Carbon comes with a 1-year subscription to Pro Tools software, which includes access to the Avid Complete Plugin Bundle and Standard support, renewable annually. If you choose not to renew your subscription, your Pro Tools license includes a “perpetual parachute” that allows you to continue using Pro Tools at the last version you downloaded (it won’t ever expire). Please note that you will need to renew your subscription if you’d like to continue receiving access to the latest Pro Tools updates and all bundled items noted above. To learn more, visit
avid.com/carbon-faq.
For artists, bands, and producers, Pro Tools | Carbon is a new breed of audio interface—built to capture brilliance. It’s a hybrid audio production system that features incredible sound quality and combines the power of your native CPU with onboard HDX DSP acceleration. So you can push your computer to the limit when you mix and record through AAX DSP plugins with near-zero latency monitoring. All at the touch of a button. All in Pro Tools.
With intelligent Pro Tools integration, you’ll work smoothly all in one creative environment. The Hybrid Engine lets you offload real-time AAX DSP plugin processing to Carbon at will. This means you can record with a polished sound that brings out the best in your performance. No more third-party apps to slow you down. Just focus on the music you’re making—not what you’re making it with. The Hybrid Engine maximizes the performance of Pro Tools by using your native CPU and HDX DSP processing at the same time. When you put a track in DSP Mode, Carbon accelerates real-time AAX DSP plugins while your CPU plays back the rest of your mix. And because every AAX DSP plugin has a native counterpart, you can move seamlessly between worlds—just click a button. Record with HDX DSP power for near-zero latency monitoring. And work natively with the same plugins.
In addition to the 116 AAX plugins that come with Pro Tools—which include the Avid Complete Plugin Bundle, HEAT, and UVI Falcon—Carbon comes with a collection of premium plugins and sounds to get you started. Produce with virtual instruments from UVI and Native Instruments. Emulate mix environments with spatial audio processing from Embody. Dial in polished sounds with premium AAX DSP dynamics, EQs, and reverbs from McDSP, Arturia, and Plugin Alliance. And get 3 free months of Auto-Tune Unlimited. Then when you’re ready to take your sound further, there are thousands of AAX plugins and over 250 more AAX DSP available.
With HDX DSP acceleration under the hood, Carbon is a powerhouse built on our industry-leading technologies. It’s finely tuned to process audio at blazing speed, so you can record with rock-solid sub-1 ms latency monitoring. Which means you’ll always hear yourself in perfect sync with the music as if you were playing live. Every aspect of Carbon is engineered in pursuit of sonic excellence. Superior audio conversion. Double resolution clocking. And Avid's most transparent preamp design ever. All details have been meticulously considered, so that Carbon captures every nuance with the greatest depth, dimension, and clarity. All you have to do is press record.
The best sound quality begins with exceptional audio converters—we went the extra mile designing ours. With four ADCs per channel, Carbon has a remarkable 126 dB dynamic range. And from input, to the HDX DSPs, and into Pro Tools, the entire gain structure works at uniform 32-bit precision, providing more headroom without any signal degradation. The result? You’ll capture clean, natural sounding audio. Every time you record. With a padless design, incredible 126 dB dynamic range, and support for 32-bit / 192 kHz audio conversion, Carbon features the most pristine preamps Avid has ever made.
With 25 x 34 simultaneous I/O, Carbon is ready to record any session–from solo artists to full bands. Eight pristine preamps, four headphone outputs, and 16 channels of ADAT I/O open up creative possibilities for miking, cue mixing, and expansion. Plus, with super-fast, high-bandwidth Ethernet connectivity, it preserves the highest possible quality from input to output.
Carbon connects to your computer over Ethernet. Based on AVB, our version of this high-bandwidth, low-latency connection streams audio to your host system at 32-bit float precision—the first in the industry. This means you have consistently high headroom and superior audio quality throughout the system. And it also primes Carbon for the future.
Features
- Intelligent Pro Tools integration
- Offload AAX DSP plugins at the touch of a button
- 8 HDX DSP processors
- Record through AAX DSP plugins in real-time with sub-1 ms monitoring latency
- 32-bit / 192kHz audio conversion
- Four ADCs per channel
- Double resolution clocking
- 25 ins x 34 outs
- Eight pristine preamps
- Four headphone outputs
- 16 channels of ADAT I/O
- 116 AAX plugins, plus more from Native Instruments, Arturia, UVI and more
- Innovative a thermal design to improve cooling