New Avid S4 and S1 surfaces for smaller facilities
Posted on: Friday 19th of July 2019
Avid has introduced two new audio control surfaces – the Avid S4 and S1 – designed for smaller facilities and project studios, expected to be available 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 (Resolution V18.1), 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 in a more compact package. “Bring the robust workflows of S6 to your smaller rooms for immersive audio mixing, sound design, ADR, and editorial. S4 provides the versatility you need to take on any project—from film, TV, and OTT media, to commercials and games.” It’s designed to provide an integrated experience with any EUCON-enabled DAW, including major DAWs such as Pro Tools, Nuendo, Pyramix, Logic Pro, Cubase.
S4 allows engineers to quickly assign and control talkback, listen-back, and speaker sources and levels 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 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.
Like the S6 and S4, the new S1 is powered by EUCON to offer “Massive mixing power for small spaces”, integration with Pro Tools and Media Composer, plus native support for third-party applications . With S1, users can scale the surface as their needs grow. Up to four units can be connected together—and add Pro Tools | Dock—to create a single extended and integrated surface. S1 not only features high-res OLED displays, it integrates with the free Pro Tools | Control iPad app, providing rich visual feedback to enhance your workflow. From track names, parameter values, and automation, to S6-style monitoring (up to 9.1), metering, and channel processing views, you get the comprehensive feedback of a high-end console in a versatile surface for the budget-minded.
Avid intend to show the Avid S1 at both IBC in September and AES in October and the Avid S1 is expected to be available towards the end of this year – price to be confirmed – but expected to be comparable to the Artist Mix.
