Avid’s Industry Leading Solutions Power Michael Bublé’s 3rd Annual Christmas Television Special

Burlington, MA, 2013/12/17

Avid’s integrated and streamlined live solutions enable quick, efficient production of highly anticipated Christmas special for audiences worldwide

Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that Avid live systems were used exclusively to power a performance by Grammy® Award-winning artist Michael Bublé for the upcoming broadcast, Michael Bublé’s 3rd Annual Christmas Special. Avid's proven and trusted live systems allowed the production team to quickly and efficiently produce the singer’s intimate performance, filmed in Bublé’s hometown of Vancouver. The special will air to millions of viewers worldwide on Wednesday, December 18, with an encore presentation on Christmas Day.

“Avid live sound systems continue to be chosen for the highest-profile live events and broadcasts,” said W. Sean Ford, VP of Worldwide Marketing and CMO, Avid. “By using Avid’s streamlined live systems, which provide seamless integration with industry-standard Pro Tools recording software, the production team quickly and efficiently captured Michael Bublé’s highly anticipated performance for the enjoyment of audiences worldwide.”

Over the course of his celebrated career, Bublé has had four number one albums on theBillboard 200 chart, won three Grammys, and sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. Bublé’s longtime front of house engineer, Craig Doubet, turned for a second year to pro audio specialists Gearforce of Coquitlam, BC, to supply and support the live systems and recording rig.

For last year’s special, the team used an audio truck with outboard gear, but the legacy equipment proved expensive and cumbersome. This year, Gearforce president Robert Nevalainen turned to Avid’s integrated and streamlined audio solutions, foregoing the expense and complexity of outboard systems, while ensuring dependable performance.

“TV brings its own logistics challenges for the audio department,” said Nevalainen. “We made sure we took that into consideration during the design to ensure we had chosen very high-quality components with a very low chance of failure. The Avid systems performed exceptionally well.”

When it came to recording the performance, the decision to rely on Pro Tools was an easy one for Doubet. “I have mixed over 400 shows with Michael and I record every show to Pro Tools—it’s an incredible system,” Doubet said.

For mixing, Doubet and Gearforce chose the new Avid S3L system, the most streamlined, efficient approach to integrating multi-track Pro Tools recording. “We wanted a very small footprint, and because it has the facility to record 64 tracks, it was also our backup recording,” Doubet explained.  “It’s amazing—Avid really gets what mixing is all about.”