Digidesign

Infobox Company
company_name = Digidesign
company_
company_type = Public subsidiary
foundation = 1984
location = Daly City, California
key_people =
area_served = Digital audio production
industry = Technology
products = Pro Tools
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
parent = Avid Technology
subsid =
homepage = [http://www.digidesign.com Digidesign]
footnotes =

Digidesign is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum machines.

Products

Digidesign's flagship software product is Pro Tools, which comes in three variations: Pro Tools|HD®, Pro Tools LE™, and Pro Tools M-Powered™.

Pro Tools|HD® requires a Digidesign TDM system and interface, and is intended for professional recording studios. Pro Tools LE™ is a complete package intended for home users and some post-production facilities. The package includes the Pro Tools LE™ software and hardware such as the M-Box 2 or Digi 003. Pro Tools M-Powered™ is simply the Pro Tools application adapted to run on M-Audio hardware, and is generally comparable in power to LE systems.

Digidesign also makes a number of products for the Pro Tools platform, including several software plug-ins. They also manufacture a wide variety of hardware add-ons for Pro Tools, such as audio interfaces, MIDI interfaces, Synchronizers, and control surfaces. In the spring of 2005 they introduced a system for live sound mixing called VENUE.

History

* 1984 - Founded as Digidrums (later Digidesign) by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks.

* 1989 - Digidesign launches the first digital audio workstation system, Sound Tools, for the Apple Macintosh. The company refers to it as "the first tapeless recording studio".

* 1991 - Digidesign releases the first Pro Tools multitrack system, marking a significant advance in digital audio. This integrated software and hardware system (digital audio workstation) is among the most popular for audio production for television, music, and film.

* 1995 - Avid Technology nasdaq|AVID acquires Digidesign. Digidesign now operates as a business unit of Avid.

* 2001 - Digidesign wins a Grammy award for Pro Tools

* 2003 - Avid acquires Bomb Factory's extensive product catalog. These products are now included with Pro Tools systems.

* 2003 - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes Digidesign's contribution to audio post production for film with an Oscar.

* 2004 - Avid acquires M-Audio, which now operates as a business unit of Digidesign, but maintains the M-Audio brand name and remains largely distinct from Digidesign.

* 2005 - Avid acquires Wizoo, which now operates as "Digidesign Advanced Instrument Research Group" (A.I.R.), but remains largely independent, operating out of Bremen, Germany.

* 2006 - Avid acquires Sibelius, the music software, in a deal worth over $23 million.

External links

* [http://www.digidesign.com/ Digidesign home page]
* [http://duc.digidesign.com/ Digidesign User Conference]
* [http://www.eqmag.com/article/software-chronicles/Mar-06/19100 John Payne: "The Software Chronicles" about Evan Brooks, EQ Magazine, March 2006]
* [http://thestudiofiles.com/ The Studio Files website: Pro Tools users tech blog]