Pro Tools 101_ An Introduction to Pro Tools 11 ( PDFDrive )

Digidesign continued to develop software products for sampling and
synthesis. At the same time, the company began work on products designed
for digital recording. In 1989, Digidesign released Sound Tools, a two-track
hard-disk recorder. Billed as the world’s first “tapeless recording studio,”
Sound Tools consisted of Sound Designer II software, a Sound Accelerator
card, and a hardware box called the AD-In that provided two analog-todigital
converters.
Figure 1.3 Components of the Sound Tools system
Source: Avid ® .
In 1990, the first AudioMedia card was created and marketed toward
musicians, consumers, and independent studios. Its low cost helped drive the
“democratization” of music and the recording industry, making hard-disk
audio recording accessible to the masses.
The Birth of Pro Tools
The first-generation Pro Tools system was released in 1991, supporting four
tracks of audio. Eventually, using additional cards and interfaces, these Pro
Tools systems expanded to support up to 16 tracks of simultaneous recording
and playback.
Figure 1.4 Early Pro Tools system