The annual NAB convention in Las Vegas was somewhat of a bust this year. I was there only on Thursday, the last day of the show, and convention center was already emptying out. Typically the show brings in over 100,000 visitors, but this year looked smaller.
Digidesign was not showing much new material, other than a 7.4 update of Pro Tools, which can access media over an Ethernet network.
Euphonix was showing their new System 5 Fusion console, which combines their existing System 5 Digital Console with the controller surface functions to directly control either Pro Tools or Nuendo with the same faders are the digital audio tracks. The design is scaled down significantly to drop the cost to less than a third of the existing System 5. It's clearly a reaction to the Pro Tools Icon surface.
The real question is, if you have Pro Tools anyway, why invest in a Euphonix console at this point? The Icon will still cost about a third of the System 5 Fusion. Is it worth another $100,000 to be able to run Nuendo and digital audio at the same time?
1 comment:
I dunno, I can see the value if your mixers all know the Euphonix interface already. I'm much more comfortable running automation through the Euphonix interface than doing plug-in automation in Pro Tools, where I have comparatively little experience.
You're right that 100,000 is a touch steep for that kind of functionality. But I love the Euphonix interface in general, so I'll just continue geeking out.
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