Who Owns Audio Now? The Industry Consolidation Problem

Are any be history story. Welcome my name, Hi. The pro Audio Suite. Those guys a professional and motivated. With tax The LEO Stars George Wisam, founder of Source Element, Robert Marshall, International Audio Engineer Darren, Robbo Roberts and Global Voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Triboo, Austrian Audio Making Passion, her Sauce Elements, George the Tech Wisdom and Robbo and APS International Demo. Find out more about us check the pro AudioSuite dot com and welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to Austrian Audio Making Passion heard and try booth. Don't to get the code t ri I PAP two hundred that will get you two hundred dollars off your try booth. Now talking about Austrian Audio, they sort of merged with DPA last year. This time last year was announced at NAM. Remember, yeah, well it's kind of happened again, scoop, you saw this robo. What's happening to an annual event? Well, the whole boodle's being sold again. I haven't got the article in front of me to know who it was sold to, but yeah, the whole that whole lot has now been bundled up and sold off to someone else. So you know there's a big It was actually a company that has they've also got solid state audio. What else that they got? I did have a look, I think it's Audiotonics, Audiotonics, that's right, but. The audiotonics company, and they have now acquired a group of DPAs Whizzy Calm, Austrian Audio. SSL, their own Hero Yeah Audio, I know, Audiotonics. Gosh. Yeah, Now only one. Company in audio exists. Wow, there, Alan and Heath cal rec did you did you grid for your audio group? One Limited Harrison j H Klang. Sleeate SSL, gez on a disch. I think that's good for the industry. Like I said, only one company exists. Yeah, Sonable and sound Devices. So now we do so now we do Steve Google to buy all that, yeah or whoever? Or LG Apple, whoever. One of the three remaining companies. Well you know how Samsung bought Harmony. Samsung bought Harmon International, Harmon International only AKG. Right, so it seems like it's I mean, I mean, call me freaking crazy, but you know that's not totally crazy to think that another company like LG or somebody would come along to buy all the I P that they've scooped up by buying all these other companies. It's like pac Man, isn't it. It is like it's like Darwinism with the big fish eating the bigger fish eating, the bigger fish explodes and then you get a bunch of mini guppies everywhere again. And then we'll all be paying three thousand dollars a month for software. Yeah yeah, yeah, or you can't use any possible yeah yeah yeah. I'm wondering how that's going to affect Austrian Audio whether. I hope it doesn't affect them, because I think that's part of their charm, isn't it That sort of little boutique or not boutique but almost boutique sort of feel that they have about them, you know, that personal touch. And now even though it's like this big company and there's DPA, like Austrian Audio still had kind of its own booth. You wouldn't have necessarily known their own by DPA. When you went to the booth. It felt like, yeah, they share a wall, That's all they did is share a wall, and they shared a plant, they shared a piano. Yeah yeah, yes, But you know what I mean like even in their communication and all that sort of stuff, it always felt like it was personal and I just I hope for their sake that that doesn't change, because for me, that was a lot of their charm. I mean, the gear is amazing. You know, they don't need the charm to sell the gear, but it was just nice to have that. Well, the funny thing about Austrian Audio is that probably the oldest new company. Yeah that's right, everyone there is old. What are you saying, Well, wouldn't actually like this podcast? Really? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, I mean the actual the actual IP, the actual design of microphones and the concepts, those are the real guys. They did it the brain, yeah, the collected the collected experiences. I wonder how deep that goes. And I mean Noyman obviously has controlled their own IP for a really early, long, long long time. By the way, Noyman's bringing back the U forty seven. Really, oh that's going to happen, That's what I heard. Every logical enough. They did it with the U sixty seven. Kind of they brought it back as like the TLM sixty seven wasn't it too? But no, no, they released the full sixty seven reissue. Okay, yeah, oh yeah, like three or four years ago. Was granted it was, well she compared to a twenty thousand dollars into G sixty seven. Right, well, that's true. Well maybe, I mean I I just sold you know, we sold one for one of my clients not that long ago, and I think he got eight grand for his used one an original, so only eight I think that's what it was. It must have had some issue or something. Well, I think it had an aftermarket power supplay, and that's so that maybe hurt the value of some But yeah, it wasn't crazy. But yeah, there's U sixty sevens. I'm sure I haven't looked on reverb in a while. Well okay, okay, maybe that's a bit ten to sixteen thousand dollars depending on condition. Right yeah, right, But they were always more They were more expensive than the U forty seven the U sixty seven. I don't know the U forty seven's are. They both have pretty huge cachet. I don't know that a U forty seven goes for less than a sixty seven. I'd expect the opposite, definitely. The sixty seven is the forty seven is more rare than the sixty seven. I think, so right now, if you want something that would be closest to a real U forty seven, you're probably going to buy the Telefunken and it's. There's a yeah. I mean, any copy of a U forty seven is easily in the two thousand range, and you're probably looking at a warm audio for something in that range too, and then up to probably another twelve thousand dollars, and they all have various. The worm audio is only eight hundred and fifty bucks. It's only how much ten dollars really che what eight to fifty for a twobe or a FET forty seven or a tube forty seven. No, a tube forty seven cheeze, Yeah, with the external power supply, with the fully variable pattern. But if you want to get something that actually is probably closer to an original U forty seven, you'd probably be sniffing around Microtic Cafell I would have thought. Yeah, or even even honestly, the companies like Plusos and those companies and Stam I think makes a pretty good recreator of these things. The hardest thing with the U forty seven is the milar capsule, I think, and then sometimes the tubes, like you can still get EF eighty six tubes, but I know that with some of the C twelves and the new Vista tubes, some of those tubes and what the U forty seven had a metal tube, wasn't it wasn't that the thing about you? But some of the tubes you can't get anymore. So they're all being sometimes built off of here's the next closest tube. It's sort of like that other one, but somehow better, cleaner whatever, but not necessarily the same. Yeah, thought I thought the E forty seven at the eighty six. The sixty seven has the e F eighty six. Okay, because are my microtech has the e FID six. Yes, and you can still get those, I believe. Yeah, the forty seven uses a what I think it's the metal tube. There's something about a metal tube. One of the mics used a metal tube. Well, yeah, that's a big deal apparently the V fourteen, yeah fourteen V fourteen, that's the one that has to be replaced authentically to capture the sound. And I'm reading a thread here from gear space from last year, and you know that's the hubbable. And an original VIA fourteen tube, not the mic. Just the tube can go for upwards of two thousand dollars. Long, right, Yeah, Like I'm gonna keep my eyes up in that some junk shop with it is a box of yeh tubes like some piece. Of crap other product used via fourteen tubes that no one knew about for the longest time, like some kids toy and like. Oh well, that rumor of a UA forty seven reissue surfaced from again this is from a gear space thread. Somebody had found a screenshot of them promoting their you, you know, their audio interface that they sell that pretty bougie that's something for you. That's that's actually from Merging Technologies, by the way. Yeah, yeah, they just hot right, they just took it. They just bought them. They just they just put their logo on it. One continue. Yeah. And then in the picture behind that product, there's a picture of a U forty seven in the background in a very blurred background photo, and people are looking at it and they're they're they're analyzing the picture of it and saying, hmmm, that might be a reissue. I don't. I think it's uh, I think it's a. Red is That's where this comes from because I'm trying to remember where I read it, and I was like, they are. You must I mean, I haven't seen any of a threat about that seems to be the. Place full of misinformation. And I'm running and I'm running. I mean, this is how the internet works, right, We just scrape along things as we go, and things stick in our brains and we remember it a certain way. And you know that's why we're here trying to figure out what's the real story. Yeah, the investigative thou shalt learn from the wise tongue. Take it all back, Robbo. You can delete this whole podcast now, and that should be our ouse. It always just spurs good conversation. That's how I care about. The other big news is is a Native Native Instruments? Yes, yeah, they am in the preliminary it says here and re insolvency proceedings, and it says at the time of at the time of writing, it's unclear what any of this will mean for Native Instruments customers, products. Or staff. So when you think about, as we were saying before this, I mean, you know there's buys, a toope plug, an alliance, brain works, all that stuff that's in there. Yeah, it's like, I mean, here you go. You know, everyone's like worried about subscriptions versus buyouts. I used to subscribe to plug an Alliance one year, I'm like, screw it, I'll buy it all perpetual. Was it a good investment or I don't. Know, because it's a great investment probably and unless they go out of business, and then it's you chose poorly because that buyout was many, many years worth of subscriptions, So there is some true value in subscriptions, and that it's the direct you know, all these companies are like why why do they do this? Because they overleveraged themselves and they basically made a bunch of money and spent it and went ooops and see it. And if they do a see Leader, hopefully they reorganize and don't do a see you later. But if they do a SEEI Leader, that's a real tragedy for the consumer. But you think about I mean some of the some of those native instruments plugins like you know, like their synse, like contact and all those sort of things. They're so widely used in music these days, can if they go out of business, you know, I mean, I know these alternatives but some of that stuff so wide in these days, you know that a lot of so many people are using. It'll get bought. I'm sure that's the thing I want. To repurchase, will get bought and integrated in such a way that the tech is like, now. Well they already went well, like a Native Instruments already bought isotope. It's still like an annoying time period where you have to log in and go, no, do you have. A leader instrument again? And I hate that, you know, So they're already going through that process now. And actually one thing that was really frustrating is I bought a Native Instruments keyboard used and thank god I was able to get this from the person, but I couldn't use the keyboard without a logging It's like, this is like a freaking piece of. Hard It's a piece of hardware that's rights. Like the drivers were all bound up with that's some logging thing. And I was like yeah, yeah, yeah, see I use I use contact for for my radio imaging for you know, for beds and drones and stuff like that and all that sort of stuff. And it's like it's it's like, yeah, I haven't boarded out but I have brought out other stuff that I use a lot from well from from them like I use and think about. Contact contact as a whole market onto a market people sell contact instruments onto player that I could go make a contact instrument and sell it. There's a whole marketplace. It's a whole marketplace. This is just if it goes belly up completely, it's really disruptive because they are. Yeah, this article and music tech dot Com. Will Williams, who's Nick Williams, CEO of Native says that the company is working diligently and responsibly to secure a healthy, financial, sustainable future for Native Instruments, and he adds that the Native Instruments brands are also continuing to develop and launch new products and features. Our NKS Partnerships team continues to process Contact Player licenses and NKS partner submissions. You know, I kind of don't think it's a sign of the times. I mean, especially for a company like that. I mean, I think a sign of the times for a company like that should be growth at the moment, given that you know, everybody. Is, you know, building a home street. I mean I was doing I was doing a voiceover demo with a guy yesterday and he's in a AP would know this is in a Pink Floyd cover band, that too is the country, Like they're not just a little and you know, and he's making stuff. You know, he's making music and putting it up on Spotify and all that sort of stuff. You know, the I don't know now just in many markets, not just music, that anything is necessarily expanding. I mean, I just watched the Grammys, and maybe this is just you know, reading tea leaves or speculation, but it definitely seemed like there's an emphasis on live performance at the Grammys this year. A lot of the hip hop or even R and B or other artists all went on stage and performed, played instruments. A lot of them did. I mean, like even Justin Bieber, his whole shtick was he walked out on stage and did a looping performance. Okay, like to go to Dark Yea, did kind of an ed sharing exactly, you know, and song bored me to death. Yeah, just so boring, but you know he did it. He did it. It's bold, it's you know, whatever, but you know, it did show that there was so many artists out there going here's the music. Here's instruments, here's real performance. I think there is a certain AI backlash that is all part of it. I think it's it is absolutely it's had it back that way big time. But it's funny though, because the look, I'm going to sound old saying this, but the music sucks. I mean it really does. I mean there was a I was listening to a station image the other day and that way there was this whole hype about you know, oh shit, what's his name, the guy from One Direction, Harry Starr stars Harry Styles has got a new record out. Yeah, it's going to be amazing and blah blah blah. And I tuned in it and. It was like it was snoozefest. Honestly, it was like, oh. Yeah, the taste of young musician, you know, young listeners, which is who drives the industry, right, gen z whatever. It's pretty low key, dude. They don't like a lot of it. They don't want to be too excited, you know, they just want to they just want to like mellow. Yeah. But you know, the funny thing is having a twenty one year old with a whole bunch of people the same age. Because she comes in and she'll go, oh, you know, I remember playing. I just play stuff to it because oh, what's that the Cocktail Twins? I love that they love they love the horror stuff. Yes, they absolutely, And then you sort of sit there and you go, yes, okay. So when this was new, that was probably forty odd years ago, so you'd have to be in your sixties, right, so you know my age, and there's all these like twenty somethings all getting into eighties stuff because and we were talking about it in the car. We just played different things, and even a band called The Last Dinner Party, which is an all girl band that she's into. And she goes, oh, do you want to hear this? We're in the car driving somewhere. It's like yeah, yeah, So we. Put it on. We're listening, and I'd sort of like getting all these kind of things that are making me think, what the hell have these girls been listening to? And is it their granddad that's into into you know stuff? Because and of course she went to see the gig, which I didn't realize and I probably bored you with this story before, but I said to her, that's really weird. That has a kind of a sparks vibe to it from the seventies and she goes, yah, yeah, Well they do a cover of this talent big Enough for the both of us, which she videoed at the concert, and I remember coming home and I've forgotten all about it, And she said I was the only person that when it started, I went, oh my god, this town big enough for both of us and were going, how do you know this song? I've never heard it before because my dad played it keny. But do you know what makes me laugh though? Is the number one song here in Australia at the moment is a song by politician. There's a politician called Pauline Hanson and she's done this song. It's about anti wokeness knows. But it's number one, like by a fucking country mile. It's hilarious. I got a really interesting one here the other day. This is great. Abraham Lincoln said watching Milania was the worst experience he's ever had in a theater. That was classic. Somebody in Culver City wrote down the street when they put up her billboard, they spray painted American flag underneath her chair. She's sitting in a chair and made it on fire. So she's sitting over a burning flady and that one stayed up for a few days until like everybody on earth photographed it spread. I think it's funny. Was it the UK that they've sold one ticket a ticket? Yeah? Literally ticket. Well, I was going to kids, like what kids like in music? You know, one of the song that was like the new breakout Artists of the year, you know how it goes, like best New Artists of the Grammys. They've been, you know, in the business for fifteen years. That's how the ship works. And she uh, you know her song it's called Messy, you know, like like messy, like I'm messy, I freaking smoke, I cry, I'm not you know whatever. And I listened to it, I was like, what is it about the vibe of the songs? Like it is literally the rhythm and chord progression from Dreams by Fleetwood mac Classic. Exact that a lawsuit coming out. No, I mean it's not exactly exactly the same. I might be a different chord and it's slower, but it really is this, you know and that you know how simple that song is, right, It's literally a two note progression. It's what is it ef ef whatever it is? I don't remember the chords are. Yeah, this song is the same. It's the same vibe. But that's why they love it because it captures that vibe of that movie song or the song Dreams and Dreams when it freaking massive when that guy posted a video of him drinking ocean spray cranberry juice while skateboarding and he used that song Dreams on the video, and that made that song go through the freaking roof again, so so much so that Mick had a sit down interview over Zoom with the guy. This is during the pandemic, by the way, with the guy and just said, you know, I got a thanks a lot. Of the I just bought another house. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I think he sent the fellow something too, like send him some cash. Well, knowing, knowing Mick Fleetwood, I met him once he came into work and interviewed him. He came into the guy called Ken Gradney, who was the bass player I think from Little Feet anyway, that's a sidetrack. So he wandered in and he was carrying a walkman, and I said, what are you doing with the walkman? He goes, I record everything, every conversation every everything. I said, when do you do with the tapes? He goes, I want to go home and listen to them. He's a unique fellow booming the band is iconic. I mean, so my my, my nephew was setting up his dad's record player, which he was trying to understand the difference in a component system and a system that just has a bunch of things that looks like components of the line through it. I was trying to explain that there's no outputs to this thing, and actually there's only one input. But this is how crazy it's gotten. They're all in the battle to play old shit, right, So it's not it's gone back to eight tracks. His friends are playing eight tracks. I'm not kidding how old. He's fifteen, fourteen, he's just getting his driver's license. So you talk about eight track contradation. Cartridges, Yeah, basically your quarter inch like, oh, I'm sorry, we broke your song in the middle, and here's here's the relay on it, Like. Yes, I had no idea that was. And he's got a cassette of failing right. Through cassette and then they moved to ah, he's got it. He's got a record player. That plays records and cassettes, and I was talking about audio quality, and I was like, dude, like, none of this shit sounds better than a CD, even a record. You might think it does, but only a record in the most optimal situations when it's brand new one a really great player sounds better than a CD. Like a CD just it's ninety sixcescibles range, you know, Like, but come on, like just. The r I a a million dollars. The first place, from having too much base on it. Yeah, come on, it's it. All A call comes down to how it feels makes me feel right. It's it's having the liner notes, it's putting the record on there, it's physically interacting with the media. It's that that makes them happy to listen to graphics. Yeah. The funny thing is, though, when you think about there were two things. One was audio, one was video. So you had cassette and you had cartridge. Cartridge far superior to a cassette. Yes, cassette wins. And then you had VHS. Convenience always wins and free licensing. Boy, yes exactly, I mean, I mean P three beats CD. If you think about it somewhere between, I'll give it. Maybe the LP and the CD is the real peak of audio distribution to the consumer. If you say that DSD and Super Audio Super Audio CD and Audio DVDs failed, which are technically higher quality, but those never really took off. Who was listening to flack files all that? Like, really the peak delivery was record and CD and it just. Remember video discs? Do you remember video discs? Yeah? I remember that. Yeah. MP three wasn't free originally, was it? You had to buy a license from well yeah, yeah the company. You technically still do have to, but but effectively for the consumer, it was free and those are easy, like you know, I mean, record record companies went ape shit when the deck to deck cassettes came out, and just the record players that could dub to a cassette, they they wanted royalties for every blank cassette sold. They went crazy, they did, I remember that. And then they went crazy when the record when the DAT came out, Why the thing? Why why do we have forty four to one in forty eight? So make it harder to make they made the CD. A specifically weirdo sample rate so that they thought that it couldn't be duplicated easily, and that's when when that tape. When dat machines first came out, the ones that we could record forty four one were gray market machines, and they were more expensive the ones that did forty eight. That's true, and to this day we have forty four to one. Forty four one's the standard though. Yeah, yeah, well for music, not for post right, yeah. And it was just the way it was. This the way to throw a wrench in the ability to copy. And then and then they had scums or whatever it was called Cereal copy management systems. Yeah that you know, like everyone found a way to get around scum. Is that the one on the I tried with that? Well, it was it was on any digital basically it was copy bit was another name for it, and you could make one copy and then the second generation would would basically not allow itself to be copied. But then I forget. But there was like there was this little pass through converters you could get there would strip s cms or whatever it was called off of the digital stream. They could never win. And then it all ends with Napster, and from Napster on, the whole music business is never the same. I saw a post the other day actually, what was the what was the first thing that you ever downloaded from lime Wire? And for me it was for me it was a cracked copy of Cool Hit Pro, a whole bunch of albums. I got to remember, how do you remember that? Because I remember going, wow, look at that. Yeah, that's why how do I get that? How do I get that? You know? Someone said this thing. Called lime wire, so you got to get a layer and you can do it. And it's like. Before like like I want the Fleetwood Mac album, there would be like ten links. And this is why I needed instruments? Is going there? Pirate Bay. Pirate Bay was the other one. Do you remember that. They got They got sued and went away. But it's a it's a cat and mouse game. There's always another one. Yeah. I did realize though once I sort of, you know, got to a point, to a certain point that it was just easier to pay for this stuff than download crack stuff because it was never really very reliable. It also became like a hoarding thing. I remember when I was twenty and you know, plugins were first out and then you was like I need them all and back then there was so few plugins. You literally could. Have them all I know, and then you couldn't use. Hoarding stuff almost put me out of school. I almost dropped out of college because I was up nights downloading and saving to floppy disc. You know, as many apps and software and things are good. I was, yeah, hoarding like crazy for no reason. Crazy things. I mean, Georgie remember a key disc terminator. So yeah, so the keys used to be on floppy discs, and you'd put the floppy disk in and it would move the key from the floppy disk to your computer. And then someone figured out when CD burning came out that you could make an image and then close the image and duplicate the image and then reopen the image on another computer and the and the license carried. Out over that. Now, yeah, I do. And it was just like all these crazy ways. Everyone was like finding ways. Why that's why, Well, well that was eye lock. That was Pace originally. Pace originally started with flopping this keys. I was. It was amazing to me that people spend hours and hours and hours trying to get crack copies of stuff. Where's they actually went into got a job and spent money for those amount of hours. I began by the real fun. The software used to be tremendously more expensive too, So that's the thirty dollars plugins were not like most plugins for a long time were three, four or five eight hundred dollars all the. Time more than that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Sonic Solutions workstation back then with the card was what sixty eight. Cars even more right, and these were these were praising those days too, you know, back when gas was a dollar fifty. I remember buying when I first got pro tools, I needed to get the DV toolkits so I could do video right and actually, yeah, I actually I had to go because you couldn't download it, actually had to go to the local music store and buy it and buy physically buy it over the counter ProTools. You wanted to import an eed L then you needed I forgot the name of it, but there was a. Big yeah that's the thing. It was all on DV toolkit for in. A CD was Master of the CD. Everything was a separate feature. You wanted machine control, that was a separate list. That was another one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah, and that was another one. I had to buy it because I had and I was like something better in the old studio that I used to, used to have and used to sync to pro tools. You couldn't do post production without that thing. No, absolutely not. Music has been democratized. It was better, I'd say, yeah, fool worse. The Pro Audio Suite. Thanks and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters, mixed by Rovo. Got your own audio issues just ask Rovo dot com. Tech support from George the Tech Window. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation on our Facebook group to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say today, drop us a note at our website audio suite dot com.