What's the next step for Digidesign?

[Kirkland]

Digidesign has, for the most part, maintained the same path for it's products since the late 90's now. High end users get HD systems and low end users get LE systems. It seems to me that offering only the extreme ends of the spectrum alienates a lot of customers in the middle. I'm wondering what is the next step for Digidesign to bridge the gap that exists between their low cost LE systems and their $10k and up HD systems.

Personally, I love working in Pro Tools. The audio editing is so intuitive and fluid and have always felt right at home. The problem is that I am not a hobbyist guitar player who wants to just record demos which is really what LE seems to be built for. By the same token though, I'm not interested in putting a ton of money into an HD system. I do post production work and the 32 (or even 48 in DV & Musicians Toolkit) just won't work for me. I can buy an Apogee Ensemble for $1999 and Cubase 4 for $799 and get as many tracks as I could want with solid MIDI sequencing and relatively very nice fidelity. I want to know if Digi is planning to offer a third choice in their product line that addresses these things. Possibly a somewhat configurable approach similar to MOTU.

I'm not bashing Digi, I've always enjoyed using Pro Tools. I'm just wanting to know if they realize that they are losing customers like me. Customers who I think would have no problem jumping back on the wagon if only they had something better to offer that segment of the market. I don't mind spending $3,000 to $5,000 for a solid hardware/software package, but I can't justify spending $10k-$20k mainly to get software that has more of the features I need.

I know this has been talked about somewhat before, but I've never really heard a direct answer from Digidesign on this. What do you guys think is next- more of the same?

[Slim Shady]

If I remember right they (Digi) hinted in very very general terms when the 003 came out that there might be something in the works for the mid-range (between LE and HD) market. Obviously they never comment about or even aknowledge the existence of a product before it exists, so what (if indeed anything), it might be is up to pure speculation, but hopefully now that they've gotten their 002->003 EU compatibility refresh out of the gates we'll get to see what else they've been working sometime in the near future.

I'm not up for doing the searching right now, but if you want to go find that giant thread with all the 003 fallout posts in it there's a post by digi talking about how excited they are about new stuff in the pipeline (hopefully my memory is serving me well here...), it didn't say too much more than that, but I think you're right that the need is obvious and I think Digi is aware of it, hopefully they're able to come up with something that successfully fills that gap without feeling too feature-strangled.

[peppertree]

They can simply stop intentionally crippling LE vs. what competitive DAWs offer.

* Hardware expansion...allow me to add a Lightbridge to a 003 for more i/o. End the silly distinction between M-Powered and LE...the software just makes sure either a Digi box or ilok is visible on startup.
* Automatic Delay Compensation...allow me to use hardware inserts and UAD-1/Duende etc. at mix time as if they were full citizens, without having to take the extra step of compensating for their latency manually.

Those are the only two that are the most glaring, and once we have them we can bridge the gap ourselves, adding the MPTK/DVTK. We miss surround, and low-latency tracking, but those are survivable. The limitations on 5 inserts and on 48 tracks should also be pushed back...the hardware has outrun them.

[filosofem]

If I remember right they (Digi) hinted in very very general terms when the 003 came out that there might be something in the works for the mid-range (between LE and HD) market.

David Gibbons' response.









filosofem

[Kirkland]

Is there anything other than that vague little tidbit? It would be nice to hear a little more from Digidesign themselves on this.

[sunburst79]

If you hear anything from Digi it will be at the new products launch.

I always felt that that particular statement was more to calm the angry natives than any real indicater of forward thinking progress.

A great many longterm LE users were VERY dissapointed with the 003 as they were expecting much more.

[Andy Caretti]

Why would Digidesign choose to just do a refresh? [....]This left us free to pursue some other projects we’d long wanted to do, like the Mbox2 Pro, Mbox Mini,[...] and a bunch of other things I can’t talk about yet.

So they said they were too busy playing with an Mbox2, adding a phono pre-amp to create an Mbox pro, and removing the digital I\O to create an Mbox Mini, that the only thing they could do to improve the 003 was with a Word Clock.?!

... but stay tuned..they got "a bunch of other things".

Few weeks leter they introduced the Digidesign Monitor series.
I guess put the Digi logo on a pair of PMC was an hard work.

[filosofem]

they [Digidesign] were too busy playing with an Mbox2, adding a phono pre-amp to create an Mbox pro

Actually, the AD-DA Converter technology is what sets the Mbox 2 Pro apart from the Mbox 2 and in fact Digidesign have received TEC Award Nominations for this.

So not a lot of sitting around with their thumbs up their...








filosofem

[whitecat]

Actually, the AD-DA Converter technology is what sets the Mbox 2 Pro apart from the Mbox 2 and in fact Digidesign have received TEC Award Nominations for this.

TEC awards are pretty meaningless, they seem to be more an award for marketing than for actual technology.

[filosofem]

How do you sell indifference?








filosofem