When will AVID release a series of AllInOne HDX Audio Interfaces?

[BScout]

Originally Posted by edwinstar

thanks! maybe as a future product AVID should release a HDX+thunderbolt card for direct install into the MTRX then?

The MTRX is designed, built, and supported by DAD. It just has a giant AVID brand on it. AVID have nothing to do with its development.

DAD have shown an additional minidigilink option card coming for the MTRX (so to HDX systems, verses just being seen as 64 channels, it will soon be able to be seen as 128 channels.)
And they have one processor card (SPQ)

But the market for someone buying an interface with a base price of $4k who wants to lose a slot to an HDX processor is going to be awful small. We keep maxing out the slots already.

For people who buy these, how much of a new market will be willing to pay a minimum of $8,600? Is that the price point you are thinking for yourself? ($4k base unit, $2.5k HDX, $2.1k for just 8 channels DA out for monitoring)

[Darryl Ramm]

And you have to throw away compatibility with existing HDX cards, and you have limited in-box DSP expansion capability, and ...

The idea makes no sense.

A stand alone HDX Thunderbolt 3 DSP box might... but you can do that today with a Thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis... and it's a very small market so why invest all the engineering work... and I suspect Avid may not have the engineering team on-board any more that could anything radical here even if it made sense. Then you have the mess of Thunderbolt 3 support on Windows to deal with (should get better in the future with USB 4, thank you Intel)...

It's hard to guess what Avid will do post DigiLink. They seem tied to it for a significant time, and while tied to it that pretty much constrains them from other interface/packaging innovation.

[edwinstar]

I also find MTRX too expensive for my needs. I imagine something in the line of UAD Apollo.
I see more than one manufacturer adding DSP to their Interface Mixer, it's almost a trend. But I don't understand why the "King" of DSP supported DAWs doesn't make more use of its unique combination of integrated hardware and software.

An Apollo Style HDX Interface would have:
- Thunderbolt connectivity
- An integrated HDX Card
- 8 Analog Ins and Outs (Some of them Mic Pres), 8 ADAT Ins and Outs (that can also make use of DSP)
- some basic Monitoring capabilities (A/B Speaker switch, Level control)
- A software Mixer, to be used whenever you are not using PT
- no fan!

They even have something close already, so why not call it Avid OMNI 2 HDX!

I think making HDX an integral part of All Avid Interfaces would make sense and I would totally buy it yeah, one sold already

[Darryl Ramm]

If a MTRX is too expensive for you do you think an interface with a HDX-1 or large part of it internally is going to a lot cheaper?

And would you be willing to throw away your current HDX card and upgrade to some next generation packaging of Avid DSP technology?

The internal DSP architecture and integration with Pro Tools in HDX and with UAD DSP are very different-polar opposites. Could Avid remote-extend the TDM bus interconnect usually used to connect between HDX cards to be remote over Thunderbolt? Maybe, but stuff like that would be a lot of work, and the current HDX cards may not be able to do it. And it's not clear Avid has the resources or desire to do this, especially as they have exited so much or the hardware/interface market and are not rebadging third party Digilink interface. If I was them I'd not be interested in doing all that work for a small market, and maybe to drive away more existing Digilink Interface users and lose more of those, the most I might do would be to sell a pre-packaged Thunderbolt 3/HDX card enclosure (would likely depend on the new Mac Pro and USB-4/Thunderbolt 3 Support on Windows).

[albee1952]

Speaking only from my own experience recording bands, my HD/Native system was an absolute treat to work on. I had an off-lease HP Z820 tower(12 core 3.5GHz, 64GB RAM) and had no issues recording up to 32 live inputs(all the preamps I had) at a 64 buffer setting. Keeping ADC in the 4-11 samples range(by careful choices on plugins), I gave players up to 6 stereo headphone mixes(using AUX sends in the session) and the only time I heard any mention of latency was if I did something wrong The HP Z820 cost me around $1400 after I added an nVidia graphics card(one that could handle 3 screens) and a PCIe card for more USB3 ports With second-hand Native PCIe cards, its way less $ than HDX

[edwinstar]

Thanks for your answers!
I had HD Native Thunderbolt with a Retina MacBookPro and was very dissapointed.
I also have a 2010 MacPro with HDX and love it.
But for a One Room Project Studio, HDX with HD I/O is too noisy and too big to carry outside once in a while.
Of course Avid would have to lower HDX prices (the parts of the card only can‘t be that expensive) and make it accessible to the Project Studio / Bedroom Producer Market as UAD does.
When i read your answers i get the feeling that not many people, maybe not even Avid fully gets the beauty of HDX with ProTools and why it‘s important to further develop this Product!


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[albee1952]

Originally Posted by edwinstar

Thanks for your answers!
I had HD Native Thunderbolt with a Retina MacBookPro and was very dissapointed.
I also have a 2010 MacPro with HDX and love it.
But for a One Room Project Studio, HDX with HD I/O is too noisy and too big to carry outside once in a while.
Of course Avid would have to lower HDX prices (the parts of the card only can‘t be that expensive) and make it accessible to the Project Studio / Bedroom Producer Market as UAD does.
When i read your answers i get the feeling that not many people, maybe not even Avid fully gets the beauty of HDX with ProTools and why it‘s important to further develop this Product!


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Once again, only my opinion. Project studios and bedroom producers don't need HDX. In fact, many of the pros I know are seriously considering moving their mix projects to HDN. What about HDN was/is an issue for you?

[BScout]

Companies sell products for profit. Not to cover the cost of parts (which also needs to cover the cost of development (amortized) and marketing and manufacture and distribution/storage before starting to make a profit)

HDX was never targeted to bedroom/project users. They are poor (by comparison to pros). Which means not much in the way of sales. That’s why regular Pro Tools exists. The beauty of HDX (or TDM or even going back to the beginnings of Pro Tools) is a mixer-on-chip controllable directly from a DAW. It isn’t actually the plugin support. When UA starts building a full DAW that manages the console, these would be competing products.

The funny thing is it seems most don’t remember the price of HDX (or TDM Accel/Core) when it came out. It was $7k (iirc and included the software). There was a big uproar because Avid was trying to stick to the pricing based around Core/Accel. So they pretty much halved the cost about 6 months later and then separated the software from the HDX price. So now project studios look at $2.5k and see it’s possibly within grasp (or they’ve bought old TDM systems as the prices tanked on them in the used market.) If Avid had stuck at $7k, these same folks wouldn’t even think HDX was in reach but now they want the price even cheaper.

Like looking at a $200k sports car you just go “that’s cool”, next day finding it at $60k and suddenly you’re looking at your car budget of $30k and thinking “if it comes down a little lower, I can actually buy that!”

And if you think Avid should target the high volume, low margin world of project studios with HDX, you should realize the difference in sales between an audio post house opening an extra room or pro music room vs how many project rooms they'd have to sell to. The project studios would make sense if Avid’s profit for HDX was coming from plugin sales since it expands the user base (and Avid makes practically no money from plugins unlike UA’s model for UAD) but the plugins exist to sell HDX systems (multiple cards), multiple audio interfaces to hook to those, and control surfaces. Hopefully all of those in one sale.

[propower]

I believe the higher end of the "bedroom market" has always been much larger than threads like this imply. Apollo came out many years ago. If it would have been answered with simply including enough DSP in an 8X8 AVID i/o to track with (maybe 1/4 of an HDX card) - TB and PCI with add in card for PCs I believe they could have charged $4k+ (heck the list on these without DSP is still more than this!) and made a lot of $$. Could have done a similar thing repackaging the OMNI etc... This would have also energized the Plugin developers by hugely expanding the user base. Today - with all that has happened since - not sure this would make fiscal sense anymore...

[edwinstar]

Yes, i think your right! But is it too late? Let‘s discuss the possible future of HDX! What are YOUR visions?