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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
12Pro Tools | First201620172018Pro Tools 2018+The beginnings: Digidrums (1983–1985)[edit]Pro Tools was developed by UC Berkeley graduates Evan Brooks, who majored in electrical engineering and computer science, and Peter Gotcher.[17]In 1983, the two friends, sharing an interest in music and electronic and software engineering, decided to study the memory mapping of the newly released E-mu Drumulator drum machine to create EPROM sound replacement chips. The Drumulator was quite popular at that time, although it was limited to its built-in samples.[18]They started selling the upgrade chips one year later under their new Digidrums label.[19] Five different upgrade chips were available, offering different alternate drum styles. The chips, easily switchable with the original ones, enjoyed remarkable success between the Drumulator users, selling 60,000 units overall.[20]Digidesign Sound Designer (1985–1989)[edit]When Apple released its first Macintosh computer in 1984, the pair thought to design a more functional and flexible solution which could take advantage of a graphical interface.[21] In collaboration with E-Mu, they developed a Mac-based visual sample editing system for the Emulator II keyboard, called Sound Designer, released under the Digidesign brand[22] and inspired by the interface of the Fairlight CMI.[23] This system, the first ancestor of Pro Tools, was released in 1985 at the price of US$995.[18]Brooks and Gotcher rapidly ported Sound Designer to many other sampling keyboards, such as E-mu Emax, Akai S900, Sequential Prophet 2000, Korg DSS-1, and Ensoniq Mirage.[23] Thanks to the universal file specification subsequently developed by Brooks with version 1.5,[23] Sound Designer files could be transferred via MIDI between sampling keyboards of different manufacturers.[24] This universal file specification, along with the printed source code to a 68000 assembly language interrupt-driven MIDI driver, was distributed through Macintosh MIDI interface manufacturer Assimilation, which manufactured the first MIDI interface for the Mac in 1985.Starting from the same year, a dial-up service provided
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