By Steve Ponte / Sweetwater Sound Chicago

First of all, let’s go ahead and state the obvious: The response to Digidesign’s Pro Tools 24 Mix has been nothing short of incredible. The platform that started as “Sound Tools” over a decade ago has evolved into a 64-track, fully automatable mixing system of astounding power and flexibility. And Sweetwater has placed more than 100 systems in the Windy City alone. The client list in Chicago includes television, radio, post production, recording studios, jingle houses, and sound design composers for CD-ROM and video game applications.

The first recording studios in Chicago to go Pro Tools were Hubbard St. Studios (owned by Jim Poulsom and Patrick Brennen), Libman Music (owned by Paul Libman), and O’Donnell / Salvatori – Total Audio (Marty O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori, owners). Their systems have literally evolved from basic Sound Tools two-track recording through the early 4- and 8-channel Pro Tools setups to Pro Tools III TDM-based systems. To say that these companies had the vision to see what was to come right from the beginning is pretty obvious. However, I’ve been doing business with all three for over 15 years, and they’ve been on the cutting edge of the newest technology every step of the way.

One of the first large installations went into Catfish Studios, owned by jingle producers Joel Raney and Jeff Boyle. It was the very first totally tapeless studio in Chicago with a 32-track Pro Tools system.

Originally, the Catfish producers had used a 2” tape machine and large format console to assemble commercial spots. They combined MIDI and live musicians to tape, then mixed. Once on tape though, if the players had gone and it wasn’t just right, they were stuck with what they had. Now with Pro Tools 24 they can continue to edit, tweak and correct while they mix until the spot is perfect.

Another early 32-track Pro Tools system was installed in a video post-production house, Swell Pictures, owned by Mike Topel. This audio room, run by engineer James Hoffman, was built specifically to do sound design and was actually the very first THX-certified surround audio room in all of Chicago. Besides the power of Pro Tools, Jim purchased a full arsenal of MIDI hardware and software, the heart of which is a fully loaded Kurzweil K2500X keyboard.

Radio stations have not ignored Pro Tools power, either. Stations where systems have been installed by Sweetwater include WTMX (3 systems), WLUP, WMVP and WCKG. Even well-known 20-year veteran radio personality Steve Dahl owns a personal system for himself.

Game manufacturers have found Pro Tools to be perfect for composition and sound design. Since everything is in the digital domain, file conversion is a snap. Eddie Heidenreich at TerraGlyph Interactive Studios has three systems, as does Kevin Xue Konami America. But the lead by system count would be Dave Zabriskie and John Hey at Williams Electronic Games. Each one of their six composers has a Pro Tools recording / editing system which they use with various MIDI sequencers like Studio Vision and Digital Performer. They also placed a 7th system in their recording studio, using Jaz cartridges to move projects back and forth to the composition suites.

ABC affiliate WLS/TV in Chicago uses Pro Tools to do their audio post. Lou Sabatini controls the whole operation with the elegant Mackie HUI control surface. They utilize Pro Tools machine control to shuttle the video tape around to spot up the audio to picture.

Another television facility to take Pro Tools to the front of the game is Harpo Studios, home of the immensely popular Oprah Winfrey Show. JR Chappel and his engineers record the show live into Pro Tools. They use a Mackie HUI to control everything and record it all to two 23 gig ultrawide hard disks. Once the show is done they can start editing immediately.

The last big installation went into Cutters video post-production facility. John Binder runs the Audio Department and the system will be installed into Mark DeVos’s room. This full-blown Pro Tools 24 system includes 64 tracks of record and playback, 48 channels of 24-bit I/O and 32 Motorola 56001 24-bit digital signal processing chips. All of this is tied together by the Digidesign TDM bus, which allows for all of these processors to be used at once. This system takes full advantage of Digidesign’s open architecture and compliance to Macintosh protocols, allowing for off-the-shelf digital picture support. This gives them random access audio and picture, all in one system. This monster setup is controlled by Digi’s 32-fader Pro Control surface. The moving fader controller communicates with Pro Tools via ethernet, which makes the connection to Pro Tools fast and extremely stable. The last part of this install is $15,000 worth of plug-ins. This is the whole shooting match — pretty much every single software processor available, from high quality Focusrite EQs and compressors, to stand-alone ADR products from Gallery. It’s quite the piece, and with two 15.1 flat screen displays, as you can easily imagine, it looks really cool as well!

Pro Tools can work in almost any audio environment, and because it’s a single file that controls the whole system, everything can be automated and programmed for instant recall of every single parameter of . . . well, everything!

This brief article has merely covered some of the installations we’ve done in the Chicago area. I hope that by reading between the lines you’ll get some sense of how impressed I am personally with Pro Tools — far beyond the fact that it’s a product that I sell for a living. This is impressive technology that really performs! While some other systems are working their way up to this level, Pro Tools is already there. You won’t believe the audio quality these systems deliver. What’s more, you won’t believe how easily it can be integrated into any existing audio facility with a minimum (and I mean a minimum!) of hassles and downtime!

Learn what others already have discovered by calling Sweetwater today. Talk to your Sales Engineer about adding Pro Tools power (and all the other fine products we carry, of course) to your own facility.