Avid Launches New Pro Series Plugins for Pro Tools – Compressor, Expander, & Limiter
This is an inside job – the latest additions to Avid’s AAX plugin portfolio for Pro Tools comes from Avid itself.
On display at NAMM was the freshly launched Pro Series line of AAX Native and AAX DSP plug-ins, which feature three new processors: the Pro Compressor and Pro Expander are available now for an MSRP of $99, plus the Pro Limiter which will arrive soon.
The Pro Compressor is one of three new AAX plugins available from Avid.
The Avid Pro Series of plugins work with AAX DSP and AAX Native systems, including Pro Tools|HDX, Pro Tools|HD Native, and any system using Pro Tools 10 and higher software. According to Avid, the Pro Series is designed to provide extremely high sound quality, comprehensive metering, extremely low latency, and efficient DSP usage.
Here’s more from Avid about the first of what will probably be many Pro Series plugins:
• “Pro Limiter is a transparent-sounding limiter that enables you to maximize the loudness of any mix, without distortion or harshness. It offers a variety of features that enable you to control how it reacts, with great precision, including:
o Clean and transparent sound that sits well in the mix while maintaining tight control over output levels
o Unique character knob adds soft saturation to signals, enabling an increase in loudness and a higher amount of gain reduction
o EBU R128 loudness metering enables you to normalize broadcast audio to EBU specifications quickly
• Pro Compressor is a high-quality compressor based on the Avid System 5 console and Channel Strip plug-in (which is bundled with Pro Tools 10 software), enabling you to shape sounds, enhance tracks, and breathe life into mixes. But it offers a wide range of features and improvements that go way beyond the Channel Strip, including:
o Four advanced detectors, plus a unique SMART mode, change how to the compressor sounds and reacts
o Solo function isolates just the gain reduction part of the audio material, enabling faster and easier settings adjustments
o Parallel compression feature allows users to blend the compressor signal path with the unprocessed input material
• Pro Expander is also based on the Avid Channel Strip plug-in, enabling you to give mixes more energy, gate noise, and duck signals. It offers a handful of easy-to-use features and improvements, including some unique elements not found in Pro Compressor, including:
o Look ahead mode with up to 15 milliseconds of “look ahead” for perfect results when setting a hard gate, even on low frequency signals
o Upward mode increases the dynamics in the material, allowing for more creativity—especially when used with a steep Q side-channel filter setting
o Ducker mode, with its own optimized algorithm and detector, emulates the sound and natural feel of radio programming fader moves”
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