Who Owns Who : The Rise of Music Tech Conglomerates.

[merlyn]

I've noticed some music tech companies getting bought over recently, with a case in point being Harrison Consoles. The way the Harrison take over was spun we would think it was SSL that bought Harrison. Actually it is a bigger company Audiotonix that owns most of the mixing desk manufacturers. Although there are many music tech brands (think branding cattle), there are relatively few companies involved.

Music Tribe

• Behringer
• TC Electronic
• TC-Helicon
• Klark Teknik
• Midas
• Aston Microphones
• Bugera
• Coolaudio
• Lake
• Lab.gruppen
• Tannoy
• Turbosound

Audiotonix

• Harrison
• SSL
• Allen & Heath
• DiGiCo
• DiGiGrid
• Calrec
• Slate Digital
• Sound Devices
• KLANG:technologies
• Group One Ltd

Focusrite

• Adam
• Novation
• Ampify
• Sequential
• Oberheim
• Sonnox
• Martin Audio
• Optimal Audio
• Linea Research

inMusic

• Air
• Akai
• Alesis
• Alto
• BFD
• Denon
• HeadRush
• ION
• M-Audio
• Marantz
• MixMeister
• Moog
• Numark
• Rane

Yamaha

• Steinberg
• Line 6
• Ampeg
• Córdoba
• Bösendorfer
• Nexo

Harman

• Harman Kardon
• AKG
• JBL
• Crown
• Lexicon
• Mark Levinson
• BSS
• dbx
• Soundcraft

Is this good for Linux music? Probably not, as Linux may seem appealing to the engineers dealing with the nuts and bolts, but as Linux is kicked up the chain to a psychopathic CEO dealing with billions of dollars, it may seem less appealing. Despite this, I'm still optimistic about Linux music.

[sunrat]

It's the way of the world. Capitalists gonna capitalise.
Eventually there will be so much homogeneity in all classes of products there will be less innovation and the main distinguishing features will be how the advertising looks. Momcorp here we come.

[Impostor]

Eventually everything even remotely exploitable will be owned by investment companies.

[glowrak guy]

A business owner who receives a buyout offer, has three options,
Accept, reject, and negotiate. Serious offers invoke contemplation of risk/reward.
Finding the results of previous buyouts, both personal and fiscal, is important.
Some business owners won't sell, because money is not the driver of their life.
Some may sell instantly, because of serious need, fear, 'inside-knowledge'
that things are about to fail, perhaps knowing they have reached the limits of their current skillset,
or even simple bordom with the desire to move on. Some brilliant people are terrible
at, and dread the mundane running of a business, and may welcome a parent company
taking that burden off their fertile minds.
It's all day-to-day life.

It's important to know the purpose and results of individual buyouts.
Using Camel Audio as an example, Apple saw the company had needed skills in
plugin coding, sound design, and cyber-security. Camel saw Apple offered a large
and diverse platform, and attractive term$, so the deal was done.

Cakewalk is another example, where a successful son of a successful
businessman, made the purchase, to put some daw tech alongside their other
music ventures, and that purchase is still evolving, as personal desires and market-forces
negotiate the future decisions. The latest and likely last free version of the
'Cakewalk By Bandlab' daw just came out:

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php? ... ly-access/

U-he is an example of small company who choose to stay focussed on what they do best,
and avoid expansion for expansion's sake. Despite pub proximity to employees of Yama-Steinberg
and Soundwide Native Instruments.

As coders keep the .deb, .rpm, as .so files rolling in, I'm very happy using linux for audio.

Cheers

[RyanH]

Eventually everything even remotely exploitable will be owned by investment companies.

What is the button to like your comment but unlike the sad truth of what you're saying?

[RyanH]

I'm not sure it's directly related to the subject of your thread (Who Owns Who), but I did notice that the latest version of the M-Audio Oxygen 49 requires software to change settings that, in the previous version, could be changed directly on the keyboard. And of course that software is for Windows, which means I can't change certain mappings in Linux. Huge disappointment and it's the reason I didn't renew the warranty on my Mk IV keyboard... because if it breaks, the store can only replace it with a product that doesn't work for me (the Mk V).

I noticed Mackie isn't on the conglomo-list. My audio interface and speakers are Mackie.