I always try to report from the Avid/Digidesign booth at when I cover trade shows that I attend but this year I don’t have much to say. I’ve already told you about the updated instruments, aside from that there wasn’t much new from Avid at NAMM.

Their booth was pretty much just benches set up for meetings, the current product lines behind glass, as well as an Eleven Rack for visitors to play with.

I noticed one funny thing: while M-Audio and Sibelius logo’s were on the Avid banner, Digidesign wasn’t. Instead it said Pro Tools and Venue. What does it mean? Nothing we don’t already know. Just a funny observation.

Avid’s only news at this years NAMM was updates, some were minor, some were bigger, all were welcome and all were AIR.
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Avid wants you to trade in your analog or digital live sound console towards a Venue system. The original retail price must be €3,380 or higher, you can save up to 20% off the retail price. I guess you could pick up one of the many old used-to-be-more-expensive-than-anything-but-is-now-barely-worth-a-buck-digital-console if you don’t already have one.

Offer expires March 19, 2010.

More at Digidesign

Avid has released an update for Eleven Rack but it’s in fact recommended for all systems regardless if you use Eleven Rack or not. The reason is to provide session compatibility with other users that may have an Eleven Rack.

From Avid/Digidesign:

What’s Fixed in This Update?

Runtime error, access violation, crash, and possible session corruption with Pro Tools 8.0.3 and Eleven Rack (Item #121196)

• The Eleven Rack Update for Pro Tools 8.0.3 resolves an issue in which Pro Tools 8.0.3 (HD, LE, or M-Powered) with Eleven Rack could experience a Runtime error, access violation, or crash after creating a new session. In some cases, Pro Tools would quit without saving the session.
• On Mac, problems with the appearance and use of the Eleven Rack user interface window in Pro Tools were also seen in some cases.

Grab the update it requires 8.0.3.

In this post I’ve listed all the standalone applications I could think of that in some way aids Pro Tools or Pro Tools users. Some of them do very simple and specific things, tools that are just handy to keep around, others are large multi-purpose applications intended for the big production studios.
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If you’re running a quad iMac (i5) the following technical alert from Avid/Digidesign might be of interest to you:

These machines have not been qualified by Avid yet, but we wanted to let you know of this issue as it came up. Disabling Bluetooth should resolve SWODs, hangs, crashes and other odd behavior when using Pro Tools.

The second technical alert is regarding Eleven Rack and PT LE 8.0.3. If you’re running Eleven Rack on Windows you’re advised not to upgrade.

We are investigating a late breaking issue found with the initial release of Pro Tools LE 8.0.3 for Windows. On Windows systems (XP, Vista, Win 7) with Eleven Rack and Pro Tools LE 8.0.3, a Runtime error can occur after creating a new session. In some cases, Pro Tools quits without saving the session. Given the possibility of losing session data, we recommend that Eleven Rack users on Windows DO NOT update to Pro Tools 8.0.3 until we are able to resolve this issue and make a fix available.

Venue D-Show 2.8.1 software upgrade is now available for $149. News includes, among other things, VCA and Group Spill.
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As ericdano said in his comment, Avid has posted 8.0.3 updates for Mac OS X HD, LE and M-Powered. Mac OS X Essential and Windows versions will be coming soon.
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Earlier this year Mackie showed the world that they had cracked the Digi code and that Pro Tools M-Powered could be run without Avid interfaces but with a Mackie one instead. Now it’s official, Loud (owners of Mackie) and Avid has signed an agreement that licenses the use of the Onyx-i series with Pro Tools M-Powered 8.
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A while ago I visited Avid/Digidesign to get a proper D-Command ES demo. I’ve fiddled with them a little, but if I’m going to spend the dough I’ll want an experienced user showing me around. I got to spend some time with it and even though I had no way near as much time to write a proper review of it I figured I should at least share my experience with you.
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