We live in tough times, for many trying to make a living out of music or audio it’s hard. It’s a serious business. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while doing it.
When you’ve been working in this space for nearly two decades it’s easy to become jaded. The constant stream of products that are frankly derivative, facsimiles, trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, or just boring means that a lot of the time I’m thinking ‘meh’ to a lot of the product announcements.
However, there’s a few brands I want to call out that genuinely put a smile on my face, that break a lot of rules and in many cases thumb it in the face of the audio snobs who seem to spend more time arguing about the minutiae of products in forums than they do recording and mixing. I’ve concluded that by the inordinate amount of time they spend in forums. Either that or they have no sex life! You decide.
Here’s three audio brands that make me smile.
Safari Pedals
Safari Pedals recently came across my radar and the moment I saw what they were doing I thought ‘hell yes!’ Their approach to processing the audio, GUI design, and naming the products is simply brilliant.
I got to talk to the founder Noam on a call this week and he let me into a couple of secrets. A family man with small kids, he wanted to involve them in the business. His kids came up with the name for the company and his 6 year old son names all the plugins. I’m not surprised, I’m 57 and have been doing this a long time but I told Noam his son is more creative than me! He has a bright future ahead of him.
With products like The Camel Strip, Gorilla Drive, and Flamingo Verb, the user is invited to go on a Safari and discover these animals with their different characteristics.
But this is no gimmick to disguise some average products with dubious audio credentials. The workflow and the sound are second to none. Best of all you can’t help but smile.
UJAM
A little history. Once there was a company called Wizoo, they made some cool products like Virtual Guitarist, that was over 20 years ago. Then they were acquired by Digidesign and morphed into Air Virtual Instruments first found in Pro Tools 8. Then Digidesign was bought by Avid and at some point they sold Air to InMusic. Still with me?
At which point some of the team, Peter Gorges and Axel Henson and some of the crew left and set up UJAM in 2009 with a composer called Hans Zimmer and a singer called Pharell Williams. (You may have heard of them ;))
15 years later and UJAM is making some of the coolest virtual instruments around. Not doing the usual; ‘Here’s a million features you’ll never use but might look good on a spec sheet’ instead UJAM makes the user experience simple. Even better, they make some of the funniest videos around, involving cats and a cool voice over.
McDSP
You might wonder why McDSP is included here. They are serious, they do make grown up stuff with lots of features for people to argue about in forums. However, that’s not the best thing about McDSP, they have one secret weapon… Colin.
Perhaps the smartest/nicest/funniest person in the audio world, founder Colin McDowell is simply a joy to be around. Watch any of the videos and you’ll see what I mean, but he’s even better in real life, he is the genuine article.
However, it would be remiss of me to suggest that the only reason to explore McDSP plugins and hardware is because Colin is a funny guy. They also make some of the best plugins around and are highly regarded by top professionals in music and post production. It’s just that every time I think of McDSP I think of Colin, and smile.
Don’t Be Boring
There’s a lot of very clever people that make amazing audio equipment, but few make them as fun as the companies I’ve listed above.
What about you, what audio companies make you smile? Let us know in the comments