Introduction

I believe that Digidesign s Pro Tools system for recording, editing and mixing audio is one of the most significant systems to have been developed within the last century for professional audio work. Computer-based audio recording equipment has been available since the latter part of the 1980s and the Digidesign system was not the first to be developed. It is also true that there are many competing systems available. However, Pro Tools is now undoubtedly the leading such system used for professional music recording around the globe.

So how has it become possible for a desktop computer-based system to rival the high-end professional audio mixers and recorders? This revolution has partly been brought about by the inexorable rise in processing power and storage capacities available in desktop systems allied to the falling costs of these computers, components such as RAM, and peripherals such as hard drives. Developments in DSP technologies have also paved the way. Nevertheless, full credit must be given to the people at Digidesign who had the vision to see the potential in targeting the professional market, allying with industry leaders in the non-linear video editing market AVID (Digidesign s parent company since the mid-1990s) and allying with hordes of third-party developers. These third-party developers have developed the incredible range of signal processing software plug-ins along with hardware peripherals such as the Focusrite Control24 that have helped to take Pro Tools to the top.

This breakthrough has not come without a price though. Producers, engineers, composers and musicians used to working...