDI files,” says lead orchestrator John Ashton Thomas. “I use Sibelius for all my work as a film score orchestrator, and in all the work I do on my own music.” In addition to Hancock, Powell and his team used Sibelius to score a number of successful films, including Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears a Who, The Bourne Ultimatum, X-Men: The Last Stand, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Happy Feet, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Italian Job, Agent Cody Banks, and Shrek.

To read about other blockbusters that were created by Avid customers, please visit Get Smart, Sex and the City: The Movie.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio®, Pinnacle Systems®, Sibelius, Softimage and Sundance Digital®. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar® statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy® and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

Daly City, CA — Digidesign today announced Pro Tools Mania, a special one-day-only event taking place this Saturday, September 13, 2008. Hosted by participating dealers across the United States, Pro Tools Mania will feature incentive programs on Pro Tools LE systems and peripherals, as well as promotional giveaways, contests, educational seminars, and other special events.

As part of Pro Tools Mania festivities, the first 20 people to purchase an Mbox® 2 Pro, Mbox® 2 Pro Factory, 003 Rack, 003® Rack Factory, or 003 Factory at any participating dealer on September 13 will receive a free copy of Transfuser™ (normally $295 USD), Digidesign’s exciting new loop production virtual instrument. Participating Pro Tools Mania dealers will be offering other special incentives as well. In addition, local Digidesign representatives will be on hand at select locations to offer tips, give out free prizes, and more.

The top choice among artists of all levels, Pro Tools LE systems offer the ultimate, affordable way to compose, record, edit, and mix audio using a powerful personal studio based around the world’s most widely-used digital audio software. Pro Tools LE systems are turnkey solutions that combine Pro Tools LE software with a family of versatile, dependable hardware interfaces, ranging from the award-winning Mbox® 2 family to the acclaimed 003® Rack and 003® Factory. Each system also includes a full complement of professional sound processing plug-ins and virtual instruments, making it a complete package for music creation and sound production right out of the box.

Pro Tools LE systems also offer session compatibility with Pro Tools|HD® systems, the industry standard in professional recording and post-production studios worldwide. And because Digidesign offers the industry’s most attractive hardware exchange programs, allowing users to move up to other Pro Tools LE or Pro Tools|HD systems as their needs grow, Pro Tools Mania is a great opportunity for new users to get started making music, with powerful, professional-grade tools and workflows that will serve them now and in the future.

For information on participating dealer locations, visit the Digidesign website at www.digidesign.com/protoolsmania.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems, Sibelius, Softimage and Sundance Digital. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

London, PLASA Show — The Digidesign® D-Show Profile Mix Rack™ System, the newest addition to Digidesign’s award-winning VENUE family of live sound systems, has opened VENUE technology to a vast new user base around the globe.

Developed specifically for small- and mid-sized performance venues, houses of worship, touring, and fixed installations, or as an ideal drop-in upgrade for existing analog systems, the D-Show Profile Mix Rack System combines a D-Show Profile console with the new Mix Rack, a compact 11-space rack enclosure that incorporates all audio I/O (stage and local) and DSP into a single chassis. The resulting system combination offers the most compact, portable, and cost-effective way to take advantage of the unparalleled power and flexibility of VENUE, including native control of a vast library of TDM plug-ins and tight integration with Pro Tools® software for live multitrack recording and playback.

The small but powerful D-Show Profile Mix Rack System was the perfect fit for New York City’s newest hot spot, (Le) Poisson Rouge. Designed by the Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG) on the site of the famed Village Gate nightclub, this state-of-the-art performance venue boasts two stages and a flexible sound system that can be configured for stereo, surround, or several other sound modes with the touch of a button.

“Space was at a premium here, and because (Le) Poisson Rouge is essentially multiple clubs, depending on the setup, we needed a system that was both powerful and easily reconfigured,” explains Masque Sound audio specialist Paul Klimson, who, together with WSDG’s David Kotch, collaborated on the system installation. “The Profile Mix Rack System was an ideal solution because it’s self-contained and requires no external effects rack.”

In the UK, leading nightclub operator Academy Music Group (AMG) was first out of the gate to purchase a D-Show Profile Mix Rack system for its Carling Islington Academy music venue, enabling the facility to increase its booking cachet by offering live multi-track recordings as an additional service. “Pro Tools integration was a significant factor in AMG’s decision to purchase the [VENUE Profile] Mix Rack System,” explains HD Pro Audio’s Andy Huffer. “Multi-track recording via a convenient industry standard, such as Pro Tools, is becoming increasingly important for live venues these days.”

Inside the O2 (formerly known as the Millennium Dome), London’s hot spot Matter is designed to operate as a live venue, nightclub, performing arts space, or VIP club. The 2,600-capacity auditorium’s unique audio and video features include a D-Show Profile Mix Rack System.

The D-Show Profile Mix Rack System has also been popular on small- and mid-sized tours. FOH engineer Jayme Braun (Switchfoot, Israel and New Breed, Bryan White, and The Next American Band winners The Clark Brothers) selected the Profile and Mix Rack combo for the recent US-based Adore Worship Tour. A veteran of numerous live Pro Tools recordings, Braun had nothing but praise for the new compact Digidesign system.

“It’s just been a dream come true,” he remarks. “I’ve used VENUE since it first came out, and I’ve always been a fan of its sound and its functionality. Adding the [VENUE Profile and] Mix Rack makes it hands down the most efficient and portable rig I’ve ever worked with. Just take two lids off, plug in two cables, and you’re ready to go. I would love to take this with me wherever I go.”

Singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw has been touring with a VENUE Profile Mix Rack System through the U.S. and UK as well. “The combination of Mix Rack and [VENUE] Profile is unbelievably powerful,” remarks DeGraw’s FOH engineer, Erick Celeiro. “Right now, we’re bouncing between 100-seat theaters, TV appearances, clubs, and festivals. The [VENUE] Profile and Mix Rack is really the only system that’s flexible enough for me to work with across such a wide range of venues.”

For Michael Story, director of Story Sound, one of Holland’s largest rental houses, the VENUE Profile Mix Rack System has proven to be one of the most in-demand items in his arsenal. “Adding a [VENUE] Profile Mix Rack System to our existing three VENUE systems has enabled us to offer a much wider range of systems to our theater-oriented customer base,” he says. “The combination of Mix Rack and [VENUE] Profile has provided us with a powerful product that outperforms the alternatives, at a competitive rate.”

About VENUE

Digidesign’s VENUE live sound environment is revolutionizing the art and profession of live sound mixing with studio-quality sound, TDM plug-in effects processing, and direct connectivity to industry-standard Pro Tools® recording and playback systems. The Mix Rack is sold exclusively as part of the Profile Mix Rack system, although the Mix Rack is fully compatible with VENUE D-Show ® control surfaces. For more information about the VENUE line of products, visit www.digidesign.com/venue.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

Daly City, CA — Dave Mustaine knows a thing or two about guitar sound. As one of the founding fathers of thrash metal, Mustaine’s years of crunching power chords with his band Megadeth have placed his signature licks front and center on some of the genre’s most memorable and oft-covered recordings. Beginning with the band’s 1984 debut, Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good, Megadeth has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and received seven Grammy® nominations, with six of their eleven studio albums charting gold or platinum in the U.S. and Canada.

Like most artists, Mustaine’s Pro Tools®-based project studio in Southern California is his creative nexus; the place where he and the newly regrouped Megadeth nurtured the seeds of the band’s latest release, United Abominations, and where Mustaine experiments with pushing the boundaries of the genre he helped create. Lately, he’s been plugging in to more than just a stack of amps to find those new sounds, and is spending lots of time with Digidesign’s acclaimed new guitar amp emulation plug-in, Eleven™

“When I fired Eleven up for the first time, I sat down on the couch in the studio and just closed my eyes, and I really felt like I had an amp rig in front of me,” Mustaine says. “It’s not just the sound, because a lot of amp emulation programs can create a good distortion or overdrive or whatever. But Eleven goes even farther — it’s the only emulation program I’ve tried that can actually get the sound of a speaker cone breakup, for example, and that does a lot for the whole realism factor.”

No stranger to technology, Mustaine has tried almost every amp emulation hardware and software product available. “Some emulation programs do a few sounds really well,” he says. “But Eleven is the first app I’ve used that sounds and reacts so realistically across such a wide range of sounds. It actually interacts with my guitar and with my playing style in the same way a real amp and cabinet does. That’s something I’ve never experienced with any other program before.”

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems, Sibelius, Softimage and Sundance Digital. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

Daly City, CA — Every time Kevin Moore puts out an album, he gains a new wave of fans. The urbane bluesman — better known as Keb’ Mo’ — has gone from playing obscure clubs in south central L.A. to filling halls across several continents. His current tour in support of his new album, Suitcase, has him bouncing between Europe and North America, alternating between headlining and sharing the stage with the likes of Taj Mahal and Robert Cray. At the FOH and monitor helms are two Digidesign® VENUE live sound systems.

Both Moore’s longtime FOH engineer, John Schirmer, and monitor engineer Roland Ryan are mixing the shows on D-Show® Profile™ consoles. As Schirmer explains, the VENUE systems are a welcome addition for an artist like Moore.

“I’ve toured with pretty much every digital console there is,” he says. “On some of them, I’ve actually bypassed the preamps completely, because they just didn’t sound right. VENUE is sonically superior to any other digital console.”

The acoustic guitar factors heavily in Moore’s sound, with arrangements that are spare, tight, and organic, making sound quality and imaging even more important. “These days fidelity is important in every show you do,” says Schirmer. “I can’t get away with hiding stuff behind a distorted drum kit. With VENUE I don’t have to play damage control, hiding this with that — I can mix to mix.”

VENUE’s native support of the wide range of TDM plug-ins is an important factor to Schirmer. “Being able to use emulations of vintage compressors really makes my life easier,” he explains. “I can really bring out the detail of the instruments, using plug-ins I’m familiar with. Using VENUE lets me bring some of my studio chops to live mixing, and my live mixing chops to the studio. It all melds together for me, and that helps me be a better engineer.”

Indeed, VENUE’s compatibility with Pro Tools® also plays an important role in the creative process. “Kevin uses Pro Tools|HD in his project studio at home,” says Schirmer. “In fact, we used Pro Tools to track and mix the last record. Kevin has been mixing exclusively in the box since the introduction of Pro Tools|HD. We’re using Pro Tools somewhere pretty much every day.”

Schirmer continues, “Taking the VENUE system on the road allows us to track every show. We’re looking at bringing those shows to the studio, mastering them, and making them available online to his fans.”

Schirmer cites the VENUE system’s Virtual Soundcheck as a major workflow benefit over other consoles he’s used. “Being able to use the live tracks from last night’s gig, compare reverbs, EQs, and set up my mix, that’s just incredible,” he says. “Even if we were lucky enough to get as long a sound check as we want — and how often does that ever happen? — it’s still not the same. A band is never going to play with the same feel and intensity during sound check as they do in front of the crowd. With Virtual Soundcheck, I can loop a piece of last night’s performance, let these guys go have dinner, and pick stuff apart that I’d never have time to do during the gig.”

About VENUE

Digidesign’s VENUE live sound environment is revolutionizing the art and profession of live sound mixing with studio-quality sound, TDM plug-in effects processing, and direct connectivity to industry-standard Pro Tools® recording and playback systems. For more information about the VENUE line of products, visit www.digidesign.com/venue.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid®, Digidesign, M-Audio®, Pinnacle Systems®, Sibelius®, Softimage® and Sundance Digital®. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

Daly City, CA — As the highly-anticipated Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival kicks off in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park this weekend, much of the live music will be produced and delivered through digital audio solutions from Bay Area audio technology pioneer Digidesign, a part of Avid Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID). In fact, most of the festival’s performers produced their music in the studio using Digidesign® Pro Tools® systems, and all three headliners including Radiohead, Tom Petty and Jack Johnson, as well as featured performers Beck and Steve Winwood among others, will all deploy Digidesign’s award-winning VENUE live sound systems for their performances at the event.

For more than two decades, Pro Tools has been the revolutionary force behind digital music recording, allowing studios to replace tape-based recording systems with a powerful digital alternative that merges near limitless mixing and editing potential with high-resolution audio. This powerful combination established Pro Tools as the most widely used music recording and mixing software in the world. Many of the performers gracing the stages at the Outside Lands festival this weekend, from eclectic local favorites to chart-topping household names, rely on Pro Tools every day to write, record, and produce their music either at home, or in professional recording studios.

But it’s not just in the studio where Digidesign is driving the music industry forward; this weekend, many Outside Lands attendees will hear how Digidesign is revolutionizing the live sound listening experience as well. All three Outside Lands headliners and many featured performers are using Digidesign VENUE live sound systems to mix the sound during their performances. By combining the power of native plug-in processing (which replaces racks of outboard analog gear) and digital audio quality, with the multi-track recording capabilities of Pro Tools, Digidesign VENUE systems allow artists and live sound engineers to bring many of the same tools that revolutionized the studio to live music.

“VENUE has had a tremendous impact on the way we work,” says Brian Hendry, monitor engineer for classic rockers Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “It’s streamlined my workflow, greatly reduced our setup time, and dramatically lessened the amount of equipment we carry. More to the point, it’s improved our sound quality.”

Robert Scovill — Digidesign’s market manager for live sound products and an award-winning live sound engineer who has worked with such bands as Matchbox Twenty, Rush, Prince, and Def Leppard — attributes the VENUE system’s quick acceptance to a changing music industry and evolving customer expectations.

“With the dramatic improvements in the quality of recorded music over the past 20 years, fans have become far more sophisticated, and their listening expectations are considerably higher,” Scovill says. “In addition, Internet-based technologies such as iTunes have created a level of consumer immediacy and a desire, on behalf of artists and management, to capture high-quality live recordings for fast delivery to their eager fans. The VENUE system’s ability to combine live sound mixing with industry-standard recording and production tools such as Pro Tools recording software is enabling engineers and musicians to meet the increasingly sophisticated demands of their listeners.”

Indeed, new media specialists Third Wave Productions will rely on Pro Tools technology as they capture and mix high-resolution audio of the Festival’s performances for live webcast on AT&T’s Blue Room website, and again to mixdown multi-track recordings of the performances slated for later use. As Third Wave’s Terry Fryer observes, “it’s only through great advances in audio technology like Pro Tools that it’s now possible to achieve, in real time, a level of sound quality worthy of a live webcast like this one. Digidesign has enabled today’s artists and productions to bring studio-quality sound to live performance, and to the Internet.”

To learn more about Digidesign’s award-winning audio production and live sound technologies visit www.digidesign.com

More information about the Outside Lands festival can be found at www.sfoutsidelands.com

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems, Sibelius, Softimage and Sundance Digital. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.