After an amazing amount of hard work, I’d like to announce the release of Avid VENUE 7.1 software.  

Waves V14 support

The most important part of this release is support for Waves V14. VENUE 7.1 will enable Waves fans—and that’s most of us, I think—to use V14 with their Waves servers and Avid VENUE | S6L system. 

The Avid Live Sound team is delighted to re-establish our relationship with Waves. This renewed partnership is great news for all the audio enthusiasts who already use our two platforms in their day-to-day workflows.

Combining the pristine sound of Avid VENUE | S6L with the power of the Waves WSG Server and expansive library of plugins gives audio engineers the best tools to craft beautiful sound for any job. Providing tight integration without requiring an extra control computer makes for a wonderfully streamlined workflow. 

I think it’s important to face forward and hear the audio with both ears while working—not crouching down, fiddling with a mouse. This partnership frees those of us who live behind mixing desks to access all the parameters of a vast suite of creative tools directly from the knobs and switches of our consoles. 

After choosing just the right color and timbre for our sound, the ability to store all Waves parameters within the 1,000 snapshots available on the S6L means designers and mixers can program their shows with incredible detail and precision. The massive Waves/S6L interop includes 128 voices or paths available between S6L and the WSG. Each voice supports a chain of up to eight plugins. 

This means there is always enough processing power even for the most demanding shows. The ultra-low latency between Waves and S6L integrates fully with the automatic delay compensation in VENUE software, including bus-fed plugins. No matter how complicated a Show file’s routing scheme is, the audio is always perfectly time-aligned.

Hear from the pros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxj5pimxBvk

Using outputs as side chain source

A new feature in VENUE 7.1 enables all outputs to be available as a side chain key source in the channel Dynamics. For example, you could use it to trigger a drum group compressor from a vocal group. Two pickoffs are available for each output “Pre-Fader Pre-Mute” and “Post-Fader.”

New plugin qualification

We are also announcing the qualification of BIG FrEQ from Empirical Labs—a truly awesome EQ with six parametric filters and six more processing sections. There are lots of creative possibilities, including modern “flat-top” parametric shapes. It also has all kinds of tone-shaping abilities, including a finisher section that gave me hours of fun.

Check out the plugin’s predecessor, the Arousor, if you haven’t already. I used to own a few of the hardware versions of this back in the day, and the Arousor has been all over my Show files since its launch.

So that’s it, check your Avid account for your VENUE  7.1 download and have fun with it.

THANKS

I’d like to thank Val (proper S6L-using sound engineer) and the team at Waves for all their detailed work and incredible commitment to this project. Our own team, led by Frank and Valentyn, are spread across the world and have been incredible as well. It has been nearly a year’s worth of work from both software teams to get this release into such a fantastic shape.

Finally, I’d especially like to applaud the dedication of our software developers based in Ukraine—thank you!

Robb Allan

Robb Allan is the senior principal product manager for live sound at Avid. As a live sound engineer, he’s had the privilege to work with artists such as Radiohead, Coldplay, Massive Attack, Manic Street Preachers, Natalie Imbruglia, and more.