Pro Tools Carbon Pre 400pxAt the AES Show 2022 in New York City, Avid® unveiled Pro Tools | Carbon Pre™ to empower individual artists, bands and producers using Pro Tools | Carbon® or third-party audio interfaces to easily expand their studio setups to capture every sonic detail of large tracking sessions. Pro Tools | Carbon Pre is 

“The Pro Tools | Carbon system eliminates the barriers and tedious tasks that detract from productivity and creativity to enable artists and musicians to focus on capturing great performances and mixes,” said Francois Quereuil, Vice President, Product Management for Audio and Music Solutions, Avid. “Pro Tools | Carbon Pre is a high-quality I/O expansion option for users who need to record full bands. Pro Tools Carbon Pre delivers the flexibility of additional mic/line inputs and outputs to enable brilliant sound quality on every track while leveraging the system’s Hybrid Engine, with complete remote control, and recall capabilities that are fully integrated with Pro Tools.”

Matching the audio performance of Avid’s groundbreaking Pro Tools | Carbon interface, Pro Tools | Carbon Pre enables users to expand their system with 24 channels of world-class mic/line preamps and line outputs. This allows users to capture large tracking sessions and multi-mic live recordings delivering impeccable sound quality from capture to output. In addition, Pro Tools Carbon’s extremely low-noise mic preamps have variable impedance, which lets users subtly change the tone of their mics, so they can be confident of capturing every sonic detail in the studio.

Existing Pro Tools | HD systems needing more mic preamps can leverage Pro Tools | Carbon Pre as an eight-channel ADAT preamp expansion unit to scale up I/O. Users can control up to nine Pro Tools | Carbon Pre units in a Pro Tools | HD system, while also tapping into the Pro Tools Hybrid Engine for low-latency input processing. 

To help capture impeccable sound quality across the entire system, Pro Tools | Carbon Pre also uses stacked AD converters on each input, while also providing industry-leading double-precision clocking. Pro Tools | Carbon Pre allows artists to optimize and color the tone of mic or instrument inputs with Variable Z impedance switching, so users hear and feel every nuance in their recordings. 

Pro Tools | Carbon Pre accelerates audio workflows without the need for users to access the interface to make changes. Artists can remotely control, save, and recall all preamp settings—including phantom power, gain, and impedance switching directly in Pro Tools across all Pro Tools | Carbon-connected interfaces. And, with instant session recall courtesy of the virtual assistant, users can quickly switch between sessions without any delays from manual setup and reconfiguration. 

Raising the bar on audio interface performance

The Pro Tools | Carbon audio interface empowers artists, bands, engineers, and producers to record every detail of every performance with the utmost clarity and precision. Built to capture brilliance, this hybrid audio production system features incredible sound quality and intelligent Pro Tools integration that combines the power of the user’s native CPU with the unparalleled performance of HDX DSP acceleration.  

Pricing and availability

Pro Tools | Carbon Pre will be available later this month through resellers, starting at $2,999 USD. For more information about Pro Tools | Carbon Pre, visit www.avid.com/products/pro-tools-carbon/carbon-pre.