At Avid Connect Live Nashville at Summer NAMM 2019, the company has unveiled two new audio control surfaces—the Avid S4 and S1— designed for smaller facilities and project studios, and they’re expected to be available in late 2019.
“The Avid S4 and S1 control surfaces open up a world of capabilities never before possible for music mixers, smaller studios and educational facilities, answering our customers’ calls for the power, workflows and key functions of Pro Tools | S6 in more streamlined and affordable in-studio solutions,” says Rob D’Amico, director, audio and video segment at Avid. “Avid control surface, software, audio I/O, and monitoring capabilities combine to create a professional system with control and flexibility at the user’s fingertips.”
Designed for small- to mid-sized music studios and audio post facilities, the S4 delivers the workflows of the S6. It’s designed to act and feel like a physical extension of software, providing an integrated experience with any EUCON-enabled DAW, such as Pro Tools, Nuendo, Pyramix, Logic Pro, Cubase, and other audio software.
S4 also allows engineers to quickly assign and control talkback, listenback, and speaker sources and levels right from the surface to handle everything from simple cue mixes for music recording to monitoring immersive audio projects.
Visual feedback includes the ability to display everything from channel meters, groups, EQ curves, and automation data, to scrolling high-res Pro Tools waveforms, which can be edited right from the surface. The semi-modular surface can be used to tailor specific workflows, from 8 to 24 faders, with the ability to add displays, joystick, post, and knob modules. When paired with Pro Tools | Ultimate, S4 brings efficient hands-on Dolby Atmos mixing in the industry to any room.
Meanwhile, the S1 is designed to help deliver better sounding mixes faster. Like the S6 and S4, the new S1 is powered by EUCON to offer integration with Pro Tools and Media Composer, plus native support for third-party applications such as Logic Pro, Cubase, Premiere Pro, and more.
With S1, users can scale the surface as their needs grow. Up to four units can be connected together—and even add Pro Tools | Dock—to create a single extended and integrated surface.
