Vote for a company, give a good reason!

[TonyCrazyMan]

I am think of companies in the size of Mackie, Yamaha, Behringer, Lexicon, Steinberg and so on... What company are you very interested in and think makes great products? Please vote for a company and give a good reason why.

I vote for Yamaha, but that's just me. :) I simply just love what Yamaha makes, especially with their keyboards and synths! I am desperately waiting for sound samples of the new Yamaha Tyros 2!

I had been trying out Korgs, Rolands, Kurzweils, Ensoniqs etc, but none of them sounds like a Yamaha Tyros keyboard! The Yamaha Tyros has some pretty cool features: You can store as many complete global keyboard settings as you like, 8 that are accessible in real-time, with fast access to much more registrations. (the keyboard is extremely fast) This in combination with its award winning drawbar organ simulator, you're actually in heaven, because you can change the whole drawbar setup with the touch of a button in real-time and really get access to X different configurations (8 at a time), and add up to 3 + 4 different sounds available in the mix in real time, each running through a high quality dsp effects engine. The keyboard is equipped with hundreds of styles and a style editor. With this feature in combination with a midi to style converter in the computer you can very fastly make your own version of a song simply by downloading a midi file, making a style of it, and start recording from there! The keyboard is equipped with smart chording, for instance you can let the bass player move while the orchestra plays another chord and get interesting transitions like for instance F -> Am7/G -> Am and C -> C/E. The keyboard has a pretty useful vocal hamonizer functionality too with over 70 different harmony voices. This feature with the right amount of precense in combination with it's nice DSP engine can create really beautiful background vocals! The keyboard is equipped with 32 MIDI channels 16 channels per port, which in combination with a 128 note polyphony and all the fantastic sounding voices can sound like for instance a string orchestra in your living room! The voices are sampled in many different layers making it possible to get for instance breathing on pan flute, sounds of string picking etc. You can connect up to 3 subwoofers to it, each routable, which is really great for live performances when you need a good vibe on stage! Do you want surround sound with the band? No problems, just use your main outs in combination with the subwoofers outs. The Yamaha Tyros has a very large color display with an extremely user friendly user interface! The quality of the styles? They were recorded by pro session musicians with MIDI connected instruments, very high quality! The keyboard has a music finder functionality that let's you search for a song and it will set up the keyboard for that song ready to be played and tweaked with. It also includes custom voices that can be edited just like synth sounds, with the help of its USB feature, for even faster editing of sounds with a laptop. Do you want real-time patterns? Don't worry, you've got fast access to unlimited patterns, of which 4 are present in real-time at a time, per registration (you have 8 registrations available in real-time remember, awesome). Easily choose pre recorded patterns or make you own ones. Do you want to store complete MIDI configurations and recall them into memory in real-time and save them on disk, don't worry you can store as many as you like and recall them with a press of a button! This means for instance you can switch to a combination of keyboards and modules while you play a song, with the touch of a button and just do whatever you like with all your synths and keyboards in real-time. Do you want added flexibility when you play live? No problems, because it's foot controller functionality is very deeply integrated with all kinds of operations, everything from registration switching, to effect tweaking and set of complete drawbar settings. Do you want to do some karaoke with your friends on a party? No problems, the keyboard has a built in karaoke machine ready for an external display. Need a good sounding compressor on the outputs? Just add as much warmth as you like. Are you a person that likes electric piano sounds? Look no further. You've got tine pianos, rhodes, vintage whurlies...

Hmm... maybe I should become a sales person for Yamaha...! ;)

Wanna see the beauty?

Music Revolution - Yamaha Tyros (http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/ContentDetail/ModelSeriesDetail/0,,CNTID%253D2774%2526CTID%253D205500,00.html#)

[Phil O'Keefe]

There's only a few companies I've lent my name to with any sort of official "endorsement" - as a reviewer, I have to remain impartial, and I judge individual products - from any company, on a case by case basis... and even the companies that have ran quotes from me in ads have all been allowed to do so without any compensation to me. The one company that has probably had me in the most ads is ADAM Audio. (http://www.adam-audio.com) I've spend decades and countless dollars on nearfileds over the years, and my search for the "perfect monitors for me" ended the day that Dave Bryce brought a pair of S3-A's over to the studio get my impressions of them. I started with a pair of S2-A's, spent about a month with a loaner pair of S2.5-A's, and eventually moved up to probably the most "pedigreed" set of '3's on the planet (the list of people who have either used my particular pair of 3's or heard them at various trade shows is pretty impressive ;) ) and I've never looked back. I absolutely ADORE these speakers. :cool:

BTW, I agree with you regarding Yamaha - their customer support has always been excellent to me, and overall, I've been very pleased with their products that I've owned.Yes, they've released a few lemons over the years, but overall, their product lines seem pretty consistently good to me.

One final company that I've yet to hear a product of theirs that didn't impress me is Soundelux. (http://www.soundeluxmics.com/) I think David is making some of the best mics ever built. Great stuff!

[Zooey]

Originally posted by TonyCrazyMan
I am think of companies in the size of Mackie, Yamaha, Behringer, Lexicon, Steinberg and so on... What company are you very interested in and think makes great products? Please vote for a company and give a good reason why.

Yamaha and Steinberg are the same company...

[Phil O'Keefe]

Well, they are now... :)

[where02190]

Mackie has been nothing short of top notch for us, constantly expressing interest in our views and results with new hardware and software products, and definitely going the extra miles to get us updates and whatever we need to keep the ball rolling.

Add to that the gear and software we have from them, an HDR (with bios updates and HDR Pro software) 2 MDR's (also with BIOS updates) and T2 are all great.

[audioguru]

Well, let's see -- I've worked for many of them... Mackie, Alesis, Groove Tubes, Gibson, now Lexicon... (does that make me a slut of some kind?)

Each one was different -- but with the notable exception of... (#4 on the list... a-hem)... each of them had talented people with a passion for what they do -- at least whilst I was there. For example, during my tenure at Mackie, it was just after 'going public,' - and while the 'corporate culture' was beginning to sneak in, the 'Mackoid culture' still reigned... and it was a blast to be there. We hung out after work, were all friends, desinged products on napkins at the Red Hook Brewery down the street (don't worry - nothing got built until everyone was sober!)

I do see, however, posts from people from time to time who consider some of these same entities as some kind of musical Borg -- money-grubbing, ambivilant towards musicians and artists, uncaring about the craft, the product, or the customers.

In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of these places are filled with smart (sometimes exceptionally so), dedicated, and passionate people who care deeply about the art, the products, and the customers. Every now and then, someone will have a bad experience with a product or a tech support guy on a bad day (or often, total user error) and slag the company until the apocolypse.

Dave Bryce & I worked at Alesis when we 'discovered' the ADAMs monitors at MusikMesse -- could NOT believe our ears. Funny thing is -- while I never want to mix on anything OTHER than S-3As again -- errr... I still don't have a pair. (money... you know.)

Aspen Pittman, Mitch Margolis and I spent over a year working on ViPre (which I DO have), and I love that piece; still waiting for my Glory Comp. :)

Bottom line -- I LOVE this stuff. As much as I loved the art of recording (where I spent most of my life) -- it's sort of a legacy thing to help develop products that ultimately CHANGE the way we work in the studio... some products and paradigms that will probably outlive me. :D

Which one do I like best? Hmmm. How about which one do I like LEAST? Starts with a "B"....

TGB

[alfonso]

I can really agree with what has been said about ADAM, I have a small personal studio, but I'm trying to have few but top notch quality things. I use a couple of S2A and I find them awesome, especially in the very small and dampened room I have. I have a little Apogee miniMe that does a wonderful job, considering that I never record with more than 2 inputs, 80% of the times with 1 only...
I'm also a very lucky owner of a '73's U87i, all integer and in perfect shape, that has been used very little and always kept well and clean, I must say that I do almost everything with it...I found my ways to have also a perfect (to my ears) acoustic guitar sound with it. The computer is naturally out of that room, in a well cooled place.

But If I must say wich company has totally changed my perspectives and workflow, it's Creamware Audio.
I use a big Scope system as the heart of my studio. It has transformed me from a guitarist that loves music to a musician that loves sound.

In few years I became a passionate synthetist. The CWA Modular synthesizer I came across has been a revolution to me. I became synth designer, beta tester, also for Adern, that is a fantastic company making stuff for Scope, but basically I started to think to compositon as something that starts from the sound.
Scope synth sounds are too good, my humble but strong opinion is that they totally distroy any other competitor in the domain of virtual synthesis, and their algorythms are superior to a lot of other hardware stuff too (Scope cards use dedicated Sharc chips, so their synths and effects are as hardware as all the other hardware digital stuff around).
I have my own sounds now, my own processors, the music I make is felt as totally mine, because I have control of every detail, and those details can kick ass.

Beside that, the unique routing capabilities with some great graphic tools, the ability to connect everything with everything else, software drivers, devices, hw I/O's, everything in a great latency free, dsp based software environment, makes me feel like I was at Trident studios or something like that in my small studio.

And the fact that they are a very small company, that they resisted on very hard financial problems, just to keep making what the believe in, rises my appreciation for them.

[Lee Knight]

Groove Tubes!

They make some very useful things, at very good prices. They make some amazing things a high prices as well. The stuff they put out seems as if it was designed by someone who wanted a particular item for themselves and went out and made it.

I'm still loving my little GT-33s. I want a Brick or 2.

Hey Groove Tubes... rackmount the Brick!

Plus, I spoke with someone (don't remember his name) from the company at NAMM and he was the most non BS sort of guy you could meet, and very helpful with info.

Groove Tubes!

[seaneldon]

my vote goes to Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics (B.L.U.E.) and Dangerous Music.

[engineelite]

i also vote for Groove Tubes

they're soul-o amps sound insanely good! i've got a soul-o 150 head and i'm stuck on it. i've had so many amps in the past its rediculous. they're build quality and value overall are exceptional. thanks to myles rose from GT...he answered many of my questions and even sent me free tubes as a suggestion for what would sound good in a particular socket.

i've also recently aquired a GT brick and man does it sound warm!

GT is a very innovative company as well.

[Kiwiburger]

I would definately vote for Apple. If Apple had never bought out Emagic, I would never have been forced into buying Cubase SX. I would never have discovered that Cubase SX sounds significantly better than Logic, and is far more Logical and nicer to use.

I would also like to vote for Steinberg. If the bundled plugins in Cubase SX had not been so crap, I would never have been forced to go searching for better plugins on the internet. But thanks to Steinberg, I went searching and found hundreds of excellent freebie plugins, and hundreds of reasonably priced shareware plugins.

I would also like to vote for Domino's Pizzas. If this American franchise hadn't bought out our local pizza shop, I would still be eating too much pizza. Now that the pizza's cost more and taste like shit, and leave me feeling ill, I'll be buying a lot less pizza, losing weight and saving more money for toys in the studio.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at things Kiwi... :eek: :) Are there any companies you like due to them doing something that was directly good for you, as opposed to their screwups / things you didn't like leading you to other alternatives you ended up prefering? Any positive customer support experiences? Anything that you were actually happy with from the beginning?

Personally, and no offense intended to the original thread starter, I think the question is a bit limited... why not list smaller companies too if they've done well by you?

[seaneldon]

I'm actually going to add Manley to my list a few replies back after getting the opportunity to hear a Vox Box with a Gold Reference today. Holy smokes, that's some high end stuff.

[where02190]

A year ago Apple would have been high on the list, but changes in their cusomer service policies actually put them at the bottom for me now.

[Roundbadge]

I know they're not as big as any of the other companies mentioned here but Mercenary Audio is one of the coolest I've ever encountered. Jay who is a salesman there spent a 1/2 an hour talking me out of something they sold while recommending something that was cheaper, and he was right, the unit was quite a bit better for my use.

I have since purchased several things from Mercenary, and if they don't carry it I buy from Sweetwater. Mercenary's customer service goes way beyond what anyone could ever expect from a music equipment retailer. They really seem to genuinely care about their customers and their customers music.

I have tried several things from there and sometimes found that it wasn't the best thing for me even after two months they took it back without question. This was the second thing that really impressed me. I think that if you have to pick one company that is absolutely the best in sound retail, it would be Mercenary Audio.

[Daniel Smart]

I have a lot of respect for M-Audio and what they've done in terms of putting some pretty-reasonable grade technology in the hands of consumers at a nice price. I would compare them to Microsoft in terms of market position and impact - apart from the fact the M-audio stuff is much more reliable.

Might not be the greatest gear in the world, but if you look in the grand scheme of things, it's amazing what companies have done like this for home-users - and even some professionals on a budget. It's also not 'budget gear' in quality when compared to some of the rubbish out there. Incredible what you can actually get for your money these days.

-Daniel

[alfonso]

Originally posted by Kiwiburger
I would definately vote for Apple. If Apple had never bought out Emagic, I would never have been forced into buying Cubase SX. I would never have discovered that Cubase SX sounds significantly better than Logic, and is far more Logical and nicer to use.

I would also like to vote for Steinberg. If the bundled plugins in Cubase SX had not been so crap, I would never have been forced to go searching for better plugins on the internet. But thanks to Steinberg, I went searching and found hundreds of excellent freebie plugins, and hundreds of reasonably priced shareware plugins.

I would also like to vote for Domino's Pizzas. If this American franchise hadn't bought out our local pizza shop, I would still be eating too much pizza. Now that the pizza's cost more and taste like shit, and leave me feeling ill, I'll be buying a lot less pizza, losing weight and saving more money for toys in the studio.

Wow, this is true Zen!:D

[gdoubleyou]

Mackie is down the street from me, they are not very big, even less so now that most of their production is now in China.

Not even sure if they have more than a hundred employees.

But they still do quality engineering.

Greg Mackie can sometimes be found at my local Guitar Center, just hanging out.

keeping it local Floyd Rose moved back to his roots, his new line of guitars with the quick change strings is amazing.

:cool:

[Phil O'Keefe]

I think I freaked Greg out once at a NAMM show years ago... I walked up to him, acting kind of strange (easy for me to do ;) ) and stuck my hand out, shook his hand and said "you're a deity in my country", turned around and walked away. You should have seen the look on his face! :eek: ;) :D