Avid Pro Tools Carbon Audio Interface Is a Dead End

With competition in the studio recording and particularly in the music production market segments heating up while computer interfaces and network technologies continue to evolve at a fast pace, Avid finds itself increasingly in a hot spot. The industry standard Pro Tools software is facing aggressive competition from all directions, while Avid's hardware days are now long gone. The company needed to do something for the project/small studio market, which they are loosing fast, and so they launched Pro Tools Carbon, a new audio interface.

German manufacturer RME Audio launched the new 12Mic, AVB Tool and M-1610 Pro solutions at the 2020 NAMM Show. The three new audio networking products provide professionals with state-of-the-art mic preamps, flexible conversion and recording solutions for AVB and MADI applications. These products are now AVB-Milan compatible and are complemented with the new AVDECC controller, a software GUI for use alongside the device’s AVB networking capabilities.

Mark of The Unicorn is shipping its new MOTU 112D digital audio interface, which features MADI, AES/EBU, Optical and AVB connectivity. Introduced at the NAMM 2015, the new MOTU 112D is a flexible Thunderbolt-equipped digital audio interface, router, format converter and mixer.

In July 2014, Mark of The Unicorn (MOTU) surprised the industry announcing a range of USB/Thunderbolt audio interfaces complemented with Audio Video Bridging (IEEE 802.1 AVB) network technology. Since AVB requires the use of dedicated (AVB-certified) routers and switchers, MOTU also announced its own AVB Switch. Now, MOTU reinforced the range with two new AVB 24-channel interfaces.

The new Pro Tools | S3 desktop control surface is a great middle level mixing solution, leveraging the same design of the S3 Live, including a 4x6 AVB Core Audio interface, for small project studios or on-the-go music and post mixing. During the 137th AES convention, Avid also announced new Pro Tools 11 licensing incentives, by providing access to future cloud features and software upgrades through March 2016.

The new MOTU 1248, 8M and 16A audio interfaces provide Thunderbolt or high-speed USB 2.0 (compatible with USB 3.0), on-board DSP with mixing and effects, supporting a flexible 48-input digital mixer with dynamics modeled from British consoles. The new MOTU audio recording interfaces are also the first to use AVB audio networking for large multichannel configurations.