mi pro august 2010 - issue 123
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MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO AMAZON BEHRINGER TASCAM JET CITY
No. 123 • AUGUST 2010 • WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK PRINT • ONLINE • MOBILE
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT PROFESSIONAL � FOR EVERYONE IN THE MI BUSINESS
A STAR ISREBORNHH amps and speakers return with a
nod to the past but facing the future
A N E W C L A S S O F A M P L I F I E R
Introducing the latest member of the Marshall family – the Class5. A tonally rich 5 Watt all-valve combo thatexclusively features true class A circuitry from input to output, plus an abundance of pure Marshall tone, feel andresponse. Conceived in the wake of numerous requests from both professional stadium fillers and bedroomwiddlers alike, this compact yet punchy 1x10" amp is the answer to your low wattage, big tone prayers!
Ideal for use at home, the studio, rehearsal or small gig, the Class5 is all-valve Marshall tone at its best – pure,audacious and inspiring!
To find out more about the Class5 contact:Marshall Amplification plc Denbigh Road, Bletchley, Milton Keynes MK1 1DQ or visit the official Marshall website: www.marshallamps.com
REGULARS: DISTIE PROFILE 15 I WOKE UP 36 RETAIL NEWS 58 LOCATION REPORT 62 PRODUCTS 50-55 CODA 72
FEATURES
ROSETTI 30A look at the supplier’s new British guitar project
JET CITY 32Why this US brand chose to enter this alreadysaturated market
TASCAM 34Exploring the rising appeal of field recorders
SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 3
COVER STORY 27
ISSUE 123 AUGUST 2010
Summer has long been referred to as the silly season forthe media, with the world and his wife – and MI is noexception here. The traditionally ‘quiet period’ of the year
for most of the trade usually leaves MI Pro scratching aroundfor news and features alike. Not this year.
Thanks to the MI Retail Conference & Expo, there has beenenough of a buzz about the place to keep us going at leastuntil September.
You can read the main report, starting on page 18, but itwas, for us, an extremely positive experience, albeit a nervewracking one. No-one had ever really done anything like thisbefore and the build-up to the event for the MI Pro team wasfilled with a lot of variables.
The nerves were, however, pretty much gone by the time theConference was underway and had been replaced bysomething approaching satisfaction once we started gettingfeedback from retail delegates and Event Sponsors alike at theExpo and the After Show Party.
You can see the positive reponses from both sides of thebusiness on pages 20 and 57.
What this has done for the MI trade in the UK will only bemade clear after the event has had the chance to bed itselfinto the calendar, but from the reactions we have received, it isclear that the MI Retail Conference & Expo has the makings ofbeing an annual hub around which the issues of the day can bediscussed. From discussion, of course, comes conclusions, aclearer path ahead and more ease in decision making. This isthe potential.
Next year’s event is already in the early stages of beingplanned and dates for the 2011 Conference & Expo will beannounced soon, which means that the opportunity is alreadyupon us for retailers to begin thinking about what it is theywould like to debate.
With retailers’ concerns at the centre of the agenda, it ispossible to get the entire trade singing from the same songsheet – and as Paul McCartney said, ‘that isn’t silly at all’.
Andy BarrettManaging editor
NEWS
EVENTS
SECTOR SPOTLIGHTS
The PA market was more or
less dominated in the 1970s
and 1980s by one brand –
HH Electronics. Since Laney
took the audio giant under
its wing, it has been plotting
a return. Now, that time is
finally upon us.
A SECOND COMING
MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO,
AMAZON ENTERS MI, BEHRINGER
BREAKS FROM KORG, ZILDJIAN
ENDS YAMAHA DEAL, ROLAND
PRODUCT PREVIEWS
MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO 18MI Pro’s first ever event took place on June 29th,proving to be a huge success. This bumper eventoffering looks at the day’s activities what made it geta major thumbs up
MUSIC CHINA 25In a country that has achieved staggering growth,Music China has followed suit and established itself asthe third largest global MI trade show.
MIXERS 39A sector often shunned by retailers, there appearsto be no shortage of choice in the mixer market
SCHOOL RENTALS 45
An overview of the latest youth-friendly
instruments that fit into this difficult area of MI
6
20
52
RETAILRETAIL RESPONSE TO EVENT 57Dealers’ reaction to the MI Retail Conference & Expo
From the reactions
received, it is clear
that the MI Retail
Conference & Expo
has the potential to
become a hub for
the trade.
mipro@intentmedia.co.uk
ANDY BARRETT
EDITORIALCOMMENT
37
Praise from all quarters for new trade event
MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO NEWS
MI Retail Conference & Expo attracts over 200 dealers and garners strong support from the market’s leading suppliers
4 miPRO AUGUST 2010 SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
THE FIRST MI Retail Conference
& Expo, in association with
Musikmesse took place on June
29th at The Brewery in Central
London. It brought together 23
Event Partners and over 200 UK
retailers to discuss the
major issues facing the
trade today.
The morning’s
conference saw a
series of
presentations
and panel
sessions, while
the Expo
comprised an
afternoon of
business and further
informal discussions.
The day was
rounded off with a
relaxed After Show
Party, sponsored
by Roland.
The event has been hailed by
the UK trade as an unparalleled
success, with many suppliers and
retailers stating that this sort of
gathering had been well overdue.
The conference saw Matt
Gibbs of GfK reveal statistics
outlining the state of the UK’s MI
trade at the moment (see below),
panel sesions discussing the
lessons learnt from the recent
collapse of several retail chains
and the role of the internet in MI
today. Paul McManus took
delegates through the work the
MIA undertakes on a daily basis.
Rob Sherwood, the
MD of the UK office
of Musikmesse, felt
the show delivered
everything it had
set out to do. “It
was thoroughly
well organised
with excellent
attention to the
visitor experience.”
He said. “We felt it was
professionally branded.
Intent Media has
delivered on every
aspect of the event.
Congratulations and thanks.”
“This was the best business
decision we have made this
year,” said Monacor’s Neil
Clayton, one of the Event
Partners
Details of the 2011 MI Retail
Conference & Expo will be
announced shortly.
A full report on the event
begins on page 18.
MI Retail Conference& Expo
An event
in association with
THE FIRST keynote address at
the MI Retail Conference was
provided by Matt Gibbs of GfK,
the market research company
that collects, collates and
publishes sales figures for the
UK’s musical instrument trade.
This presentation was
undoubtedly among the major
talking points of the day.
Gibbs pointed out the
general stability and quick
reactions to economic pressure
the MI trade as a whole enjoys
and showed, using GfK figures,
consumers’ confidence in the
UK, with just 15 per cent of the
population describing their
households as ‘not managing
(ie running into debt or
drawing on savings), while 42
per cent are managing while
not saving and 44 per cent are
still saving.
With the arrival of a new
government those feeling that
they will be better off in 12
months’ time, however, has
recently dropped drastically.
During 2009, MI bucked the
trend of other consumer
durables in the retail sector by
growing its market, but January
to May 2010 figures show that
currently MI is starting to slip
behind most others in the
market, contracting by 1.7
per cent.
The good news comes in the
make up of musical instrument
sales. Strong value growth in
2009 was because of price
increases and growth at the
higher end of the sector (this
was also true of other sectors),
while the underlying volumes,
which were up only slightly,
have now moved in the
opposite direction. “But it’s
crucial to note,” said Matt
Gibbs, “that while prices
went up, volume sales did
not collapse.
“Prices have now begun to
stabilise, meaning that any
value increase must come
from volume development –
and in some areas that is
actually slowing.”
In conclusion, Gibbs pointed
out that over the past 18
months, MI has performed well
above general retail, but he
added: “Low interest rates have
helped push high-end sales in
this discretionary spend area,
and will this now dry up?”
Matt Gibbs discusses his
presentation is on page 22.
Research shows tougher times ahead
“During 2009, MI bucked the
trend of other consumer
durables in the retail sector by
growing its market.
MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO NEWS
Event Partners launch new initiatives
AUDIO TECHNICA and Barnes &
Mullins both used the MI
Retail Conference & Expo to
launch new initiatives for their
UK dealers and both Event
Partners were successful with
their new introductions.
Audio Technica exceeded its
target for retailer sign-ups to the
company’s Summer School
training programme, launched at
the new retail event. The
company’s idea is to help
retailers improve customer
service through better product
knowledge and the initiatives
were warmly received by retailer
delegates, who were quick to
sign up for the tailored training
sessions in July and August. In
addition, the launch of AT’s
Centre of Excellence initiative at
the expo proved popular, with
retailers keen to benefit from
accreditation as a premium
supplier of the brand’s
microphones and headphones.
Barnes & Mullins used the
event to launch the second part
of its ‘manifesto’, which saw the
launch of the String Gallery
website, designed to be a
comprehensive resource for the
supplier’s orchestral strings. For
further information on String
Gallery, see page 58.
SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 5
Musikmesse reaches out to retailMUSIKMESSE, the headline
sponsor of the recent MI Retail
Conference & Expo used the
event to get face to face with UK
dealers and promote both its
trade shows, held in Frankfurt
and Shganghai.
“Being the headline sponsor
of the MI Pro Conference
allowed us, as Messe
Frankfurt, to get in front of UK
retailers on their home turf –
which was an experience
which we found highly
rewarding and worthwhile,” said
Messe Frankfurt UK’s managing
director, Rob Sherwood.
“Many of the retailers who
stopped by at our stand were
visitors to Musikmesse already –
and it was great to hear about
how we can make the experience
better for UK visitors.
“We’ve recently tied up a
great deal with a big hotel
agency in Germany to get
Musikmesse visitors preferential
rates, and we’ll be working on
putting together a great package
for UK visitors over the coming
months.”
Sherwood explained that it
was also a good opportunity to
let retailers, who hadn’t yet
visited Musikmesse, know what
to expect and how the organiser
could help make the trip as easy
as possible.
With 79,000 visitors attending
Musikmesse from around the
world (110,000 if you include
the concurrent Prolight + Sound
show) and over 1,500 exhibitors
making the most of the time
available is paramount and
preparing as much in advance
will help dealers get the most
from your visit.
Musikmesse’s involvement
also generated a lot of interest in
Music China, particularly with
those thinking of making the trip
for the first time. This year’s
event is scheduled for October
12th to the 15th and a preview
of the trade show, which is now
the third biggest in the world
with over 1,100 exhibitors, can
be found on page 25.
Sherwood asked that UK
retailers wishing to register
interest in visiting should drop
him an email at
rob.sherwood@uk.messefrankfurt
.com. Tickets will be available in
2011 and the UK office can be in
touch with you with travel
details as soon as they are.
Musikmesse 2011, which has
taken the slogan ‘Mission for
Music’, will run from April 6th to
9th next year at the Frankfurt
Messe. Visit the website below
for more information.
MUSIK.MESSEFRANKFURT.COM
NEWS
6 miPRO AUGUST 2010 SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
AMAZON HAS officially joined
the MI retail market, by
launching a dedicated musical
instrument category.
The move, announced on July
1st, follows a long 'trial' period
working with several established
retailers across the country and
offering a relatively small
selection of instruments and
accessories under the
'electronics' tab of the UK
version of the retailing website.
It is understood that the vast
majority of items for sale are still
from UK retailers (rather than
direct from Amazon), although
many dropped out of the
scheme when, also on July 1st,
Amazon hiked its 'marketplace'
commission from seven to 12
per cent and was also discovered
to be talking directly to suppliers
and manufacturers.
Trade reaction to Amazon’s
step-change has been mixed.
Most retailers, understandably,
are fearful of the impact the
online juggernaut seems set to
make. Some suppliers are also
wary, with Roland, Peavey and
Marshall all confirming to MI Pro
that they will not be dealing
directly with Amazon.
MI Pro recently contacted
Amazon with a list of questions
designed to determine its
intentions in the sector. In
response it issued a brief
statement: "Here at
Amazon.co.uk, we aim to provide
our customers with the widest
range of products at low prices.
We have a range of musical
instruments and, as with any
range on Amazon, we will
continue to grow over time."
(See news analysis, page 13.)
Amazon goes live with musical instruments
Behringer breaks deal with Korg
BEHRINGER MUSIC Group has
confirmed it is rearranging its
European and American
distribution policy in favour of
a ‘direct to dealer’ approach,
severing its ties with Korg,
which became its distributor
on May 1st.
According to a statement
released by the company, it
will now aim to ‘streamline
distribution and logistics
operations’. There will now be
more of a focus on areas such
as product conceptualisation,
development, manufacturing
and customer experience.
All changes will apply solely
to the Behringer and Bugera
brands, as Midas and Klark
Teknik will maintain it’s current
sales structure.
Uli Behringer, chairman and
CEO of the company
continued: “The restructure of
our sales model will help us to
place certain logistic
operations into the capable
hands of our partners and
allow us to focus on expanding
our brand into new business
segments, place a significantly
increased emphasis on
proprietary technology, and as
always, deliver our savings back
to the consumer.”
The statement does not
however mention why this
decision was made so
suddenly, or how this new
system will work in the UK.
There is also no indication as
to how this new operation will
differ from Behringer’s original
set-up before Korg was named
distributor earlier this year.
KORG: 01908 857100
Company restructures distribution plan towards direct ‘factory to
dealer’ operation two-months into deal with major UK supplier
Online retail giant introduces dedicated MI section and stings ‘partner’ retailers with fiver per cent commission hike
Zildjian terminates 15-year
distribution deal with Yamaha
IN A letter to its dealers, Yamaha
Music UK has announced that
Zildjian has decided to end the
distribution agreement it has
with Yamaha as of January 2011.
The letter, written by Richard
Hodgson, director of the pro
music division at Yamaha Music,
details the agreement and the
effort his company has put into
Zildjian since it took
responsibility for supply in 1995.
“We worked hard to establish
a sales structure and refined
dealer network,” he said.
“Many Zildjian dealers told us
they had been pleased that the
confusion and last minute deal
culture was replaced with a new
professionalism. Zildjian cited the
move to a unified YME as one it
is uncomfortable with.”
The Yamaha-Zildjian
agreement will remain
unchanged until January.
"My whole team and I want to
take this opportunity to thank
you for your continued support,”
concluded Hodgson.
YAMAHA: 01908 366700
HODGSON:
Worked hard
BEHRINGER: All
change. As you
were
NEWS
8 miPRO AUGUST 2010 SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
ROLAND WILL be offering a
sneak preview of a selection of
Roland and Boss products, which
are due to arrive in stories this
coming Autumn.
Venues in both Walsall and
Manchester have been chosen as
the physical locations for the
combined online ‘event’ before
the official global launch date of
September 1st.
These events are free to
attend, but those interested
must act quickly, as there are
only a limited number of spaces.
Roland introduced this format
last September and brand
manager Martyn Hopkins
believes it is a format that
appears to be working. “It has
been very successful. It’s a global
event and a great way to get all
the assets together in one place,
reach more people and develop
more of a buzz. The download
stats also prove that it works.”
The Walsall venue is: Walsall
College, Wisemore Campus,
Littleton Street West, Walsall,
WS2 8ES and it will take place
on Wednesday August 18th. For
further information, dealers
should call 01922 657000.
The Manchester location will
be the Monastery Manchester,
Gorton Lane, Manchester, M12
5WF on Thursday August 19th.
The contact number here is
0161 223 3211.
Both events start at 1pm and
refreshments and lunch are
included. To book, contact Lisa
Lewis on 01792 702 701, or via
email: Lisa.lewis@roland.co.uk
ROLAND: 01792 702701
Roland Connects worldwide
MI Pro becomes exclusive trade partner for LMS
Launch initiative brought back after success of last year’s global promotion brought results
Wayne
Blanchard
leaves Sabian
WAYNE BLANCHARd has left his
position as senior marketing
manager at Sabian after 24 years
with the company.
Blanchard, a high profile figure
in the cymbal manufacturer’s UK
and international operations, was
responsible for introducing the
concept of brand-led growth into
its marketing agenda. He was
also editor of the company’s
Newsbeat magazine.
He personally designed and
directed the current cymbal
advertising campaigns, the
NAMM and Musikmesse show
booths, as well as the 2010
Sabian Cymbal and Sound Guide.
“It's a unified, sequential
programme, possibly the first in
our industry and has been met
with a remarkable reception,"
he said.
Blanchard was in London
recently to direct a photo shoot
and managed Sabian media
relations, as well as serving as AR
liaison for the UK. Blanchard also
introduced Sabian’s Jackie
Houlden to Westside
Distribution, which has been the
cymbal maker’s supplier since
the demise of Arbiter.
Blanchard is now currently
discussing possible contract work
with the cymbal giant. “Having
lived and worked in the UK I am
well attuned to the market, have
a place to stay and I am available
on a consultant basis and for
marketing-related projects,”
he added.
WESTSIDE: 0141 248 4812
MI PRO HAS been named as
the exclusive trade media
partner for the London Music
Show, which is coming to the
city’s Excel venue from October
8th to 10th and will also be
sponsoring the trade lounge.
Organised by Future
Publishing, the event has also
confirmed several new
additions to its line-up, which
now includes ex-Prodigy
guitarist Jim Davies, DJ John ‘00’
Fleming and keyboard player
Howard Francis.
The exhibitor list is also
growing, with contributing
companies taking part now
including Fender, Roland, Korg,
Peavey, Marshall, Sound
Technology, JHS & Co and
Focusrite, with many more
involved and several slots still
to be announced.
The London Music Show will
feature a combination of
workshops, interactive feature
areas and live performances,
while visitors will have the
opportunity to get hands-on at
the Rhythm Live Drum Theatre,
Guitar Zone and the Sound and
Recording Technology Theatre.
“The London Music Show
promises to be a fantastic
event, giving musicians of every
level the chance to try out the
latest gear, join in a host of
interactive feature areas and
buy musical instruments and
recording equipment,” said the
event’s director, Future’s
Chris Down.
“We’re really pleased with
how the show is coming
together. Manufacturers are
really getting behind the event
and working closely with us to
help create a much-needed
showcase for the industry.”
FUTURE: 01225 442244
Dealers welcome every day as artists and exhibitors added to already impressive line-up
Music Live 2010 victim of calendar gridlock
MUSIC LIVE 2010, due to take
place at Birmingham’s NEC from
November 4th to 7th, has been
postponed, according to the
show’s organiser, Clarion Events.
The event, however, is
scheduled to return next year,
with a revamped structure
planned. The congested autumn
2010 show schedule for MI
related events has been flagged
as the main reason for this
decision, as well as exhibitors
citing financial restraints.
Music Live’s show director,
Tiffany Pritchard is optimistic for
next year and stressed that
Clarion remains committed to
the event.
“We are dedicated to the
development of Music Live. I’d
like to thank exhibitors for their
support for the UK’s longest-
running music-making event and
look forward to unveiling our
exciting plans for Music Live
2011 later in the year,” she said.
NEC CLARION: 0121 767 3592
Show schedule and financial pressures on exhibitors leads to Birmingham event’s cancellation
HOPKINS: Developing a buzz
NEWS
8 miPRO AUGUST 2010 SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
ROLAND WILL be offering a
sneak preview of a selection of
Roland and Boss products, which
are due to arrive in stories this
coming Autumn.
Venues in both Walsall and
Manchester have been chosen as
the physical locations for the
combined online ‘event’ before
the official global launch date of
September 1st.
These events are free to
attend, but those interested
must act quickly, as there are
only a limited number of spaces.
Roland introduced this format
last September and brand
manager Martyn Hopkins
believes it is a format that
appears to be working. “It has
been very successful. It’s a global
event and a great way to get all
the assets together in one place,
reach more people and develop
more of a buzz. The download
stats also prove that it works.”
The Walsall venue is: Walsall
College, Wisemore Campus,
Littleton Street West, Walsall,
WS2 8ES and it will take place
on Wednesday August 18th. For
further information, dealers
should call 01922 657000.
The Manchester location will
be the Monastery Manchester,
Gorton Lane, Manchester, M12
5WF on Thursday August 19th.
The contact number here is
0161 223 3211.
Both events start at 1pm and
refreshments and lunch are
included. To book, contact Lisa
Lewis on 01792 702 701, or via
email: Lisa.lewis@roland.co.uk
ROLAND: 01792 702701
Roland Connects worldwide
MI Pro becomes exclusive trade partner for LMS
Launch initiative brought back after success of last year’s global promotion brought results
Wayne
Blanchard
leaves Sabian
WAYNE BLANCHARd has left his
position as senior marketing
manager at Sabian after 24 years
with the company.
Blanchard, a high profile figure
in the cymbal manufacturer’s UK
and international operations, was
responsible for introducing the
concept of brand-led growth into
its marketing agenda. He was
also editor of the company’s
Newsbeat magazine.
He personally designed and
directed the current cymbal
advertising campaigns, the
NAMM and Musikmesse show
booths, as well as the 2010
Sabian Cymbal and Sound Guide.
“It's a unified, sequential
programme, possibly the first in
our industry and has been met
with a remarkable reception,"
he said.
Blanchard was in London
recently to direct a photo shoot
and managed Sabian media
relations, as well as serving as AR
liaison for the UK. Blanchard also
introduced Sabian’s Jackie
Houlden to Westside
Distribution, which has been the
cymbal maker’s supplier since
the demise of Arbiter.
Blanchard is now currently
discussing possible contract work
with the cymbal giant. “Having
lived and worked in the UK I am
well attuned to the market, have
a place to stay and I am available
on a consultant basis and for
marketing-related projects,”
he added.
WESTSIDE: 0141 248 4812
MI PRO HAS been named as
the exclusive trade media
partner for the London Music
Show, which is coming to the
city’s Excel venue from October
8th to 10th and will also be
sponsoring the trade lounge.
Organised by Future
Publishing, the event has also
confirmed several new
additions to its line-up, which
now includes ex-Prodigy
guitarist Jim Davies, DJ John ‘00’
Fleming and keyboard player
Howard Francis.
The exhibitor list is also
growing, with contributing
companies taking part now
including Fender, Roland, Korg,
Peavey, Marshall, Sound
Technology, JHS & Co and
Focusrite, with many more
involved and several slots still
to be announced.
The London Music Show will
feature a combination of
workshops, interactive feature
areas and live performances,
while visitors will have the
opportunity to get hands-on at
the Rhythm Live Drum Theatre,
Guitar Zone and the Sound and
Recording Technology Theatre.
“The London Music Show
promises to be a fantastic
event, giving musicians of every
level the chance to try out the
latest gear, join in a host of
interactive feature areas and
buy musical instruments and
recording equipment,” said the
event’s director, Future’s
Chris Down.
“We’re really pleased with
how the show is coming
together. Manufacturers are
really getting behind the event
and working closely with us to
help create a much-needed
showcase for the industry.”
FUTURE: 01225 442244
Dealers welcome every day as artists and exhibitors added to already impressive line-up
Music Live 2010 victim of calendar gridlock
MUSIC LIVE 2010, due to take
place at Birmingham’s NEC from
November 4th to 7th, has been
postponed, according to the
show’s organiser, Clarion Events.
The event, however, is
scheduled to return next year,
with a revamped structure
planned. The congested autumn
2010 show schedule for MI
related events has been flagged
as the main reason for this
decision, as well as exhibitors
citing financial restraints.
Music Live’s show director,
Tiffany Pritchard is optimistic for
next year and stressed that
Clarion remains committed to
the event.
“We are dedicated to the
development of Music Live. I’d
like to thank exhibitors for their
support for the UK’s longest-
running music-making event and
look forward to unveiling our
exciting plans for Music Live
2011 later in the year,” she said.
NEC CLARION: 0121 767 3592
Show schedule and financial pressures on exhibitors leads to Birmingham event’s cancellation
HOPKINS: Developing a buzz
Yamaha acoustic drums have been the instrument ofchoice for leading drummers since 1967. And morerecently our DTX electronic drums have pushed backthe boundaries of technology, allowing beginnersthrough to professionals the opportunity to take theirdrumming to new levels of excellence. Here in the UK, Yamaha has been committed to providing the very bestlevels of service to the drum market for many years and we look forward toserving our UK and ROI dealers well into the future. Exciting new releases for 2010 include Rock Tour and the flagship DTX 900 Series. And withour massive investment in new pad technology, as well as advanced production techniquesand innovative design, there's never been a better time to get onboard with Yamaha Drums. To find out how you can drum up a storm with Yamaha Drums please contact: Gavin Thomas, Product Manager, on 01908 366700
NEWS ANALYSIS AMAZON
12 miPRO AUGUST 2010 SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
WE ALL watched from a distance as we
saw the (initially gradual) disintegration of
the record shop. From such a distance,
indeed, that we probably didn’t even think
about the fact that, as we bought our CDs,
DVDs and books from Amazon’s website,
we were contributing to the demise of at
least two independent retail communities.
The beauty of the Amazon model was
that, unlike anything other than the
largest bricks and mortar outlets, it could
stock everything, offer it at discounted
prices and deliver within a couple of days.
The Post Office liked it, too.
July 1st saw Amazon further extend its
already vast scope by introducing a
dedicated tab for musical instruments,
accompanied by a large sigh from the
whole of the MI retailing fraternity…
Although some for different reasons.
A number of MI dealers had, in fact,
been using Amazon for some time to sell
through stock, including Jonathan Birch of
JB’s Music in Tunbridge Wells. Birch is one
of the only dealers willing to talk openly
about his involvement with Amazon,
seeing it as an essential weapon to fight
the online tidal wave that is causing so
much consternation among bricks and
mortar retailers.
“There are three or four retailers
working online that most of us simply
can’t compete with,” he explained. “The
likes of Digital Village, Dolphin and
Thomann have got online business
pretty well wrapped up. Working
with the likes of Amazon means we
can compete.”
Birch went on to say that this isn’t
simply box shifting, either. Customers
had phone numbers and email addresses
and could get good after sales back up
from JB’s.
The problem for these
dealers came on the same
day as Amazon’s dedicated
MI tab was introduced. A
hiking of the website’s
commission from seven to 12 per cent,
thus killing off much of the point for
dealers selling through the website.
“Throughout the three years I’ve been
using Amazon, they have used words such
as ‘partner’, but then, suddenly, you
couldn’t reach anyone to talk to. They
have promised to contact me, but so far
[as MI Pro goes to press] nothing,” said
Birch. “What’s more, we discovered that
they are turning to the manufacturers and
going direct, undercutting us even more.”
As a result of all of this, Birch has severely
cut back the lines he sells through Amazon
and is investing the money in his own
website instead.
This is where things start to get
interesting. There are, of course, a few
suppliers that avoid websites and
multiples anyway, but among the big
boys, Roland UK, Peavey Europe and
Marshall Amplification have said that
they will not be dealing with Amazon in
the UK or Europe... At the present
moment... The on-the-record statements
are almost as bland as the occasional
sentences of general meaninglessness that
emit from Amazon itself (which only says
anything once one has pushed hard and
long for a quote. Even the BBC could get
no more). This could be because American
branches (or headquarters) of global
companies are already supplying Amazon
across the pond.
As to which suppliers are selling directly
to Amazon, it is hard to tell. The supply
chain is something of a labyrinth.
Anything on the website that is listed as
being ‘fulfilled by Amazon’, comes from
Amazon’s central warehouse, although this
does not mean that it has been supplied
by the manufacturer.
To add to the confusion, certain
suppliers are threatening to send letters to
dealers forbidding the sale of their
products through third party websites.
While many dealers will applaud such a
move, others, such as Birch, see it as
somewhat absurd. “There was one
company that forbade the sale of its
products via third party websites and all
the legitimate dealers accordingly
stopped – only for rogue traders to
continue regardless.
“It’s a bit odd. My suppliers know me, I
don’t hide anything, they know the service
I offer, they know the level of training my
staff have. I’m not certain of the legality
of such demands, so I shall be finding out
as soon as I get one of these letters.”
It’s all a bit of a mess, really, which
probably falls nicely into Amazon’s plans –
divide and conquer and all that. One thing
is for sure, however, and that is that
Amazon selling musical instruments will
not crumble the foundations of
independent dealers in the way it did for
books and records. For one, there is little
in MI that can fit in the average letterbox
and that trip to the Post Office might as
well be a trip to the shop. Second, it is
clear that suspicion and disgruntlement
will keep a good deal of the trade well
away from Amazon… For now.
“Digital Village, Dolphin and Thomann have got
online business pretty well wrapped up. Working
with the likes of Amazon means we can compete. Jonathan Birch, JB’s Music
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Amazon has made headlines by going live with a dedicated
tab for musical instruments – and the online giant doesn’t
seem too bothered about upsetting anyone, either. Andy
Barrett swings his machete through the undergrowth…
Lost in the jungle
Mel BayM U S I C , L T D .
Excellence in Music
Mel BayM U S I C , L T D .
Excellence in Music
Follow us: twitter.com/melbaymusic • facebook.com/melbaypublicationsVisit us: www.melbay.com
R
UK Freephone: 0800 432 0486 • e-mail salesuk@melbay.com
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SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 15
DISTRIBUTION PROFILE
Year Established: Around 1936
Number of employees: 24
Is business up or down compared to last year?
Compared to last year we’re finding business is
slightly down and we’re noticing the same trends
across the whole music industry in the UK at the
moment. We’re also hearing similar reports from
the US and the rest of Europe as well.
How has the economic climate affected business?
The current economic climate has affected business
for us and the rest of the music industry on the
whole from what we’ve all seen and heard. The
majority of the British public still want to play and
desire new musical equipment, but we’re noticing
that the UK population has much less of a
disposable income to spend on music gear.
What are your best-selling lines, and why do
you think they perform so well?
Vandoren has always been one of our best selling
lines due to its rich history and excellent quality
and now that its reeds are supplied in ‘factory fresh’
packaging, this makes them even more desirable.
Rickenbacker is also a very popular, unique and
exclusive brand, which is highly regarded by many
professional musicians. Again, the quality is second
to none and demand is greater than supply.
Our own Adam Black range is performing very
well and the acoustic range offers exceptional
performance and quality for the price. Our new
Libra UK model adds additional credibility and
strength to the brand name.
Promark is another brand doing well and is
helped by its excellent endorsee roster and
exceptional quality.
How does Rosetti feel the UK market differs
from other global markets?
Music is a huge part of the UK identity and its
culture. British music has always stood apart from
the rest of Europe and the US. This makes it very
hard to predict future trends and a best selling US
model doesn’t always translate to the UK.
Music now plays a larger and important role in
education, which has been a great help over the
recent years and hopefully this will continue.
What distinguishes you from the competition?
We distribute the best brands, hold great stock
levels and offer free delivery on all orders over £25,
regardless of weight. Every guitar we send out is
checked by our in-house workshop for quality
before dispatch and we also offer a generous five
per cent settlement on invoices paid within terms.
How do you maintain a good relationship
with retailers?
We strive to offer good service, generous terms and
excellent products and we always check stock
before dispatch.
We’re also in the process of organising an open
day and look forward to meeting with many of our
key customers in September.
What would you say is the biggest challenge
facing the MI industry today?
Amazon, Tesco and other large corporations that
are selling into the MI market are a big challenge at
the moment, forcing us and everyone else into
looking into new ways to work within this new
business climate.
What are your aims for the next 12 months?
To increase our market share with our current
brands as well as establish Hagstrom as a brand.
We also aim to increase our strengths in-house,
and improve customer service. We’ve already re-
designed and heavily updated our own website.
Mark Ellis
ROSETTI - BRAINTREE, ESSEX
Rosetti’s Mark Ellis
highlights the
strengths of his
company’s brands
and what sets the
supplier apart
from the rest…
Address: 4 Blackwell Drive, Springwood Industrial
Estate, Braintree, Essex CM7 2QJ
Phone: 01376 550033 Email: music@rosetti.co.uk
Web: www.rosetti.co.uk
CONTACT DETAILS
TOP DRUMMER Dave Weckl has
become the final addition to the
London Drum Show lineup,
according to Sabian's UK
distributor Westside.
The event, set to take place
over the weekend of September
4th and 5th will mark the first
time that Weckl has undertaken
a UK clinic or master class
appearance for some years, so
confirmation of his appearance
will allow UK drummers the
opportunity to witness his
legendary technique and playing
skills up close.
Weckl will perform a master
class on Saturday 4th and play
the main stage on Sunday 5th.
Ian Croft, Editor of Drummer
magazine, told MI Pro: “We are
delighted to have Dave
confirmed for the show. He is a
musician of the greatest repute
and his performance is
guaranteed to enthrall The
London Drum Show audience.”
Dave Weckl joins Benny Greb,
Pete Locket, Mike Mangini,
Ndugu Chancler, Andy Fisenden,
Ralph Salmins, Paul Clarvis, Nisan
Stewart, Ian Matthews, Craig
Blundell, Albert Vila and Young
Drummer of the Year Ben Clark
at London's Olympia
venue. Steve Gadd will
be formally opening
the show at
midday on
September 4th.
Jobeky
Drums, one of
the UK’s leading
innovators in
developing
electronic drums
and marrying electronics to
acoustics, will also be exhibiting
at The London Drum Show,
“proving that the custom drum
industry values the exposure that
the London Drum show can
bring,” said the show's organiser,
Oyster House Media.
Jobeky co-owner Jane Ackroyd
added: “Following on from our
own Custom Drum Show in May,
we are very pleased to be
exhibiting at The London Drum
Show where we will be
displaying our full sized, hand
painted kit by Scary Designs.
“Jobeky’s aim has always been
to show that electronic kits can
be as realistic in look and
playability as an acoustic,
without compromise.”
OYSTER HOUSE MEDIA:
01884 266100
THIS PAGE IS SPONSORED BY MIKEDOLBEAR.COM, THE LEADING ONLINE RESOURCE FOR EVERYTHING DRUMS.
VISIT WWW.MIKEDOLBEAR.COM FOR MORE DETAILS.
DRUM NEWS
16 miPRO AUGUST 2010 SIGN UP FOR THE MI PRO NEWSFLASH SERVICE AT WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
London Drum Show lineup completeOyster House announces increasing exhibitor list and initial artist roster with more to follow in the near future
ROLAND'S SALES training
scheme is set to continue with
a special V-Drums education
event in the West Midlands.
This one-day sales training
session will be held at Walsall
College on Tuesday August
17th. It is due to be hosted by
Michael Schack (pictured),
Roland’s international V-Drum
demonstrator, who has been
involved in V-Drums product
development, demonstrations
and training for over a decade.
The objective of the day is
to share the latest sales
techniques and ensure all
participants have the tools and
knowledge to increase V-Drum
turnover in stores. The session
will include tips, examples and
ideas that can be put to use
by retailers on the shop floor.
The event will be split into
different stages, focusing on all
the main kits in the V-Drum
range, as well as the new
Octapad, SPD-S sampling pad
and Handsonic series. The day
will start at 11am and is set to
finish at 4pm. Lunch will also
be included.
Although free to attend,
there is a limit of 30 people,
so dealers are advised to book
now by contacting Lisa Lewis
on the number below, or via
email: Lisa.lewis@roland.co.uk
The venue for the event is
Walsall College, Wisemore
Campus, Littleton Street West,
Walsall WS2 8ES
ROLAND: 01792 702701
Roland announces
V-Drum education eventMore big names sign up to DW DRUM WORKSHOP has
announced the official signing of
several high-profile drummers.
Dave Grohl, Thomas Lang and
Dominick Howard have become
the latest endorsers for the top
drum company.
Drum Workshop considers its
artist roster to be one of the
most celebrated and highly
visible in the drum industry
today and already has more
endorsers than you can shake a
drumstick at, including Tommy
Lee (Mötley Crüe), Mick
Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac), Max
Weinberg (Bruce Springsteen),
Aaron Spears (Usher), Alex
Gonzalez (Mana) and Neil Peart
(Rush). Its latest recruits include
Austrian virtuoso drummer
Thomas Lang, Derek Roddy,
Creed stickman Scott Phillips,
John 'JR' Robinson, heavy hitter
Dave Grohl and Muse drummer
Dominick Howard.
“At Drum Workshop we really
pride ourselves on our artist
relations programme," said the
company's director of marketing,
Scott Donnell. “We have an
amazing roster and it’s a real
family atmosphere.
It’s always been that way and
we feel that, more than ever, we
can offer drummers the best
service, products and people in
the business. We’re honoured to
be working with so many
talented artists."
"Guys like Thomas and Derek
take drumming to new heights,
Scott and Dominick are billboard
chart toppers and what can you
say about JR and Dave Grohl,
other than they have influenced
a generation of drummers and
continue to do so today. We
couldn’t be happier to have these
guys on board and we look
forward to working with them
for years to come.”
MORICO: 01992 461089
GROHL: Renowned tub thumper is one of DW’s newest endorsers
The original concept was a simple
one: could we get 75 to 100 UK
retailers together to discuss some of
the major issues facing the MI trade today
and then talk business with 15 or so
leading suppliers. It ended up being a lot
more than that.
At the final count, almost two dozen
suppliers gathered along with over 200
dealers and the UK’s MI trade got a clear
and valuable snapshot of its current
condition and future challenges.
The responses from all concerned were,
as you would expect, many and varied,
although there were a few issues that
illustrated a general theme as to how
things could be improved, but as you will
see (page 20) the overriding opinion was
very much a thumbs up that MI Pro had
managed to launch a vital and needed
event that will grow into the future.
For those of you unlucky enough not to
be there, here’s a rundown of how the
event was scheduled: The day started
casually with registration and coffee,
followed by all the delegates taking their
seats in the large Porter Tun hall, where an
introductory video was followed by a few
words of welcome from Intent Media’s
managing director, Stuart Dinsey.
The keynote presentation came from
Matthew Gibbs of the market research
company GfK, the only researcher to be
tracking retail sales of musical instruments
in the UK. Gibbs illustrated how MI had
largely cruised through the initial impact
of the global economic crisis, but also
showed that the first five months of 2010
looked uncomfortably like a downturn.
“Prices have now begun to stabilise,” he
said. “This means that any value increase
must come from volume development –
and in some areas that is actually
slowing.” A full report of Gibbs’
presentation can be seen on page 22.
The first of two panel sessions,
‘Reverberations: What Have Retailers and
Suppliers Learnt from the Collapse of
Sound Control, Reverb and Other
Multiples?’ was chaired by Andy Barrett,
who aimed questions at Simon Gilson of
PMT, Noel Sheehan of Sheehan’s Music,
Dennis Drumm of JHS and Julia Thomson
from FCN.
The discussion moved around topics
such as the ease of supply – indeed the
idea that MI is drastically over supplied –
and that suppliers should look upon
themselves as banks, offering, as they do,
lines of credit to dealers. “At the moment,
18 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
EVENT REVIEW � MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO
The first MI Retail Conference & Expo took place at The Brewery in Central London on June 29th. A new type of trade
event, it put retailers top of the agenda and benefitted from the support of some of the market’s biggest suppliers...
We can work it out
FACT FILE:
EVENT: MI Retail Conference & Expo,
in association with Musikmesse
DATE: June 29th 2010
VENUE: The Brewery, London
EXHIBITORS: 23
VISITORS: 304
VERDICT: As a first attempt, it
couldn’t have been much better.
Generally, it was seen that the
conference element could have been
longer and the panel sessions deeper,
but by and large, the UK trade gave
MI Pro’s first trade event a
resounding thumbs up.
banks are extremely cautious as to who
they lend money to,” said Gilson. “Yet a
shop can get thousands of pounds worth
of gear just like that.”
Both Drumm and Thompson concurred,
but qualified the statement. “We have a
warehouse full of stock so that we can
supply what is wanted by the dealer,” said
Thompson. “It is so easy to become an MI
dealer, so it is up to us to make sure
these businesses are being run properly.”
“It’s not for us to dictate to other
businesses how they are run,” said
Drumm. “That said, JHS looks for
customers who run their businesses with
a close eye on their fiduciary duties and
trade with our company more or less
within terms.”
Paul McManus, the CEO of the Music
Industries Association took to the podium
next and ran through the efforts the
organisation is constantly undertaking to
grow the market, lobby parliament and
ultimately, make more musicians.
One of the major functions of the MIA
is to run the charity Music for All and to
this end, Roland UK’s managing director,
Tim Walter, took a few minutes to launch
the initiative ‘Three Men on a Bike’. This
will see Walter and two other Roland
directors cycle from Lands End to the
London Music Show in October to raise
funds for the charity. Walter called upon
any and every individual in the MI trade
to ‘give something back’ and get involved
in any way possible. (For further details,
go to http://threemenonabike.org.)
In another seamless link, Walter
handed over to his sales director at
Roland UK, Peter Heath, who chaired the
second panel session, ‘Online Selling:
Threat or Opportunity’. On the panel
were Paul Marshall of Marshall
Amplification, Harvey Roberts of Audio
Technica, David Briggs of Dawsons and
Katy Watson-Cave of Dolphin Music.
“In MI, we are a long way behind
getting the most out of the internet,” said
Watson-Cave, whose experience is mostly
outside MI with the likes of Halfords,
Boots and Marks & Spencer. “Denial of
the online e-tail industry goes back many
years and in all cases has been reversed.
We need a complementary approach.”
Roberts agreed with this, pointing out
that a complementary approach is
needed from everyone. “Traditional
retailers need to think about what added
value they can deliver so that consumers
want to shop in-store,” he said. “What do
people currently get out of visiting the
stores? If it's not very much, then of
course, they'll just buy online as there's
no service being offered.”
Briggs proved immensely popular on
this session and, in inimitable style, boiled
the retailing mission, whether online or
on the shop floor, to its fundamental
purpose. “You buy a product at ‘X’, you
sell at ‘Y’ and you live off the difference. If
you can’t live off the difference, you need
to find a new product.”
A lively Q&A brought the conference
to an end, but it was immediately clear
that the delegates had an appetite for
more. The presentations had been well
received and the panels sparked debate.
Next year, the plan is to increase the
content and tackle even more subjects,
possibly in a multi-track programme.
After a networking lunch, the action
then shifted to the expo, where 23 Event
Partners met with existing customers –
and found some new ones.
It was very much a business
environment, conducive to meetings and
discussion, with some product and service
demos, and even a retailer survey adding
to the buzz.
Among these were the initiatives
launched by Audio Technica and Barnes &
Mullins. The microphone giant used the
Expo to introduce its Summer Schools
and Centres of Excellence, While B&M
unveiled its new orchestral strings
website, String Gallery, as part of its
‘manifesto’ to rally behind the
independent retailer.
As you will see from the comments
that follow, the vast majority of Event
Partners and delegates felt the event was
a great success – as good as a first
attempt could be – and exactly what the
UK trade has needed for some time now.
Curiously, perhaps, of all the events
that have taken place aimed at UK
retailers, this is the first time that retailers
have been the centre of attention.
The inherent beauty of it, of course, is
that the event is all about dialogue and
that discussion is still ongoing, meaning
that next year’s MI Retail Conference &
Expo is certain to be better still. We can
work it out.
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 19
MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO � EVENT REVIEW
MI Retail Conference& Expo
An event
in association with
20 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
EVENT REVIEW � MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO
“As the organiser of Musikmesse we
found the MI Retail Conference to be an
excellent way to engage with UK retailers
and suppliers. The event was thoroughly
well organised with excellent attention to
the visitor experience. We also felt the
event was professionally branded. MI Pro
has delivered on every aspect of the
event. Congratulations and thanks.”
ROB SHERWOOD, MUSIKMESSE
“Congratulations to
the MI Pro team for
putting on something
new and different to
the usual trade show.
This was the first
event and obviously
lots of lessons can and will be learnt for
next year, which without question Audio
Technica will be keen to support. The
more feedback and comments received
will obviously help shape future events
and make it the ‘must-attend’ annual
diary event.
“I would also like to thank all the
retailers who came along and showed
their support and hope to see them and
others coming back next year for what
will undoubtedly be bigger and better.”
HARVEY ROBERTS, AUDIO TECHNICA
“There could have been one or two more
hours in the conference. Pre-selected
questions would have been better,
perhaps people could have submitted
three questions beforehand. But it’s been
good value for money, bearing in mind it’s
new – and it was great to talk to dealers
we never normally would.”
TONY GRAVEL, TASCAM
“Very, very good.
Anything that gets
dealers together and
creates feedback from
the market is a good
thing. I’ve seen a lot
of customers, I’ve seen
people I haven’t seen for years – it’s been
wonderful. It’s like the old days of the
BMF when we used hotels for the show –
really excellent.”
TONY FLATT, TANGLEWOOD
“We came to meet new retailers and
generate new business, as well as put
some faces to names – and that has all
been done.”
LAWRENCE DAVIES, ALLIANZ
“Just great – really good – and if I
thought it was rubbish, I’d tell you. Well
done. As a ‘first version’ I don’t think you
could have done it better, but you know,
of course, that the hard work begins now.
You have to identify the good and not so
good bits and improve everything.”
CRAIG FENNEY, NATAL
“It’s been a very positive day. A relaxed
environment in the Expo and enthusiasm
from the dealers has been good. Having a
checklist of dealers was really handy
because you can tick off who you have
and haven’t seen and it’s been nice to
meet some old friends too.”
SIMON TURNBULL, D’ADDARIO UK
“Quiet simply, it’s the
best show we’ve ever
done. Best for the
quantity of quality
contacts and the best
decision we’ve made
as a business this
year. I’ll tell you how good it was – the
only thing wrong for us is the difficulty of
parking with our van. When that’s the
only complaint you have, you know it’s
good.”
NEIL CLAYTON, MONACOR
“It has been very successful and far busier
than I thought it would be. I didn’t expect
everyone to make the effort, but it’s great
that they have.”
STEVE GREENWOOD, MARSHALL
AMPLIFICATION
“Congratulations for putting on an
extremely professional and well organised
trade event. The right people were invited,
excellent choice of trade dealers and key
decision makers. The stand and space was
perfect and the business from this one
afternoon will flourish over the next six
to 12 months. “
CHRIS STATHAM, MEL BAY
“A-plus. That’s what everybody has been
telling me. I think this is an excellent
initiative by MI Pro.”
DAVID RUSHWORTH, INTERMUSIC
“We bought 30 of our own retailers, so
there weren’t any surprises for us,
although with so many other exhibitors
outside our market, we have met a few
dealers we don’t know and we have
signed some new accounts – so, all in all,
yes, very good.”
DANIEL MASON, CASIO
“It’s a great location, a
really good spread of
people and I really like
the small, intimate
environment.”
ALEX MEW, BARNES
& MULLINS
“Well done – you should be proud of
yourselves for a job well done. There are
lots of ways we can improve this and I’m
happy to go through my ideas for what
they’re worth, but for a first attempt, I
think you’ve done extremely well.”
MIKE BARNFIELD, MICKLEBURGH (AND
FORMER MIA PRESIDENT)
“Just wanted to thank you guys for
being brave enough to organise such an
event during these unpredictable times
that both retailers and our suppliers are
faced with.
“Having recently returned from a very
similar (but more established) event,
which was being held by retailers from a
different industry, I can honestly say that
the event had all the ingredients to
become a successful annual event.”
TONY WHITE, BONNERS
With positive response approaching the overwhelming, here is what the Event Partners said about the MI Retail
Conference & Expo, as well as some of the retail delegates. Further retail comment can be found on page 55…
The verdict
‘It’s rare for a guitar to feel truly effortless
(especially when you pick it up for the first time)
but the V6 is a joy to play.
‘It’s rare for a guitar to feel truly effortless
(especially when you pick it up for the first time)
but the V6 is a joy to play.
‘This guitarlooks andfeels like a real old rocker.’
REISSUED REISSUED
‘Any pigeonholing of Vintage at the budgetend of the guitar marketplace is looking
increasingly unjustified’Louis Thorne
‘Any pigeonholing of Vintage at the budgetend of the guitar marketplace is looking
increasingly unjustified’Louis Thorne
Designed in association with
Trev Wilkinson Design Associate
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New 2010 models*
equipped with
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'The award-winning, critically-acclaimed range
of Santos Martinez classical and electro-
classical guitars offers analluring combination of
sweet-toned performanceand easy playability.'
Tony Simmons
'The award-winning, critically-acclaimed range
of Santos Martinez classical and electro-
classical guitars offers analluring combination of
sweet-toned performanceand easy playability.'
Tony Simmons
New 2010 models*
equipped withNew 2010 models*
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‘Putting it through a wah and fuzz pedal induced instant Hendrix, with
authentic feel and tone’Huw Price
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authentic feel and tone’
“Classic vintage feel,awesome authentic tone
and a cool vibe”
Geoff Whitehorn
Geoff WhitehornSignature Series Geoff WhitehornSignature Series
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‘ We live in an aspirational world, and there is no more aspirational product than a guitar. Myth and mystique surrounds the instruments of old we think of as ‘Holy Grails’.
My objective with Fret-King Blue Label series™ instruments is to bring all the best attributes of our shared heritage together and produce modern classics.
A lifetime of research carried out into what makes an electric guitar ‘tick’, combined with wide experience of guitar building in many production facilities on every continent, has enabled me to use my knowledge to create a range infused with the subtleties which blend style, tone, clarity and power to make a truly world-class guitar.
New to the Fret-King® Blue Label range in 2010 are the Ventura and Elan Super 60 models, which are available in various finishes and pickup configurations. A Ventura 80 bass has also been introduced.
© 2
010
JHS
& C
o. L
td.
Fret-King Blue Label Series.com
BLUE LABELNEW 2010 MODELS
Worldwide Trade Distributors:
FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON JHS PRODUCTS AND DEALERSHIP OPPORTUNITIESCONTACT YOUR JHS ASM OR OUR SALES OFFICE ON:
0113 2866 411
Trev Wilkinson
www.jhs.co.uk
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 22
MI RETAIL CONFERENCE & EXPO � EVENT REVIEW
Through our
panel of
over 76,000
UK retail outlets,
GfK is able to
gather sales data
from a wide
variety of
technology and
durable product categories. Coupled with
insight into consumer sentiment and
confidence, we’re able to build up a
comprehensive picture of whether people
are willing to spend, and then what they’re
willing to spend on.
The GfK NOP consumer confidence
index figure (which is derived from a series
of questions relating to household
finances) hit a low of -38 at the end of
2008. To put that into perspective, the
lowest score during the recession of
1990/1991 was -35. Anybody with
experience of both periods would agree
that the economic fundamentals are very
different. Currently unemployment is low
in relative terms, and interest rates are at
a record low of 0.5% compared to 14% in
1991. Clearly the drop in economic output
has impacted bonuses, pay reviews and
such like, but balancing that is the fact
that the largest single item of expenditure
for most UK households is housing, and
these costs have dropped. So confidence is
low, willingness to spend is low, but
disposable income for the average
household has up until now increased. This
is backed up by evidence from the
consumer confidence index showing that
44% of households are currently able to
‘save a little or a lot’, compared to only 15
per cent that state they are “drawing on
savings or running into debt”. When
looking forwards though, the indicators are
less positive. Following the election, there
has been a marked increase in households
believing their financial position will
worsen in the next year.
During 2009, spending overall dropped
by three per cent (or about £1.5 bn), yet
for musical instruments rose by over ten
per cent. Spending within durables over
the past 18 months has in particular been
focused on higher-end price points. High-
end brands have all performed well. And
whether it’s guitars, washing machines or
hair straighteners this trend can be seen.
In line with this, much of the growth seen
within MI was at the top end of the price
spectrum. Couple this trend with the fact
that exchange related price increases hit
MI far earlier than in other product areas,
and you get a strong value growth
reaction to very little volume change – in
fact most MI markets were flat or
declining in volumes during this time
period. From this, you could surmise that
retailers focusing on the high-end will
have performed best. Where people have
been willing to spend, they’ve spent on
aspirational goods and MI has clearly
benefited from this.
Move on to 2010 however and the
picture looks less rosy. Prices have now
begun to stabilise, meaning that any value
increase must come from volume
development – and in some areas that is
slowing. The durables market as a whole
has grown strongly for the YTD 2010 – up
by 2.4 per cent in value compared to a
drop of 1.4% for MI. This highlights how
fluctuating the performance of MI can be,
and is a trend commonly seen in markets
where power rests firmly with the
manufacturers rather than the retailers.
The electric guitar sector has seen the
fastest slowdown so far in 2010, with
high-tech products like synths, keyboards
and digital percussion the best performers.
So from this evidence we can conclude
that MI is not a very price elastic market –
spending or demand on a category level
does not seem to be stimulated heavily by
price fluctuation. ASP for an electric guitar
rose by nearly 20 per cent over the course
of 2009, but volumes were stable. What
we can say with some confidence is that
MI has benefited from low interest rates
and lack of consumer willingness to spend.
With disposable income likely to become
far more squeezed, the danger for MI is
that this spending will dry up.
Matt Gibbs is account director musical
instruments at GfK Retail. For further
information: Matthew.gibbs@gfk.com.
One of the highlights of the MI Retail Conference was the
keynote talk based on GfK’s industry statistics. MI has
ridden the initial wave of the credit crunch, but the public
is now hanging on to its disposable income. Matt Gibbs
gives us a run-through of his well-received presentation…
Hitting the
brakes
“MI has benefited
from the low
interest rates and
lack of consumer
willingness to spend
2010 has shown MI’s first downturn since the recession began in 2008
Nearly half of the UK’s households are still managing to save
Growth has been seen in some unexpected places in the first half of 2010
MI succeeds to maintain volume sales despite wide-ranging price increases
As the world reeled from the
consequences of the credit crunch
through 2009, China proved exactly
how strong it had become as an
economic powerhouse by growing its GDP
by a mere eight and a half per cent
(compared to nine per cent in 2008 and
13 per cent in 2007).
There is a certain amount of ‘splendid
isolation’ involved in this, as China’s
currencies and financial systems continue
(thanks to its still largely controlled
economy) to function separate from much
of the world’s more dynamic exchanges,
but much of the buffer against tumbling
stocks and shrinking reserves was due
simply to the colossal manufacturing clout
that the country has.
China continues to grow, albeit at a
slower rate than before, and one assumes
that musical instruments and the Music
China show will, too – although that one
is a little more difficult to call.
Price increases over the past year have
maintained profits in MI trade in the UK,
but now prices have stabilised, it would
appear that unit sales are beginning to
dwindle, too – not that China would bat
so much as an eyelid at the sort of drop
the UK represents, but multiply that across
the developed world.
One thing is particularly clear, however,
as Music China’s growth has paralleled
China’s ascendancy since the launch of
the show in 2002, so 2010 will most likely
see a moderate, almost imperceptible
push upwards.
Combine this with the developed world
seeing the light at the end of the
(crunched) tunnel and October’s show is
likely to be as dynamic as ever. Last year’s
show took up some 65,750 square
metres of space over six halls and saw
1,164 companies from 24 countries
exhibiting to 42,499 people from 86
countries over the four days (two of them
open to the public).
“For 2010, we are seeing that exhibitors
are more confident in putting together
aggressive marketing plans to get back
any business lost during the global
economic downturn,” said Evan Sha, the
deputy general manager of Messe
Frankfurt (Shanghai). “Well over 90 per
cent of last year’s exhibitors have reserved
space for this year.”
Interestingly, this push for ‘bigger’
would appear to be an effort to create
more shelf space for higher-end products.
According to the National Bureau of
Statistics in China, the continued growth
the domestic population has enjoyed in
disposable income has contributed to a
steady increase in retail sales. In December
2009, the year-on-year growth rate was
17.5 per cent. The Chinese government
had initiated a stimulation plan to
compensate for the decline in growth,
which bolstered consumption and was
reflected at Music China 2009, with
buyers looking for high quality products.
“With an improving economy, we expect
this trend for quality to continue for
Music China 2010 as Chinese buyers are
still demanding high quality branded
goods to meet the needs of local
consumers,” Sha concluded.
Chinese buyers demanding branded
goods, eh?
Since Music China began, everyone has
been reflecting on the benefits of having
one’s foot in the door once the Chinese
domestic market began expressing itself
through a desire for luxury items (and for
the sake of argument, I am including all of
MI in that). With the developed world
taking a couple of steps backwards and
China continuing to run forwards, the gap
is now perceptibly closing… And the door
is widening. If your foot is in there, you’d
best be ready.
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO JUNE 2009 25
As China hauls itself out of the ‘blip’ that was for the rest of the world a global recession,
Music China continues to increase its gravitational pull on the world of MI. Andy Barrett
burrows down to bring the first of three overviews on this key event in the MI calendar…
China syndrome
MUSIKMESSE � EVENT REPORTMUSIC CHINA EVENT PREVIEW
OCTOBER 12TH TO 15TH SHANGHAI NEW INTERNATIONAL EXPO CENTRE
IN THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE CORNER
UK exhibitors have maintained their
numbers at around two dozen for a few
years now, with some, such as Howarths,
Tanglewood and Denis Wick being genuine
regulars. Those from the British Isles
exhibiting this year are listed here.
Colin Holdsworth tells MI Pro that there
are still a couple of £1,800 grants
available for qualifying companies
wishing to exhibit.
ABRSM/Oxford University Press
Denis Wick Products
G7th
Hiwatt
Howarth of London
IBC Trading
JMI Amplification
Mel Bay Music
Music Sales
Scalerail
Tanglewood
Tokai (unconfirmed)
“China continues
to grow and one
assumes that
musical
instruments and
the Music China
show will, too.
It would be almost impossible for
someone who wasn’t in the MI trade,
or an active musician in the late 1970s
and 80s, to appreciate how important the
HH brand once was. At that time, HH
more or less owned the band PA market
and was huge in backline. Born in the
early 1970s in Cambridge, the resolutely
black and red clothed, all solid-state
products epitomised an era of rapid
growth and innovation. Downed by a
series of poor management decisions
(including an ill-fated electronic keyboard
and a range of home computers) it
eventually passed, via Carlsbro, into the
ownership of Laney, which has quietly
bided its time, waiting for the perfect
moment to relaunch this iconic British
brand. And that moment will soon be
upon us, James Laney explains.
In 1990, when the ever-canny Lyndon
Laney acquired HH Electronics from
Carlsbro (then still owned by its founder,
Stuart Mercer) speculation was rife that
the iconic high-tech British brand was set
for an instant comeback. It hadn’t fared
well in Carlsbro’s hands – probably
because both brands catered to the same
market, producing ‘the working man’s
amp’ which, while it was the mainstay of
just about every pub and club band in the
country, was less often seen on the
professional stages – dominated by the
valve hierarchy.
But Laney hadn’t bought HH for its
amplification expertise – why should it
have? After all, the Birmingham amp
maker had plenty of that of its own.
Instead, it later emerged, Laney had
bought the company for its largely
unrecognised (outside of technical circles)
excellence at loudspeaker design and
manufacture. Lyndon Laney knew he
could take those speakers and use them
to equip his own amplifiers, giving him
an instant cost and quality edge over
his competitors.
Fast forward to Frankfurt this year,
where visitors found an HH stand
showing prototypes of a completely
new range. On the horizon, it appeared,
was not just the odd backline amp, or
PA enclosure, but a full-scale relaunch.
James Laney, overseeing the project, is
understandably excited by the prospect
of this.
Return of the kingHH Electronics is a brand that many musicians of a certain age will remember fondly. Now, since being bought by Laney,
it’s back with a whole range of products waiting in the wings. Gary Cooper was on hand to uncover the details...
HH ELECTRONICS COVER FEATURE
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 27
“At a certain point in time, HH was the
market leader – the innovator. Not just in
terms of marketing, but in terms of the
technology and the principles behind it,”
he enthuses.
So what exactly was it that has
restrained Laney from doing this in the
past? Both Lyndon and James have been
asked before, not least because to a
certain generation, it has seemed as if
they were neglecting a potential
goldmine in an industry obsessed with its
own heritage.
“The last decade has been a time of
remodelling the way we’ve worked – not
least in becoming a distributor as well.
We’ve moved from a business that was
making everything in the West Midlands –
bashing metal, cutting wood, making
speakers – to having to go through the
process of disassembling that and moving
it offshore, and that has taken a very long
time to get it how we want it and where
we want it. It’s a place where we still
have our heart in manufacturing.
“We still design the product, we still
go through the whole engineering
process – asking the questions about how
easy it will be to put it in the box and will
it still work at the end, when it’s been
shipped thousands of miles? Doing that,
and doing that at arm’s length across
the other side of the world, is a set of
skills that I think we, as a business, are
pretty good at. But you’ve go to learn
those skills.
“What you don’t want to do – and this
is why we might have seemed as if we
were dragging our heels – is come up
with a few speaker boxes, stick a name on
them and get someone in Asia to make
them for you. We know that wouldn’t
work with Laney, we know with Laney
that we still have to come up with the
ideas, and that’s just as true for HH. You
hear the argument that you can just go
to a factory, buy a product and stick a
badge on it, but you actually can’t – it
doesn’t work. The only place that can
work is at the very low-end, short-lived,
area in the market and that’s not where
HH was and it’s not where HH will be.”
Laney makes a good point. If HH
meant anything for its retailers and end-
users, it was as a stylish, innovative, high-
tech product. Slapping the distinctive red
logo on a box filled with cheap Chinese
speakers would be a sure route to
extinction. So what is on the way?
“It falls into two main camps, really.
I’d probably call it professional
portable audio – PA for musicians – and
some backline.”
That backline aspect could have been
easy for Laney to have ignored -
particularly as it already has a highly
successful offering in that area.
“HH was very successful there. Look at
the VS Musician, the Bass Machine and
the IC100. That was all iconic stuff and
the fact that we’ve got pictures of Marc
Bolan stood in front of his HH isn’t to be
ignored. In fact, there’s an enormous list
of artists who’ve used HH and it’s not
necessarily all in the past. I opened a
magazine just a while ago and saw a
picture of Johnny Marr sat by a VS
Musician. It’s everywhere, so there’s
definitely the will to do backline again.”
That said, one of the characteristics of
HH backline was that it most certainly
wasn’t a screaming, valve Marshall or
Laney. Though HH’s founder, Mike
Harrison, regarded valve technology as
obsolete, the fact was that most guitarists
continued to aspire to own valve products
and Harrison and his supporters (of whom
there were more than a few inside the
amp business) simply got it wrong. The
valve might have been a dinosaur, but it
made the sound guitarists wanted –
which was something Laney understood.
The point of which being, while
reintroducing HH will push some
guitarist’s buttons, it can’t be assumed
that the majority will feel the same way.
“Yes – we’ve got this great resource to
draw on, but it’s balancing that with
doing something that’s current that is
going to count,” Laney says. “We have to
use that past and we have to refer to it,
but we don’t have to copy it.
“To that end, we brought in Duncan
Boniface as product development
manager for HH. Duncan is specifically
tasked with leading the HH process. This
is not just the Laney design team doing
some HH on the side – we have got
separate resources, 100 per cent
dedicated to HH. Duncan is an
experienced speaker engineer, which adds
credibility to our original speaker design
approach, and he is also very experienced
in China.”
So what abut the PA products?
“What we’ve tried to do here is say
‘these are products for musicians,
designed by musicians’. That really is our
starting point. Most of us here are
consumers as well as producers, so our
starting point was to say ‘as a musician,
what do I want my PA to do?’ and that’s
not the same today as it was in the
1970s. You have to look at it and ask
what did it do well? What were the
design cues, what are the questions that
it was asking? You can’t not have a mixer
because there wasn’t one in the 1970s,
but what you can do is ask what
approach would HH have taken to it. I
think people will see the results of that.
For example, we’re working on a powered
mixer which we’ve yet to unveil and
when we do, I think people will see things
on it that are very different from what
they’ve been used to, because we’ve
approached it in that unique way.”
One other aspect of the relaunch that
will gladden many hearts is that HH will
be sticking to the philosophy with which
it began – all the speakers used will be its
own. Laney says the design team were
very aware of that aspect of HH’s original
success and they were determined to
make use of that legacy. “We are doing
the speaker design because if we weren’t,
we wouldn’t be doing the brand justice,”
he says.
Given that our industry – notably the
guitar and amp sector – is awash with
product nostalgia, does Laney feel there is
a sense in which HH has actually gained
extra credibility by not having been
available for 20 years? Isn’t it the case
COVER FEATURE HH ELECTRONICS
28 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
“What you don’t want to do – and this is why we
might have seemed as if we were dragging our
heels – is come up with a few speaker boxes, stick a
name on them and get someone in Asia to make
them for youJames Laney
Product development manager Duncan Boniface (left) and James Laney
HH ELECTRONICS COVER FEATURE
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 29
that some companies have revived
products that weren’t even a success the
first time around and tried to make
them hits, by adding a little marketing
fairy dust?”
“It’s all a question of how do you make
it cool, but that only opens the door. Once
that door is open, you’ve got to put a
product to the market that stands on its
own. That’s why I’m keen to emphasise
that were not doing a VS Musician Mk II
because that just won’t work today. We’ve
seen examples in our industry where
products have been re-released and
flopped – or where they are ‘re-released’,
called the same thing, but are nothing like
the originals. That doesn’t work either. Yes,
you can create mystique just by being old,
that gets you in the door, but once you’re
in, what do you do with it?
“There is this love for the brand. You
could see that on our stand at Frankfurt,
where people of a certain age would walk
past the stand, see the logo, do a double-
take and smile. But the real challenge is
that the people who buy this product,
particularly on an international stage
where we are very active, won’t remember
HH. We have to borrow a bit of the
history to show them this isn’t just a new
thing we’ve dreamed-up, but the product
has got to mean something for now and
we have deliberated a long, long time over
what is going to be quite a big launch of a
lot of products.”
So when will MI Pro’s retailer readers
actually get their hands on the new HH
range? And when they do, what will they
have to sell?
“It will be the very end of the year –
with a launch in earnest in the New Year.
What we’ve got is a whole range of
products: three ranges of PA cabinets,
some active, some passive, with monitors
that go with them. We’ve got bass amps,
guitar amps, mixer heads – a lot of
products to launch simultaneously, plus, of
course, the power amplifiers. Those power
amplifiers are a perfect example of what I
was talking about, though. Everyone
remembers the V series, but though
there’s a great pedigree there, you
can’t do yesterday’s power amplifier – of
all the things. You can’t re-release a
product in that market to an old design.
Mind you, there may be a small corner of
the market that wants a boutique,
handmade V800. We realised that when
we saw people drooling over the one we
had on the stand at Frankfurt.
“One of the reasons this is taking so
long is that we are obsessed with
reliability. The thing that must not happen
is uncertainty about quality. Yes, there
might be some love for the old name, but
if the product turns up and doesn’t work,
then we’ve blown the chance. We’ve been
working for 18 months to bring this many
products together. We couldn’t launch it in
bits and pieces, we’ve got to launch a full
range and that’s taken a lot of work. It’s
been quite a test for us.”
One area of frustration for well-wishing
onlookers when Laney purchased HH was
that it didn’t build what could have been a
knock-out bass system, using HH’s
advanced speakers and its superb power
amps. Have Laney and his team’s minds
strayed in that direction this time around?
“Absolutely. It’s an area that’s not in our
first launch stage, where we’ll be doing
some more entry-level bass amps to get
the volume aspect of the business going,
but we do want to do it. We have the
right bits and we even know what we’re
going to call it, but it probably won’t be
right at the beginning. And the other area
is acoustic amps - which didn’t exist
when HH was around before - there are a
lot of possibilities.”
However good
the HH range
proves to be, one of
the obstacles facing
the Headstock
distribution team
could be the
unwillingness of
some MI retailers to
get involved in PA –
and often only in the
most peripheral sense, when they do.
What is the plan here?
“It’s changed a lot. There were always a
few powered monitors in the corner of a
guitar shop and even that’s fading away. I
think our approach for the UK, speaking as
Headstock, the distributor rather than as
HH, is to ask what dealers do we want and
how are we going to work with and
support them? You don’t actually need
that many shops to do the job right, You
need good national coverage and you
need backing for the product, but we don’t
need 300 dealers all at once, selling them
all two pieces each. I think it’s much
better, like we did when we launched
Ibanez, to work with the people who are
committed to it and help them make
good money, help them display it properly
and help them reach their consumer. I
think Headstock has the right abilities to
take that through.
“I think what I’d say to dealers about
this is that it’s a fantastic opportunity.
What matters to dealers? I think that they
like working with the company whose
supplying them, that they can make good
profits on the products in their shops, and
that they don’t make profit on things they
only sell once a year – they make profit
on something that sells consistently. Also,
we will make sure that the product is
reliable and that it’s not just something
we’ve found in China and stuck a badge
on. I can’t say that enough. What retailers
want least in their lives is a stream of
products in their store rooms that have
come back because things have gone
wrong with them. I know I sound like I’m
banging-on about quality control, but
we’re obsessive about that.
“The focus of our first phase will be the
professional audio side – a package of
cabinets, mixers, power amplifiers and the
hardware that you need. At the start, there
will be some backline for the entry-level
market, the 15, 30 and 60-Watt market,
because it’s a product the dealer will sell
every day. We have more exotic products
on the way, like a wonderful two-by-15-
inch isobaric bass cabinet that will sound
amazing and shake the glass out of
windows, but dealers don’t sell one of
those every day. They need bankers and
commodity sales that will help build faith
in the brand and which they can make
good profit on. It’s getting the right split
between commodity sales, core sales and
iconic products and the core is where
we’re going to start.”
Whether dealers will queue round the
stand, as they were said to have done
when HH made its début at Frankfurt in
the early 1970s, remains to be seen.
There’s no doubt, however, that the return
of the two red Hs will inject a much
needed jolt of excitement into the MI
scene early next year. For any reader of a
certain age, it will be hard to suppress a
welcoming smile.
HEADSTOCK: 0121 508 6666
COMPANY PROFILE ROSETTI
If the name Adam Black sounds like the
hero of a tough, down to earth detective
series, then it’s likely Rosetti’s marketing
team hit the target, when they came up
with the name for a range of no-nonsense
‘bang for your buck’ acoustic guitars. The
brand has matured since its launch, finding
a healthy niche in the market, but
significantly has recently been graced by the
introduction of affordable UK-made electric
guitars that are starting to attract serious
attention. Affordable UK-made electric
guitars? Absolutely, explains Rosetti’s MD,
Mark Ellis.
“In 2002, we identified that there were
still opportunities in the acoustic guitar
market, but that it had to be approached
differently. We aimed to include all the
features players want and leave out the rest.
“When you sit down with a factory in the
Far East, they literally have an Excel
spreadsheet that says if you want a fancy
inlay, it will cost you $10 and so on. But we
stuck to the basics, for example starting
with reliable machine heads. We said we
want Grovers because we’ve found from the
guitars we’ve handled that it takes a lot to
destroy a Grover. So we started with that,
then a simple dot inlay, added a basic
abalone inlay round the soundhole, but
opted for good solid tops, scalloped bracing
inside, dovetail neck joints – the features
that you’d have on a high-end instrument.”
The plain but honest approach went
down well with retailers and the public, with
Adam Black acoustics starting at £149 and
more than making up in sound and quality
for what they might lack in flashy
cosmetics. With a top-end Adam Black
acoustic costing around £449, it’s a
competitively priced range likely to appeal
to the experienced player, who appreciates
a quality instrument and isn’t beguiled by
showy looks.
“Lately we’ve added free cases as part of
the deal for retailers that buy a small
quantity of them and that’s how we have
progressed with it. It’s been a case of
thinking ‘what can we do to make it an
easy sell for the retailer?’, with the added
benefit that he can make decent money on
it, plus the opportunity of offering a free
case, should he need to.”
So was the name actually chosen to
represent that philosophy?
“Very much so. You wouldn’t believe
how many names for guitars have been
registered. We said we just wanted a
simple product that gets you from A to B
– hence Adam Black.”
The first guitars appeared in 2003 and
were followed by an electric range which,
it’s probably fair to say, wasn’t such a
success. Possibly, too many models were on
offer, Ellis concedes, though some of the
models sold well. The range was soon
whittled down to more manageable
proportions. Then, last year, Rosetti decided
“We thought there had to be a way of making a
guitar that was affordable and has features over its
competitors from the Far East Mark Ellis
Rosetti’s managing director
English RoseDesigning a British electric guitar might seem like a daunting task, but not if you’re a
member of the Rosetti team behind the Adam Black range. Gary Cooper finds out more…
The Rosetti team, with MD Mark
Ellis proudly holding an Adam
Black electric in the centre
30 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
to do something almost unprecedented for a UK
wholesaler: it built a British electric guitar.
“We’ve got great skills in our workshop team at
Rosetti. People who have worked with guitars and
indeed built their own guitars, and I thought: can we
utilise their skills to build a guitar that’s made in the
UK? So, early this year, that’s what we did and it was
one hell of a battle. I didn’t realise how much goes
into producing guitars.
“Being based in the South East, there’s a lot of
specialist engineering companies around here –
particularly manufacturing for Formula One. For
example, I found a guy in Suffolk who could make
the body blanks for us out of high quality ash, so
we’ve been able to offer a three-piece body, like on a
custom shop Fender. Then I found a CNC company in
Essex that could CNC the bodies. They specialise in
making fine detail products for Formula One and
other demanding applications and were keen to get
involved. We give them the ash and they do the rest
– drilling, routing, creating the scratchplates and so
on. The necks weren’t quite as easy and we have to
source those from a Japanese company.”
Ellis found one interesting reflection on the MI
business when working with these precision
engineers. When he gave them the components that
he wanted to use with the bodies, they were hugely
impressed by the standard of bridges, saddles and
other machined items, which we take for granted in
the guitar business, but which these specialist
engineers said were exceptionally high quality.
“We tend to look at it and think it’s just a stop
bar tailpiece, but the quality of engineering in our
industry – well, the word they used was
‘breathtaking’. We just take it for granted, but they
were so impressed by the quality of the die casting
and plating on products we handle every day.”
Of course, once you start importing components
like bridges, tailpieces, necks and so on, it raises the
question ‘how British is a British guitar?’ Without
wandering into litigation territory, it’s a question that
might just as easily be asked of some US guitar
producers, but it concerned Ellis enough to call in
the Essex trading standards department which was,
he says, astonishingly helpful and
supportive, advising Rosetti what it
needed to do to comply with the strict
regulations. “I couldn’t fault the way
they supported and helped us with this
project,” he says. “It’s been enlightening
for us, and now we have a UK guitar which
will retail with a nice bag for just £400.”
Part of Rosetti’s plan was the leverage of
the team of guitar experts it had assembled
through all the years it had distributed
Gibson and Epiphone. Now its four
guitar experts not only set up every
guitar that Rosetti distributes, but
also assembles and perfects the
Adam Black electric range.
“All that work is done here. The bodies come in,
we assemble them, then we do the finishing here,
too. Some of our guys have been with us for 20
years, so they’ve got the skills and were instrumental
in the final design, too, so it has been a good
exercise right throughout the whole company from
the very beginning.”
In common with everyone else, Ellis admits that
times are hard in the guitar market right now, so
Rosetti wasn’t expecting to set the market on fire
with the new UK Adam Black electrics, but they have
had a positive reaction from retailers and he says
that positive mood is beginning to spread.
“We’ve got a number of endorsers already, who
we’ve been working with for a number of years and
we also work with a company that liaises with band
management companies. I’ve asked them to start
working on these, as well. It’s critical to have artist
endorsement and relations programmes, particularly
at a time like this. You have to make it as easy as
possible for the people out there, so that’s what
were doing. It’s hard work, mind you.” he laughs.
It’s refreshing when one of the UK’s longest
established distributors decides to break the mould
and not just buy Asian guitars out of a pattern book,
but takes the trouble to design, specify, assemble
and finish a line of its own. From a commercial point
of view, it ticks the box that UK distributors have
increasingly had to pay attention to – realising that
placing your business’ future in the hands of brand
owners carries a serious risk – and Adam Black, for
all that it means to the company, has to establish
the brand from new, gives them ownership of a
range over which it can exert complete control.
“We thought there had to be a way of making a
guitar that was affordable and has features over its
competitors from the Far East,” Ellis says. “We’d put
this guitar up against any other at the price point.
“One thing we also did was involve the endorsers,
who tend to be younger and with up and coming
bands. That’s important, because we’re not going out
with an established name. It would be difficult to
convince older guys, who have long since decided
they are Fender players, for example, that this is
what they must have, so we’ve targeted Adam Black
at younger players – and people like it. They are
happy to see a guitar that is made in the UK.”
While you have always been able to buy a
handmade British guitar for a thousand pounds (or
two or three) a British-made guitar selling in the
£400 region (or its pre-inflationary equivalent)
hasn’t been available for a very long while. If Rosetti
can pull this off it could set a completely new
market trend for home grown instruments
– and that can only be a good thing.
ROSETTI: 01376 550033
ROSETTI COMPANY PROFILE
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 31
COMPANY PROFILE JET CITY
IIt’s not an original story, three guys
from the MI business meet up working
for a large corporation and say to each
other ‘hey, we can do this – and what’s
more, we won’t need to report to anyone
but each other’. But when Dan Gallagher
(above) and Doug White found themselves
working with each other for Loud
Technologies, selling and managing several
products including the Blackheart range of
amplifiers and did exactly that, they went
a stage further and did something a bit
different. Soldano was a consultant on
that project as he had been on projects
working with White in the past.
Gallagher and White had worked
together in 1999 and through the early
noughties establishing Behringer in the US
and then met up again at Loud, where
Gallagher was VP of International Sales
and White was VP of Product
Development for MI Brands.
“We had both worked for big
corporations, so the opportunity to work
with a product range of our own design
was refreshing – and we saw the benefits
of getting away from the pleated trousers,
the white shirts and the bean counters,”
explained Gallagher. “So we said to Mike:
‘what if we start a new business and take
your designs to a much bigger market?’
We knew Mike had been approached
before, but we were offering him the
chance to have complete decision making
over the designs and hands-on
manufacturing involvement. He is known
for being fastidious – that’s why he’s
called the Ferrari of amps – so if anything
is wrong, he tells Doug and we change it.”
Gallagher describes Jet City (named
after Seattle, where the company is based)
as “very honest with good honest
products, “but we don’t take ourselves
too seriously.”
The birth of Jet City, then, is nothing
particularly out of the ordinary, but it is in
the development, manufacture and
marketing of the products that things take
a swerve away from the norm. We have
seen it before in the guitar market, top
luthiers designing models for the mass
manufacturing market – although in those
cases, there tends to be a brand looking to
step up from the entry level to the high
end. In the case of Jet City, the brand is
born of the idea.
Gallagher is keen to point out the
equality of each of the members of the
triumvirate, Soldano on design and
engineering, White on product
development and marketing, Gallagher on
sales and business, but this is not a
dictatorship in any other way. Jet City is
essentially these three and all other work
is sub-contracted out, including a heavy
nod towards viral marketing.
“Everything we do has a purpose,”
pointed out Gallagher. “Jet City is what
people call Seattle, which is where we are
based, the concentric rings of the logo is
based (a bit tongue in cheek, I admit) on
another famous Seattle brand, the 333
refers to Mike’s ’formula’ for overdrive –
everything is as deliberate as the designs.”
The result of all this is the JCA range of
amps, cabs and combos, designed by
Soldano and brought to market only after
Soldano was happy enough to put his
name to them.
“He is very strict. The transformer of
the first prototype is a classic example.
Mike built the first prototype in his shop
in Seattle and Doug took it to China to
build the production units. Doug spent a
few weeks there setting our standards and
revised the output transformer about
three times by comparing measurements
to Mike’s original US-made transformer,
Jet settersIf ever there were a market suffering from
congestion, it must be the guitar amplifier
scene. Andy Barrett hard wires into Jet
City to find out what is powering the
new US brand – and discovers
some impressive whys,
wherefores and Watts
32 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
and through listening tests. When he came home
with what he hoped would be the production
standard, we were very happy with the parts and
construction, and it sounded good – but not good
enough for Mike. It turned out that there wasn’t
enough iron in the transformer and it didn’t have
enough bass output. It felt good we were working
with a factory with a high level of competency, but
there are not many guitar amp makers in the world
like Mike Soldano.
“Mike has consulted with other manufacturers
before, so he knows – and we know – that what we
are making are never going to be Soldano amps –
but this is the first time he has had some ownership
in the company, so JCA amps are as close as is
humanly possible to the real deal.”
The range comprises three heads (with compatible
cabs) and two combos, the higher wattage models
having two channels: ‘crunch’ and ‘overdrive’. The
overdrive circuit is what made Soldano famous,
ranging from dirty to an extreme high gain, much
loved by modern guitarists. The units are all plywood
construction with a 16-gauge steel chassis – and,
put simply, you would probably have to have ears
the quality of Soldano’s to hear the difference
between these and their big boutique forebears.
“If you take the 20-Watt JCA 20H, which was
based on the Atomic 16, we have managed to create
a copy of a Soldano amp that sells for $1,200 for
just $299 – when you take the quality of these into
consideration, that’s not cheap, that’s just
unbelievable value.”
Because of this, Jet City has been something of an
overnight success in the US and the brand is now
opening out into the international market. In the UK,
Source Distribution has taken on the line.
And there, apart from the possibility of running
through the specs of each individual unit, the story
would have ended for now and we could have closed
with Gallagher, White and Soldano, arm in arm,
gazing over the Pacific ocean. Enthusiasts, however,
rarely draw a line under their activities. If it worked
for Soldano designs, the team thought, why
shouldn’t it work with others?
“While we are certainly concentrating on the
Soldano designs at the moment, the object of Jet
City is to co-brand with other boutique amplifier
makers as well and the first step along that path is a
collaboration with Andy Marshall of THD,” explained
Gallagher. Marshall, like Soldano, began his career by
hot rodding amps for pro players and moved on to
making THD a big name – and like Soldano has been
looking to get his designs out to a wider public.
“These guys represent big brands, but they are
both looking to take up a bit more shelf space in the
shops,” continued Gallagher. “This is what Jet City
does – and we are looking to do more when it is
possible. Obviously, we have to be completely legit.
We have to be honest, we have to be right about
everything we do – and the products have to be
absolutely right.”
The THD-style model takes the currently popular
‘mesh steel’, small format casing, an all-new design
with a five-Watt amp with a half power switch,
called the PicoValve.
“If you think the Jet City by Soldano are value for
money, then the Pico Valve is even better,” enthused
Gallagher. “This has a US street price of $299 and
like the THD original, it can be hot-valve switched
the power section, like the THD UniValve – we’re
going to offer an oven glove as an optional
accessory item.”
The Pico Valve is the kind of amp that guitarists
love in the studio. The combination of the low
Wattage and the interchangeable valves means that
a huge array of tones can be achieved and the low
output means that a full, juicy overdrive can be
achieved at manageable levels.
“We are really looking forward to doing more with
Andy,” admits Gallagher. “And the beauty of our set-
up is that we can put out an open offer to amp
makers everywhere – you can come to us. Guitar
players are always looking for their’voice’ – and likely
as not putting down the established brands. They
want something different – and that’s what we do.”
Gallagher concluded by underlining this ‘service’,
saying that Jet City is genuinely looking to give
brands that have never really had a chance to get
their products out to the wider market, simply
because of availability and price – and he hopes the
JCAs and Pico Valve will get that message across.
They aren’t the originals, but they are damned close.
SOURCE DISTRIBUTION: 020 8962 5080
JET CITY COMPANY PROFILE
Soldano (left) with Lou Reed. The designer made his name hot-rodding amps for pro players
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 33
COMPANY PROFILE TASCAM
Despite the infamous ‘summer
slump’ in the MI trade, some
products seem to have a special
appeal at this time of year. Acoustic
guitars, for example – perfect for
impromptu jams and in the back garden or
on the beach. And while you’re playing
outdoors, how about a solid state field
recorder to act as the perfect notebook for
when genius strikes? Tascam has carved
out a great market for these incredibly
useful devices, which musicians have
taken to for all sorts of applications – not
least for sampling and taking advantage of
digital sound quality, which means they
can integrate the results into fully
professional standard recordings.
Recently, Tascam added to its range, but
as the company’s technical sales manager,
Gary Maguire explains, the previous
market stormer, the DR-07, has been such
a success that it is maintaining its place in
the line-up, with the newcomer, the DR-
08, coming in above it in the range.
There’s no doubt that field recorders are
selling so just who is buying them?
“It’s one of those markets that at times
is hard to fathom, but from what we’re
hearing, a lot of people are using them for
capturing sounds outside for sampling,
open air gigs and practising. Field
recorders make it easy to get down ideas,
before committing them to a portastudio
or computer based recording solution.
“One of the most common uses of
these recorders we have seen is the
recording of gigs where traditionally the
only means of recording was using a CD
recorder. Now they have the option to use
a field recorder, take it home and burn off
CDs or upload to Youtube or a similar
service. It’s much more convenient to have
a small, handy pocket recorder for that.
“The DR-07 has been out for some time
and the next step was to make it more
pocket friendly, so the DR-08 is a lot
smaller than the DR-07. However, we’re
continuing the DR-07, as it’s our ‘value’
product at the moment. But the DR-08
has added features, as well. It has a higher
sampling rate, a built-in speaker and you
can move the microphones, so that you
can get a wider stereo image. It’s probably
a bit more music-friendly than the DR-07,
but that has sold so well that we’ve been
able to bring the price down and we’ll be
continuing to meet the demand for it.
“At the same time as the DR-08, we’ve
introduced the DR-2d, which has a
massive unique selling point – its dual
recording function. Why this is so
important is because if you set your
recording levels at the start of a
performance and you set them incorrectly,
there’s a secondary recording being made
in the background at a lower level - so
whoever came up with that idea, we
should take our hats off to him.”
Given the way almost any performance,
acoustic or amplified, tends to creep up
the dB scale as the evening wears on, this
feature could prove to be a lifeline to
anyone making a live recording. And it’s by
no means the only feature that makes the
DR-2d stand out, as it also boasts a pair of
onboard condenser mics, slow-down
playback with no pitch change, and the
now familiar, easy to use Tascam interface.
“It’s also effectively recording four
channels at once, so another way of using
it, if you were recording a live gig for
example, would be to record via both the
line inputs and the microphones. That way
you end up with two stereo files, one with
the ambience of the gig and the other as
your direct mix from the front of house
mixer. That makes it ideal for putting files
up on Youtube or Sound Cloud, because
you can mix in the crowd sound and
ambience however you like.”
Tascam has a host of field recording
solutions, many of which will appeal to
the broadcast industry but a larger
majority are targeted at the MI sector. For
Tascam has recently added to its range of best-selling field recorders. But that's not all this industry stalwart has been up
to in its never-ending bid to tempt end-users and retailers alike. Gary Cooper gets the latest from Tascam's Gary Maguire.
34 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
Track and Field
example, the
affordable DR07, the
DR08 with its slim
profile, the DR2d that
would appeal to a
recording novice due
to its dual record
function, the GTR1 for
guitarists and two
boom box models for
rehearsal rooms, as
well as practicing
musicians.
So what about
Tascam’s venerable
Portastudio range,
now in its 30th year?
“Currently we
have four models: a
four track, an eight
track, an eight track
with CD and a 24
track with CD,”
Maguire says. “One
thing that we’ve
done over the past
year is streamline
our range, allowing
retailers to offer easy
options. The idea is to
enable a sale to go through more
easily. We’ve done the same with the
streamlined audio interface range, too –
which currently comes as a two input,
four input and sixteen input, with a few
more eight input models on the way.
“Most of our products are designed to
make for easy choices. It’s a case of the
retailer saying ‘what are your needs?’ and
the solution presents itself. One of the
biggest things that I’ve had feedback on
from our dealers is where someone takes
a customer through their options, gets to
the end of the conversation, they’re just
about to take the customer’s money when
he says ‘By the way, I’m using Windows 7
64-bit, will it work?”. All of a sudden, the
interface that they’ve been talking about
for the previous 20 minutes or half an
hour is not suitable for their needs. Well,
what Tascam has done is pump a lot of
money into making sure our products are
compatible with every version of Windows
on the market and every version of the
Mac operating systems as well.
“It avoids that situation where you’ve
described the perfect product for the
customer, only to lose his confidence at
the end of the transaction. So we have, in
true Tascam style, stuck to the basics and
made sure it’s a simple sell for the retailer.
There are a lot of things that you can put
into a box as technology becomes cheaper
and cheaper but, particularly for
musicians, that can sometimes act as a
deterrent if the choices become murky for
someone who only wants to click ‘record’.”
When MI Pro last spoke with Tascam,
Tony Gravel explained how much trouble
the company goes through to make itself
appealing to smaller retailers, who might
imagine they are too little to interest
them. Gravel stressed that small retailers
are very important to the company and
Gary Maguire says that, they have
increased their efforts to attract them.
“We know that it’s tough out there and
that footfall is down in the smaller stores.
In the industry there has been a bit of an
over-reliance on Internet selling, so in the
last year we have been visiting a lot of the
smaller stores, supporting them and
bringing them to our products. We’re open
for all small retailers to help them
compete with the larger shops and help
them sell our products – we’re certainly
not prejudiced as to where our products
go and we’ll, on occasion, support some of
the smaller dealers even more so.”
This is not a Quixotic gesture towards
smaller stores either, as Maguire explains.
“There are a lot of guitarists out there
who aren’t interested in the technology
and a lot of the smaller stores are guitar
stores, where they may not have a lot of
knowledge about recording and
technology, but where there are a lot of
opportunities to make sales. That’s why
we still have our Portastudios and the
sales of those are very good, so we’re
going to carry on with them. A lot of
manufacturers have discontinued
multitrack units, but we’ve every intention
of continuing with them and we’ve new
models coming along in the future. There’s
still a large market out there that is
intimidated by computer recording – but
it’s not just about that. There are people
that have got big Pro Tools systems, but
don’t want to be stuck in front of a
computer when trying to get ideas down.
A Portastudio offers an easier route and
thanks to digital technology, where once
you were recording to a four track
cassette and it was stuck there, now you
are recording in digital. So, if you happen
to do the best take you’ve ever done, you
can export that to a Pro Tools set up and
have it professionally mixed later.”
Convenience, ease of use, professional
audio quality at competitive prices and a
policy of helping independent retailers.
What’s not to like?
TASCAM: 08451 302511
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www.stentor-music.com
Stentor Music Co LtdTel: 01737 240226 Email: sales@stentor-music.com
STENTOR The First Choice
“In the last year we have been visiting a lot of the
smaller stores and bringing them to our products. Gary Maguire
Technical sales manager, Tascam
TASCAM COMPANY PROFILE
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 35
PROFILE
I WOKE UPTHIS MORNING
As a sales manager, there are two
types of day – one where I’m at
home and the rest where I’m out
on the road. If I’m home based, I’ll get
up around seven and if I’m away it
could be any time between five and
nine o’clock, depending on where I’m
going. I’m lucky enough to live 15
minutes away from the M1 and most
retailers in the UK don’t open until 10,
so I can get to most places fairly easily.
The first thing I’ll do is have a cup of
tea and then switch my computer on
and have a look at what’s happening in
the world and then take my dog, a
labrador, out for a walk. The other day, I
was talking to my neighbour and the
dog started eating his fence, so it’s
important to get him some exercise as
soon as I can in the morning.
When I get home, it’s back to the
computer again checking emails and
planning the day out. I’ve been pretty
busy of late; I think in the last few
months we’ve opened up 36 new
dealers. Most of the day I’m answering
emails, as I’m also international sales
manager, so there is always a lot to
deal with. We do a lot of business in
Europe and Africa, so the time
difference isn’t too bad and a lot of my
time is spent in contact with them.
In my spare time I like to do
anything that doesn’t involve music.
After 19 years in the business, I find
that when I get out of the car or
switch off the computer, I just want to
do something else. I still love guitars,
but you have to have a break from it,
otherwise it becomes all-consuming.
I like listening to my six year old’s
opinion of the world, reading books and
anything that allows me to relax.
My background before joining
Studiomaster was in retail. I worked at
Academy of Sound and then got a job
at Loud Technologies with Ampeg,
before moving on to Maverick Guitars,
which make some of the best guitars
I’ve had my hands on in many years. I
had a stint running my own company
too – GNT guitars, where we
specialised in boutique effect pedals,
while doing freelance for Maverick.
I then went self-employed again
before being offered the job by
Studiomaster. It was the perfect time
to join, starting from the bottom and
it’s great how much it has grown since.
As for future plans, I’d just like to
win the lottery so then I could go and
buy my own island. But if we’re being
serious, I’d just like us to carry on as we
are, to ensure everything keeps going
ahead as planned to make sure there
are no shocks in store for us in this
wonderful industry.
Life can be stressful
for MI salesmen,
which is why
Studiomaster’s
Callum Talbot likes to
clear his mind of
everything music
related when he gets
some much needed
free time.
International Sales Manager – Studiomaster
CALLUM TALBOT
OUR ACCESSORIES
D’ADDARIO UK CAN HELP YOU MAXIMISE YOUR ACCESSORY SALES
MEASUREYOURPROFITS
CONTACT YOURREGIONAL SALES MANAGERS
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
NORTH - BRUCE FALCONER
07786 528 020SOUTH - STEVE PRESTON
07920 022 208
DADDARIO.CO.UKD’ADDARIO UK I A3 ELEVENTH AVE, TEAM VALLEY, GATESHEAD, NE11 OJY I 0191 300 3000 I
INFO@DADDARIO.CO.UKD’Addario, Planet Waves, Evans, HQ and Puresound are registered trademarks or trademarks of D’Addario & Company, WW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
”I love guitars, but
in my spare time I
like to do anything
that doesn’t
involve music.
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 39
MIXERS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT
Although more likely to be
associated with MI Pro’s sister
magazine, Audio Pro, mixers are a
worthwhile purchase for a band either
looking to record their creations or those
seeking a way to add something a bit
different to their sound.
MI is full of categories whereby the
difference between the low priced, entry
level products and the top notch, all
singing all dancing models equipped with
the best gear, is vast. Mixing consoles are
no different – they can range from below
£100 all the way up to many tens of
thousands. Of course, as appealing as mile
long desks with more buttons than an
aeroplane cockpit are, they’re a wee bit
inappropriate for your regular musical
instrument retailer to stock. So here’s a
taster of the market for us MI folk.
Allen & Heath’s Zed series is aimed at
the modern working musician for either
touring or recording situations. This
collection consists of the Zed-10, Zed-14
and Zed-24 stereo mixers, along with Zed-
10FX, 12FX and 22FX, which come
equipped with a set of in-house designed
effects. The versatile Zed-R16 is a
recording mixer, blending Firewire with
multi-mode MIDI/audio filters, MIDI
controls and ‘home studio’ routing.
Delivering both powered and
unpowered consoles is the PA series.
Designed as the perfect tool for running
your average PA system, the PA12 would
feel right at home in clubs, school and
conference systems, as well as in the
possession of traveling musicians.
24 mono channels, a four-band eq, four
stereo channels, each with two
unbalanced stereo inputs on each and four
aux sends are just some of the features on
this member of the Allen & Heath family.
A 16-program digital FX processor offers
reverbs, delays, chorus and more.
Proel’s M series is a complete range of
mixers with price points spanning from
£159 for the extremely compact M6 with
6 inputs, up to the £1,225 M1500USB.
The last two channels on the smaller
members of the series (the M6 and M8)
use combi XLR’s, meaning they can be
used as stereo channels or simply for a
mic on XLR. The M500 is the best selling
mixer in the range, due to the power it
produces from its compact size, as well as
its choice of effects and price.
Alto has also produced a fine blend of
both active and passive mixers suitable for
the MI market. One of particular note is
the Lynx-Mix244. This 24 input, four-bus
console offers high headroom, ultra low-
noise discrete mic preamps and a variety
of effects (256 in total).
Mackie’s Onyx 1640i represents the
upper end of what can be categorised as
MI mixers. This desk blends a powerful
16x16 Firewire interface with the
premium analog features such as 16 Onyx
preamps and Perkins eq. This will certainly
attract bands keen to both play and
record and is compatible with all DAWs.
The ProFX8 compact effects mixer is
the ideal partner for musicians playing
small to medium size performance venues.
It is equipped with four mic preamps a
three-band active eq and LED metering on
each channel. A selection of 32-bit effects
“ MI is full of
categories
whereby the
difference between
entry-level product
and the all-
singing-all-dancing
gear is vast.
They may not be commonplace in your average MI store, but mixing consoles are a great creative option for musicians
and essential for home recording enthusiasts. Adam Savage investigates the latest offerings…
Allen & Heath ZED10FX £299
The Zed-10 and FX version represent the most
compact members of Allen & Heath’s lineup. Two
ultra high impedance discrete Class A FET inputs
allow instruments to be plugged straight in. There
is capacity for up to four microphones and two
stereo sources, separate two-track record
outputs, an input for stereo playback, three-band
eq, two aux sends, a separate stereo bus and
monitoring, as well as DI level switching.
Proel M1000USB £899
This model has been flagged as an
ideal addition to a band’s
inventory. Compact, light digital
amplifiers are included within
Proel’s active mixer offering, which
utilises PWM technology and a
switching power supply section. A
compact, light 500-Watt-per-
channel digital amplifier is built-in
and rack ears and a carry case are
included in the price.
Soundcraft Notepad 124FX £182.13
The 124FX features an internal digital effects processor
with a feed from every input and over 100 effects. An
aux send replaces the FX send on the standard 124 with
a dedicated output. A high pass filter can be found on
the mono inputs, as well as a multi-segment LED
metering on the mix output.
This 16-channel desk is fitted with a pro-quality 24-
bit/96kHz FireWire recording interface, as well as
professional analog features, including Onyx preamps
and four-band, dual sweep eq on each channel. Six
pre or post-fader auxiliary sends are also built-in and
can be flexibly routed via the Firewire.
Mackie Onyx 1640i £1,303
A three-band eq is included with each
mic input, along with hipass filters.
Five stereo line inputs are also built-in
and extra versatility is achieved due to
the presence of eq and RIAA phono
preamps on several channels. ‘Main’
and ‘sub’ represent the two output
busses and there are two aux sends for
monitors and effects.
Tascam M164 £318
Into the Mix
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 41
MIXERS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT
A high-impedance input on channel two allows
the direct connection of a guitar or bass and a
tape RCA stereo input means audio from
external sources, such as CD players, can be
added to the mix. The internal effect processor
allows for the easy adjusting of effects via the
pre or post faders on each channel strip and the
USB function, also found on the other mixers in
the Multimix series, makes computer
connectivity remarkable easy and hassle free.
Alesis Multimix 8 USBFX £139.99
is also available, as well as a seven-band
graphic eq. Also included on this eight-
channel console are 60mm faders for
input channels, returns and
main/monitor masters.
Unveiled at Musikmesse, the M-164
series from Tascam is suitable for live
bands, home recording and installation
situations. The standard model, along
with the M-164FX (with added digital
effects) and the M-164UF (with effects
and an USB 2.0 interface) each come
with six powered XLR mic inputs.
Soundcraft’s FX16ii offers several live
and recording features, with direct
output on each channel and 24-bit
Lexicon digital effects.
The FX16ii borrows a number of
attributes from Digitech and Lexicon
equipment, including the AudioDNA and
MX400 processors. 32 effects are
integrated, with a tap tempo function,
three parameter controls, a settings store
ability and an effects clip LED.
Doubling up as both a mixer and
computer recording interface, the
Multimix 8 USB FX from Alesis is an
easy-to-use, feature-laden unit great for
band use or for sub-mixing a group of
inputs. Its microphone inputs feature
switchable phantom power,
accommodating both dynamic and
condenser mics, plus a wide range of
studio quality, 28-bit digital effects and
low-noise analog electronics.
The smaller Multimix 4 USB is a four-
channel desktop mixer with a built-in
USB digital audio interface. This model is
best suited for basic computer recording,
video editing, production studios and
portable podcasting. It outputs stereo
16-bit, 44.1kHz digital audio via USB and
users can monitor from a computer
through the same connection.
The new MCX series from
Studiomaster includes 12 and 14-
channel versions (the MCX-12 and MCX-
14), which fit perfectly into this
category. Featuring a rugged steel
chassis, accommodating the individual
circuit boards, this range is aimed at
engineers, installers and bands.
For a rackmountable option, there’s
the 162 BPX. This solidly built 16-
channel mixer offers 28 inputs and a
regulated internal power supply. Six
reverb effects and six pre-set delays,
ranging from 120ms to 720 ms allow for
a variety of creative options. 12 mic/line
and four mic/stereo line inputs mean up
to 16 mics and four stereo inputs can be
used simultaneously.
A four-band eq and two frequency sweep
controls are examples of features more
commonly found on consoles higher up
the scale. Three inputs per channel allow
for high flexibility and the 100mm faders
give accurate level tweaking. The stage
mode option turns the MCX into a stage
mixer by swapping group and mix faders
with the auxiliary send rotary controls.
Studiomaster MCX12 £799
Featuring a USB audio interface, the MMX-
512USB incorporates a stereo LED display,
two stereo input channels with balance
controls and a two way connection to a PC,
offering recording onto a PC in one direction
and reproduction of audio from the
computer in the other. An adjustable
headphone output and a power supply via a
supplied PSU make up this great little plug
and mix device.
Monacor MMX-512USB £79.99
42 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
Phonic HelixBoard18 £703.83
Over 100 32/40-bit high-definition digital
multi-effects are on offer and eight extremely
low noise mic preamps are spread across six
mono mic/line channels equipped with 75 Hz
low cut filters and four stereo line channels.
Also on board are three aux sends, two stereo
aux returns, a solo on each input and output, a
switching power supply and a rack-mount kit.
SECTOR SPOTLIGHT MIXERS SOUND TECHNOLOGY(SOUNDCRAFT)01462 480000JHS (ALLEN & HEATH)0113 286 5381SCV LONDON (FOSTEX)020 8418 1470PEAVEY01536 461234PROEL020 8761 9911LOUD TECHNOLOGIES(MACKIE)01494 557398TASCAM01923 438880MONACOR01908 217100AVID (M-AUDIO)01753 659590 STUDIOMASTER01525 217111SHURE DISTRIBUTION(PHONIC)01992 703058NUMARK ALESIS01252 896000AVSL (CITRONIC)0845 270 2411
What will surely appeal to budget
conscious individuals is the MMX-512USB
from Monacor, a three channel audio
mixer with five inputs and USB interface.
The PMX-162 represents the next rung
on the Monacor mixer ladder. This is a
240-Watt powered mixer, featuring four
mono and two stereo inputs, as well as a
five band graphic equaliser, LED level
display, a USB interface and LCD display.
Further up the scale still is the PMX-
350DSP. As the name suggests, a variety
of DSP effects are equipped with this
170-Watt powered model, with a five-
band graphic equaliser.
The Helix Board 18 Universal from
Phonic features a 96 kHz USB
2.0/FireWire interface for instantly linking
16 independent channels of audio to a
computer. A three-band eq is present on
each mic channel and a four-band on two
of the stereo channels.
For those with a bit more cash to
splash, Phonic is soon to release the
Summit Digital Mixer. This 16-input,
eight-bus digital console has a full colour
touch screen, allowing users to access the
onboard high quality GUI interface.
The LM16 live mixer from Fostex is a
digital console that represents an all-in-
one mixing solution, with knobs and
faders similar to an analog console.
A three-band eq with swept mid-
frequency are featured on each of the 16
channels. There is a selection of built in
digital mastering effects and the I/O and
mixer components can be separated at a
range of up to 50 metres.
The LR16 has almost identical
specifications to the above, except it also
functions as a hard disk recorder. The built
in hard drive has an 80GB capacity, which
can hold around 16 hours of
uncompressed digital audio.
Peavey has a couple of ranges in this
category that are ideal for bands and
home recording. The PV10 USB is fitted
with six XLR mic inputs and two stereo
channels with RCA and quarter-inch
inputs. A three-band eq, effects and
monitor send per channel and eight
inputs on total are on offer.
Also from Peavey is the FX series, a
step up from the PVs, but still desirable
by the MI category. Silencer mic preamps
allow high gain and low noise to ensure
faultless signal reproduction. Two post-
fader auxes add effects and dual DSP
engines allow multiple effects.
The CL82DSP from Citronic is an eight
channel live mixer, which would feel at
home in live PA, permanent installation or
home recording scenarios. Each channel
includes a three-band eq and headphone
output with PFL and a ten-bar LED
monitor display is just one of several
features that make this a great value
mixer. SMT technology is also built in to
ensure ultra-low noise performance.
For those seeking a powered mixer
from Citronic, there’s the CLP122DSP. This
12-channel unit has on-board 24-bit
digital effects, an FX send and return,
along with mic (XLR) or line (quarter-
inch) jack inputs.
Avid provides all kinds of products in
the audio-visual sector, among them
mixing consoles. For the MI market,
there’s the M-Audio NRV10.
Audio channels can be sent back on to
the NRV10, for CPU-free mixing and
monitoring. Add to that digital effects and
you’ve got an ideal companion.
Avid’s MC Mix offers a mixing speed,
resolution and integration of higher-end
desks, as up to four units can be linked
together, taking the number of possible
channels to 32.
CONTACTS
A three-band channel eq is included, as well as an 80 Hz low-cut
switch on all mic inputs and internal digital effects with 16
selections, such as reverb, delay and vocal enhancement. Patching is
reduced by an A/B stereo input selector and USB connectivity allows
it to be connected to a computer.
Peavey PV10 £259
A handy little hybrid, this piece of kit combines an 8
x 2 analog mixer with a 10 x 10 24-bit/96 kHz digital
audio interface. It cleverly allows users to link a
computer to a studio. This is achievable by routing
and recording mixer channels straight to individual
tracks in software such as Pro Tools and Ableton Live.
Avid M-Audio NRV10 £POA
Fostex LM16 £999
Citronic CLP122DSP £389.99
This 12-channel unit has an on-board 24-bit digital
effects processor with LCD screen. This, along with a
dual seven-band master graphic eq and 48-Volt
phantom power is what makes this another well priced
piece of kit. Effect send and return, along with mic
(XLR) or line (quarter-inch) jack inputs are what should
make people consider the CLP122DSP.
A single CAT-5 connecting cable eliminates the need for
bulky multicore snakes and it can sit either as a stand-alone
or mounted in a standard 19-rack. With fitting kits also
thrown in, the resulting versatility makes the LM16 perfect
for a variety of audio situations, as well as being highly
suitable for MI consumers.
Ltd
Sound Post
The
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miPRO AUGUST 2010 45
SCHOOL RENTALS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT
Speaking to a couple of dealers and
suppliers, one gets the impression
that the MI rental market is
becoming an increasingly difficult one.
Prices have maintained such low levels
for so long, there are a lot of parents out
there that would buy an entry-level sax
or trumpet almost without thinking
twice. Add to this the money made
available for schools to buy musical
instruments over recent years and we
discover that many of the more
opportunistic establishments are veritably
awash with instruments.
Of course, thousands of instruments
in schools is a good thing. The effect of
more musicians growing into the
disposable income market is bound
to help MI out in the long run.
In the short term, however, many
dealers have all but given up on the
rental market. With harder times
being promised by the new
government, the need for more
cautious spending is surely upon us.
The problems of renting are
many fold, however, and aside from
the maintenance and product knowledge
needed, there is the world of market
research and legal concerns.
The first question dealers need to ask
themselves is whether there is a market
for renting in their area. Has
someone else cornered it? Are the
schools musically active? How rich
is your catchment?
Then – and this is
important, as Justin
Wagstaff of The
Sound Post
explained – is your
paperwork in order?
“I’m amazed there
are dealers that don’t
know the difference
between renting and ‘try
before you buy’,” said
Wagstaff. “These are
fundamentally different
activities with different
statutory rights –
one is a delayed
payment, the other is a rental contract.”
So, you need to get that aspect in
order first. The type of contract, the VAT
chargeable (with the VAT rise in January, a
six-month ‘try before you buy’ scheme
started now, will finish after January 4th
2011 and thus be charged on 20 per
cent). Rental includes wear and tear – in
short, pop along to your solicitor or
Citizens Advice Bureau to make sure you
are using the right paperwork.
So, the rule of thumb is: 1) do a bit of
research and decide what you want to
do; 2) get your paperwork right; 3) get
the payments sorted.
“It takes a big investment, but if you
get it right it really can work well,”
insisted Wagstaff. “I know a fleet of
dealers who rent. Every now or then they
need to replace a bow or a case, a bit of
maintenance, but otherwise the money
keeps coming in and it pays the rent.”
That point of investment is crucial, of
course. Instruments need to be sturdy
enough to survive the sort of treatment
youngsters will give them.
Which brings us nicely to what’s on
the market these days.
While there are literally hundreds of
options for parents, there is one name
permanently on the tip of teachers’
tongues when making recommendations
to nervous buyers of kids’ musical tools:
Yamaha. It’s not simply the range of
instrument categories it covers –
everything across the wind and string
ranges – but also the varying degrees of
quality within each instrument. On page
47 is the company’s student flute (the
211), but in flutes alone, there is the 300
and 400 series student instruments and
then the 800 and 900 pro series. Do the
same for clarinets, saxophones, trumpets,
cornets, violins and cellos and you can
see why teachers would want a uniform
quality and sound across the entire
orchestra or band. If there is one brand
worth investing in, it is surely Yamaha.
Unless, of course, you are braver than
that. Yamaha does have its detractors
(not least among its competition), but
there are many individual fields where
The rental market has become a difficult one of late, with
falling prices and schools being given plentiful cash for new
instruments. Andy Barrett looks through the stockroom
and finds there is still good business to be had…
Hire love
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST2010 47
SCHOOL RENTALS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT
Sold in various sizes for all ages, this outstanding violin includes hand carved, high grade
maple back and sides and figured spruce wood with inlaid purfling for the top. There is also
ebony for the fingerboard, pegs and nut. It comes with a durable, composite bow, a hardcase
with back pack straps, a full length music pocket and high visibility stripes and piping.
Primavera 200 violin £135
makers and dealers agree that Yamaha is
good, but that the specialist is better.
Enter The Sound Post Ltd and its
Primavera range of violins and cellos. The
company, which has helped with this
article, put in motion some market
research in 2009, to carry out a survey of
music services to identify how the
company could develop and improve
student products. The main findings were
that teachers want instruments that stay
in tune and last the distance – and most
LEAs were willing to pay that little bit
more for the necessary upgrades.
As a result, tuning and durability have
been addressed with better quality
fittings, including a new metal tailpiece
across the range. The new entry level
Primavera 90 now comes with rosewood
pegs and the well established Primavera
100 has been upgraded with ebony pegs.
Further to that, the Primaveras have new
bows across the range, a new carrying
system for the cases (with high-visibility,
reflective flashes and piping. For rental
instruments, durability ensures that the
retailer gets the maximum life and return
after the purchase price has been
covered. The Sound Post says there are
Primavera instruments in regular hire use
older than the students playing them.
Think student violins in the UK and
many think Stentor. Its violins, violas,
cellos and basses are ideal to stock as
part of any school rental scheme.
Most famously, perhaps, the Stentor
Student II is used by most UK music
services and is ideal for beginners who
want to rent their first instrument. The
violin is carved from solid tonewoods
with ebony fittings and comes with a
lightweight case and good student wood
bow with ebony frog (retailing for £135).
Then there are Stentor’s Mistral
woodwind and saxophones, comprising
alto, soprano (straight and curved) and
tenor saxes, clarinet, flute and piccolo –
the latter all hitting the £130 retail price.
Moving on to the brass and woodwind
side of things, some might be surprised to
hear that Jupiter has been around for 80
years now. Supplied by Korg in the UK,
Jupiter’s instruments cover everything
from the entry level to pro and the two
companies together have been extremely
active in education activities, particularly
the Sound Start scheme, teaching
hundreds of schoolchildren brass and
woodwind instruments since 2001.
Jupiter has also won the MIA Awards’
best woodwind instrument four times in
the past eight years, most recently with
the Jupiter JFL-511ESSC flute. This is one
of Jupiter’s core educational instruments
and joins the JAS-567GL alto sax, the
JTR-308L trumpet and the JCL-631SMTO
clarinet as an MIA award winner.
The instrument was one of the first to
include a silver chimney, which although
a small point, with a carefully designed
When teachers think student violins, most
think Stentor. This model is for those looking
to upgrade from their first instrument. It
features carved, solid tonewoods and cut for
quality of sound. Purfling is hand-fitted and
all instruments are checked for correct
measurements. This model has a shaded
satin finish, along with synthetic gut strings.
The outfit includes a lightweight case and
strong wood bow with ebony frog.
Stentor Graduate outfit£165
Mistral saxophones claim an excellent intonation. All have a high F# key and come with
a hard case. The alto has a full rib construction, high quality keywork and adjustable
thumb rest in a gold lacquered finish. The range also includes two soprano saxophones –
a straight and a curved model – and a tenor.
Mistral alto sax £345
48 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
This fully featured cello, with a satisfying and sonorous tone, has
a two-piece figured, hand-carved, solid maple back, belly and ribs,
double purfling, a satin finish maple neck with gloss scroll, ebony
fingerboard, nut and tuning pegs, and… well, the specs go on. A
remarkable instrument that ships with a Brazilwood bow, deep-
padded bag and comes in a variety of sizes.
Antoni Debut cello outfit£409.99
SECTOR SPOTLIGHT SCHOOL RENTALS
Jupiter JHR-452DFrench Horn£361
This is about as close to a pro
instrument as you can get with its
mechanical link rotors, leadpipe rose
brass, 12mm bore and 302mm bell, but
the price and interchangeable slides for
Bb and F keys, as well as adjustable
hooks make this a superbly priced horn.
KORG (JUPITER) 01908 857100SOUND POST (PRIMAVERA)01985 851122STENTOR (STENTOR, MISTRAL)01737 240226BARNES & MULLINS (ANTIGUA)01691 652449EMD (STAGG)01293 862612JHS (ODYSSEY, ANTONI) 0113 286 5381INTERMUSIC01202 696963BILL LEWINGTON01268 413366YAMAHA01908 366700
headjoint and well crafted keys, this silver
plated flute is a great model, and like the
rest of the Jupiter range offers quality,
design, longevity, playability and above
all, a student instrument that will last.
Antigua is a brand that has made
considerable waves in the saxophone
arena, but its extensive brass and
woodwind offering looks very much as
though it will be expanding its market
considerably in the coming years. Highly
professional instruments at medium
prices, these are quality tools. Last year
saw the launch of Antigua’s Vosi range,
born from four years of market research
and product development, coupled with
huge investments in technology and a
state-of-the-art new factory. The finest
materials sourced worldwide are used to
make Vosi instruments, with the line
comprising three flutes, a new ABS
clarinet (with LaVoz mouthpiece and Rico
H ligature kit), an alto sax with redesigned
palm keys for students’ hands, a lacquered
body with nickel, a matching tenor sax
and two trumpet models with a choice of
stainless steel or Monel pistons. All Vosi
instruments come in an ABS case and are
covered by the Antigua limited warranty.
Barnes & Mullins supplies Antigua to
the UK – as well as the Hidersine and
Höfner ranges of orchestral strings.
Also bridging the gap between quality
strings and brass and woodwind is JHS,
which, with its Antoni and Odyssey
ranges, more than covers the rental scene.
The big news this year is the arrival of the
Odyssey Premiere range, designed by
Peter Pollard.
Pollard has become one of the most
sought after instrument designers and
repairers in the UK, having worked with
the country’s top musicians for over 40
years. He is known for his experimental
nature and pushes the boundaries of
instrument design, often using materials
not ususally associated with the
instrument he is building.
The result is a range of instruments
targeting students specifically – including
smaller sized horns and saxes, enabling
the youngesters to start playing sooner.
The effort made with Odyssey matches
the work done with JHS’ guitar ranges and
Trevor Wilkinson, but also with Antoni
orchestral strings. Entry, mid and pro
versions of violins, violas, cellos and
basses make Antoni worth pushing.
Stagg, of course, comes up trumps for
the entry level, with a huge range of
instruments that can be bought almost
on impulse, but which makes the choice
of renting even easier. As well as the 77-C
clarinet, there are the 77-FE flute, the 77-
SA alto sax, and the very popular 77-T
trumpet. With value for dealer and
customer alike, Stagg covers so many
bases, it’s a wonder if there is a general
MI store that doesn’t stock it.
Intermusic’s Bentley woodwind and
brass packages have proved hugely
successful, especially for non-specialist
brass and woodwind shops. The range
takes the starter pack format and
comprises a heavy duty instrument stand
in a bag, a Tune-a-Day tutor book, sturdy
music stand, as well as the necessary
reeds, straps and cleaning kit.
Each instrument is blown and checked
before delivery and there is a no quibble
exchange policy. Although Intermusic has
no policy of recommending prices, rough
guidelines range from £199 for the
clarinet and trumpet packs, £239 for the
flute and cornet, £299 for the trombone
and £449 for the alto sax.
Aside from the instruments, it is well
worth using care products to help
maintain them. Bill Lewington’s
Superslick range of accessories are
inexpensive and this is a much overlooked
area. Five minutes with a care kit will
keep an instrument working for much
longer. The trumpet care kit, for example,
retails at only £15.50. A quick glance over
the workshop showed 13 brass
instruments, all with maintenance issues
that could have been avoided with little
attention from a care kit.
This is a fierce market and every one is
looking to put out the best deals with
little margin to be had. By adding in care
kits and maintenance accessories, some
margin can be recovered.
CONTACTS
As ever, Stagg comes through with a functional, no nonsense instrument,
practical and playable and at a price that could easily have parents handing over
the cash and not worrying about the rental scheme. This good quality clarinet
outfit is ideal for beginners, featuring a brushed, wood effect Bakelite body,
nickel-plated keys and ships with an ABS case and useful accessories.
Stagg 77C clarinet£199
The new Odyssey Premiere series
features a couple of ‘endangered
species’ and of note among them is
the truly excellent Baby French horn.
This model is ideal for smaller hands,
having a bell diameter of just
290mm and a compact construction
easily manageable by younger
players. Made in Bb, the horn has a
brass body, a detachable bell, a bore
size of 12mm and ships with a Zero
Gravity hard foam case.
Odyssey OFH1700 BabyFrench horn £319
Antigua SS3282LQstraight soprano sax£580
Refined key mechanisms provide the
SS3282LQ with a professional look
and feel at a modest price. A solid
performer, this model is perfect for
students and aspiring professionals,
featuring, as it does, a single piece
body with range to high F#,
lacquered brass body and power
forged keys, tilting low Bb spatula,
adjustable thumb hook and
premium leather pads. The outfit
ships with a 4C mouthpiece, a
durable ABS hard shell case and
comes with a minumum of five
years warranty.
With the same design and
craftsmanship as the 300 and 400
series, this wonderful flute is made of
nickel silver with a silver-plate finish.
The CY headjoint has a double flare
taper and a unique embouchure
undercut design for excellent
response and a warm, rich tone.
Yamaha YFL-211 flute£499.99
0845 270 2411 0845 270 2433 www.avslgroup.com
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performance from cabs that won't
break your back.
For: Bassists
Range: Markbass cabinets
Spec: The Club Series kicks-off with
the lightest Markbass cab yet: the
eight-Ohm 2” Club 121. You can lean
it back in wedge monitor position to
hear better on-stage, while the new-
generation woofer and 1"
compression driver and custom horn
provide a seemingly impossibly full
sound from such a small cab. It will
handle a full 400 Watts (to AES
standards) across 40Hz to 20kHz.
Power-wise it delivers 99dB, all from
a box that weighs a remarkable 12.6
kg and measures just 17.56 in. (W) x
18 in.
If you think you can handle
something a little bigger and want
that 15” sound, there's the Club 151,
which is a single 15” plus tweeter
and horn enclosure. Like the 121, the
151 will handle a comfortable 400
Watts, deliver across 40Hz to 20kHz
and produce an SPL of 100dB.
The Markbass Club 102, a 2x10”
design will handle 400 Watts,
delivering 101dB.
Finally, there's a reintroduction
that takes Markbass back to the
company's foundation – the Club
600F32. This is a re-issue of one of
the first creations from Marco De
Virgiliis. In 1996, he produced the
Parsek 600F32. The success of this
cabinet and Parsek bass amps (and
increasing requests from musicians
and dealers) led to the creation of
Music Man's Audiophile bass amp
brand, in partnership with Sterling
Ball. It was this success that
convinced Marco that the time was
right for the start of a new Italian
brand – and that's when Markbass
was born. A four-Ohm design, the
600F32 features twin 12” speakers
plus a 1.25” compression driver
with a custom horn. It will handle
800 Watts.
From: Proel 020 8761 9911
1. FENDER
SUPERSONIC 22 COMBO
£959They say: For guitarists who crave
glorious clean and overdriven tones
and expressive high-gain distortion.
For: Guitarists
Range: Fender Supersonic
Spec: 50W valve amp, vintage channel
(clean), burn channel (overdrive with
gain 1 & 2 control), each with treble,
bass & middle control, black/silver or
1961 blonde/oxblood cosmetics, ships
with amp cover & footswitch.
From: Fender 01342 331700 2
3. FENDER
SUPERSONIC 60 HEAD
£1,039They say: Clean and high gain tones in
one no-nonsense tube amp.
For: Guitarists
Range: Supersonic amps
Spec: 60W valve amp head, vintage
channel (clean), burn channel
(overdrive with gain 1 & 2 control),
treble, bass & middle controls, voicing
switch, selectable 16, eight or four
Ohms, amp cover & footswitch
included. 212 cab available (£479).
From: Fender 01342 331700
2. DIGITECH
JAM MAN STEREO LOOPER
£341They say: Now we are reinventing
loopers with the new Jam Man stereo.
For: Guitarists
Range: Digitech Jam Man
Spec: Stores over 35 minutes of
stereo, CD quality loops, 99 internal
loops, SD memory card expansion
slot with 16 hour capacity and
additional 99 slots, USB connectivity,
compatible with JamManager
software.
From: Sound Technology
01462 480000
4. KUSTOM
DEFENDER 5H HEAD £119They say: Is there any more fun
than cranking up the valve tone at
modest levels?
For: Guitarists
Range: Kustom Defender series
Spec: Five-Watt head, single control
knob (volume) through single
12AX7 preamp and EL84 power
valve, three speaker outputs (four,
eight & 16 Ohm). Also available
Defender 1x12 cab.
From: JHS 0113 286 5381
5. PALMER
TWO IN ONE £TBCThey say: Sophisticated and simple, it
connects two amps to a single speaker
and switches between them.
For: Guitarists
Range: Palmer guitar accessories
Spec: Tube, transistor and mixed
configurations, footswitch (amp selector),
five-pin XLR controller cable, footswitch
features guitar input, 9V DC socket and
XLR connector for controller cable which
powers amp selector, adjustable cut and
boost for each output, silent and
instantaneous switching, can be used as
AB switcher.
From: Adam Hall 01702 613922
1
3
4
5
6
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 51
52 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
4. REMO
VINTAGE EMPEROR HEADS
FROM £14They say: A re-issue of the first Remo
Emperor drumhead that changed the art
of drumming in the late 1960s
For: Drummers
Range: Remo Emperor drum heads
Spec: Consisting of two plies of 7.5mm
polyester films, coated finish for accented
mids and lows and increased durability.
Eight models: eight, ten, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
and 18-inch.
From: EMD 01293 862612
5. MEINL
BENNY GREB SAND RIDE £380They say: Produces a dry sound with a
fast, articulate stick sound and quick
decay and a clear, bright bell
For: Drummers
Range: Meinl Byzance
Spec: 20-inch ride, two surface
treatments: sandblasted top and partially
lathed bottom. Designed in collaboration
with Benny Greb.
From: Active 020 8693 5678
6. RHYTHM TECH
JINGLER £19.99They say: Another original stick-mounted
percussion idea from Rhythm Tech.
For: Drummers, percussionists
Range: Rhythm Tech percussion
Spec: Nickel jingles pinned securely to
ultra-lightweight, transparent Jingler body,
slides on and off drumstick.
From: JHS 0113 286 5381
1. DREAM
BLISS 18” CRASH/RIDE £84.99They say: These cymbals are so versatile...
Explosive crashes and a soft, but clear
stick sound
For: Drummers
Range: Dream Bliss cymbals
Spec: Thin cymbal, medium decay, hand
hammered, microlathed plates with low
bridge, small, but clear bell, brilliant finish,
B20 bronze.
From: Soar Valley 0116 230 4926
2. DRUM WORKSHOP
PDP BLACKOUT SNARE FROM
£153They say: A line of quality, value-priced
snare drums aimed at working drummers,
students and weekend warriors.
For: Drummers, percussionists
Range: Drum Workshop PDP drums
Spec: All-maple, lacquered snares, ‘black-
on-black’ finish, four models in range:
6x10”, 4x13”, 5x14” and 6x14”.
From: Morico 01992 461089
3. JHS
TT10T WASHBOARD TIE £19.99They say: Wear it anywhere, add a little
rhythm to your day, entertain and amaze
your friends.
For: General, percussionists, washboard
players
Range: JHS percussion
Spec: 24 gauge brushed stainless steel,
‘tie-shaped’, clips to collar or neckline,
From: JHS 0113 286 5381
DRUMS SPOTLIGHT
TURNING LEAF
DRUM SCREENS £POAThey say: Our tailored drum screens
are an ideal solution for all manner of
applications.
For: Bands, studios, stores, drummers,
touring
Range: New product
Spec: Turning Leaf is a furniture
specialist working mainly in wood, but
also in metal and acrylic and primarily
for the audio visual industry.
Following enquiries from a couple of
MI stores as to the possibility of
creating drum screens, the company
looked into the market and saw that
there was very little available and
almost nothing in the UK.
As a result, Turning Leaf is the only
company in the UK to offer
competitive trade terms to businesses
for acrylic drum screens. It offers a
bespoke service where customers can
specify their required dimensions and
panel requirements.
There are a range of optional
extras, which include unique deflector
panels, hard boxed flight cases and
the addition of band, establishment or
brand logos.
The hinges are imported from
Sweden and designed to enable the
screens to be concertinaed for travel
and storage.
Drum screens have become very
popular in the USA, although the UK
has until now not had a major
supplier that can offer high quality
items at competitive prices with trade
terms for retailers.
From: Turning Leaf 01482 219017
THIS PAGE IS SPONSORED BY MIKEDOLBEAR.COM, THE LEADING ONLINE RESOURCE FOR EVERYTHING DRUMS.
VISIT WWW.MIKEDOLBEAR.COM FOR MORE DETAILS.
NEW PRODUCTS DRUMS
1
2
3
4 6
“It is the only
company in the UK
to offer competitive
trade terms for
drum screens.
5
‘Playing’ Live is so much more than just launching clips.
Find out how 64 buttons can put Ableton completely at your fi ngertips, visit:
www.novationmusic.com/launchpad
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 53
ACCESSORIES NEW PRODUCTS
4. GUITAR TECH
GT 2000 & 2500 CLIP-ON
TUNERS £15.99 (2000) &
£12.99 (2500)They say: From Guitar Tech’s amazing
array of accessories come two new tuners.
For: Guitar, bass
Range: Guitar Tech accessories
Spec: GT2500 clip-on LED tuner for guitar
and bass, adjustable head, lights go green
when in tune, switch for semitone drop
tuning. GT2000 as above, but chromatic.
From: JHS 0113 286 5381
1. ANTONI
SYMPHONIQUE
VIOLIN STRINGS
£11.99They say: Stringed
instruments that, at every
level, look, feel, perform,
sound and play way out
of their price points.
For: Violinists
Range: Antoni strings
Spec: Available for 4/4
and 3/4 size
instruments, quality
strings with nylon
core, aluminium alloy
wound, excellent tone
and durability.
From: JHS
0113 286 5381
3. GROVER
MAESTRO LITE ILLUMINATED
BATON £19.99They say: The first illuminated baton
designed with quality and balance.
For: Conductors
Range: Grover accessories
Spec: Lexan polycarbonate shaft with soft
textured handle, ‘try-me’ packaging, shaft
illuminates along the entire length with
concentration at tip, on/off switch,
batteries included.
From: JHS 0113 286 5381
1
2
3
4
2. CRAFTER
TS10 HEADSTOCK TUNER
£12.99They say: Improved aspects of its
performance by the use of the latest
technology.
For: Guitar, bass, ukulele, etc
Range: Crafter accessories
Spec: Large LCD screen, changes from
amber to green when correct note
achieved, single on/off button also
functions as selector for
chromatic/guitar, bass or ukulele,
adjustable head for easy viewing.
From: Sutherland 029 2088 7333
53 Mipro123_FINAL.qxd 26/7/10 12:40 Page 1
Future:x 15/7/10 17:26 Page 1
1. LEXICON
NATIVE REVERB BUNDLE £564They say: Lexicon’s four most popular
reverbs available as efficient, multi-
platform native software plugins.
For: Computer musicians, producers
Range: Lexicon plugins
Spec: Chamber, hall, plate, and room
reverbs with over 200 studio presets,
universal DAW compatibility, functions
in mono, stereo or mono in/stereo out,
I/O meters, fully adjustable parameters.
From: Sound Technology
01462 480000
www.trinityguildhall.co.uk
Introducing Drum Kit Tutor book for the complete beginner featuring:
◗ A series of simple progressive exercises
◗ Performance pieces and duets
◗ Playalong CD
Kit
Pieces & Studies
Grades 7 & 8
Drum Kit
Pieces & Studies
Drum
includes
CDincludes
CD
4for Trinity Guildhall
examinations 2011–2013
KitPieces & StudiesGrades 5 & 6
Drum Kit
Pieces & Studies
Drum
includesCD
includesCD
3for Trinity Guildhall examinations 2011–2013
KitDrum Drum
includesCDincludesCD
Introducing
Playalong tracks and notation
for the beginner
KitPieces & Studies
Grades 1 & 2
Pieces & Studies
Drum
includesCDincludesCD
1for Trinity Guildhall
examinations 2011–2013
KitPieces & StudiesGrades 3 & 4
Drum Kit
Pieces & Studies
Drum
includesCDincludesCD
2for Trinity Guildhall examinations 2011–2013
Develop your Skills in a Range of Drumming Styles BE THE BEAT
Drum Kit 1–4◗ Repertoire and technical work for Trinity
Guildhall exams Grades 1–8
◗ Compositions by leading drum kit performers and educators
◗ Backing CDs performed by professional session musicians
Everything a drummer needs to progress from complete beginner to advanced player
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 55
RECORDING NEW PRODUCTS
4. ZOOM
R24 RECORDER They say: All the tools
necessary to create
studio-quality
recordings anywhere.
For: Musicians
Range: Zoom
recorders
Spec: New sampler
function with 24
built-in voices, eight pads and
three bank keys to assign sounds to each
track and create loops, drum machine with
400 rhythm patterns, SD memory cards
supports up to 32GB for over 100 track
hours of recording, over 100 built-in studio
and mastering effects, USB audio interface
allows compatibility with most DAW
software, such as the included Cubase LE 5.
From: Zoom UK 01462 791100
2. ALESIS
MULTIMIX 8 USB £119.99They say: Doubles up as a computer-
recording interface.
For: Musicians and bands
Range: Alesis mixers
Spec: Mic, line and guitar-level inputs,
16-bit 48kHz stereo USB output, XLR
inputs with gain trim, switchable
high-pass filters and 48V phantom
power, eq, built-in DSP effects, multi-
colour LED metering, main and
headphone outputs with independent
level controls, plug-and-play USB,
Cubase LE included.
From: Numark Alesis Akai
01252 341400
3. ROLAND
GAIA SH-01 £579They say: A high performance value synth
with old school charm.
For: Synth & keyboard players, musicians
Range: Roland synths
Spec: Three virtual ‘analog’ engines
onboard with dedicated oscillator, filter,
amp, enevelope and LFO, five layered
effects, 64-voice polyphony, hands-on
control panel, lightweight body with 37
keys, AC or battery powered, onboard D
Beam, arpeggiator and phrase recorder,
USB ports.
From: Roland 01792 702701
1
2
3
4
55 Mipro123_FINAL 26/7/10 12:45 Page 1
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST2010 57
RETAILNEWS, OPINION, DATA
The UK’s top retailers, including PMT,
Musicroom, Dawsons and Bonners,
gathered at the MI Retail Conference
& Expo last month and hailed it a
tremendous success.
The event was created specifically for
UK retailers, so it seemed only right to
gather some of the thoughts of the
retail delegates.
The vast majority gave the event a
thumbs-up and are looking forward to it
taking place again next year. Musicians’
Centre, Northern Music and John Packers
were all in this number.
“We really enjoyed the event and, in
comparison to the many I have attended
over the years, I can say that this one was
definitely top of the list,” said John
Millington of Millington Music.
“The venue was first class and easy to
get to, the atmosphere was very friendly
and professional. Everyone felt relaxed and
ready to listen and learn – we did.”
Most dealers were grateful to the event
for bringing them together and providing
an opportunity to discuss matters, do
business with each other and with the
suppliers attending.
“Just a very big thank you to the team
for the brilliant retail conference,” said
Dave Sadler of Jack White Music. “We
were impressed how professional it was.”
“The morning session was extremely
enlightening and reassuring – it’s good to
share discussion on issues we all face,”
said Vivien Shiplee of Vivace Pianos. “The
afternoon was a chance for in depth
conversations and information, which led
to potential new suppliers and product
lines. I was intending to have just one
drink in the evening, but it was so much
fun chatting to people from other areas
and then there were fab ‘Beatles’, so I was
there till much later.”
On the reverse side, the Event Partners
were extremely upbeat about the quality
of the retailers that took part in the day’s
proceedings.
Notable among these was Neil Clayton
of Monacor. “This show was the best for
the quantity and the quality of contacts
we have come across,” he enthused. “The
best decision we’ve made as a business
this year.”
“The right people were invited – an
excellent choice of dealers and decision
makers,” said Chris Statham of Mel Bay.
Further comments from retailers
continued the approval. “We’ve been in
need of something like this for years,” said
Cliff Williams of Sharon Music.
“I thoroughly enjoyed the conference,”
said MIke Podesta of Cranes Music. “I
found the industry stats and comparisons
with other consumer spending very
interesting and the debates entertaining
and informative.”
“This was a great idea and well carried
out,” said James Foulds of Foulds Music. “I
just wish the balance could have been
slightly different, with more time given to
the conference session. Do it again please
with a different timetable.”
“Well done. It’s obviously been a lot of
work, but you have pulled off a very slick
little event here. Congratulations,” said Iain
Davidson of Musicroom.
“Thank you very much for an
informative, enjoyable and very
worthwhile day,” concluded Bill Maynard.
Retail welcomes dedicated eventOver 200 dealers, including some of the biggest and best on the High Street, attended the MI Retail Conference & Expo
and whichever element of the event they were asked about, they seemed to like it...
NEWSB&M’s String
Gallery initiative,
new manuals
from Jupiter,
Stentor’s Pirastro
strings offer and
Bass Gear goes
online
“This show was the
best for the quantity
and the quality of
contacts we have
come across.Neil Clayton
Monacor
INDIE PROFILEScarborough
Music’s joint
owners tell MI Pro
why customer
service is so
crucial when
competing with
online retailers
LOCATION REPORTMI Pro heads
to Lancashire
to see what
Preston’s MI
scene has to
offer and finds
some nice
surprises
JUPITER BRASS and Woodwind
Instruments has introduced a full
repairs manual, covering every
aspect of the entire brass and
woodwind range.
Available in two smart files,
they are currently in stock and
Jupiter can supply any spare
within 16 weeks.
Warranty repairer Graham de
Vere White is also on board to
help the company advise, repair
and replace parts for all
instruments in the Jupiter range.
White has been a professional
independent repairer for many
years, as well teaching at
technical repair colleges such as
Newark & Merton.
The Taiwanese manufacturer
is also celebrating 30 years in
the business this year and is
continuing to improve its
precision in manufacture, as well
as its machinery, in order to add
to its list of achievements over
the last three decades.
The manuals are free of
charge and dealers interested in
getting hold of the manuals
should call Kay Hollingsworth
(Jupiter’s brand manager at Korg
UK) directly on 01908 857104.
KORG: 01908 857100
Jupiter announces repairs
manual and in-house tech
Stentor introduces lowerprice on Pirastro stringsSTENTOR HAS announced new
lower prices on three selected
Pirastro string ranges.
Chromcor, Tonica and
Piranito violin and viola strings
are now available at what the
company claims are
unbeatable prices.
Professional quality strings
have risen greatly in price in
recent years and have become
unaffordable for many players.
Pirastro, one of the major
string brands, has been making
strings since 1798 and has
modernised with the
introduction of computer aided
design and new materials.
There are three main sub-
brands, with the Piranito series
being good quality steel strings,
ideal for students, with a
rounded sound and excellent
playability. Tonica strings are a
popular synthetic core set,
delivering a lively sound and
clear, balanced timbre.
Although they would also
appeal to students, Tonicas are
also targeted at professionals as
well. Chromcor strings should
be chosen for those favouring a
responsive, steel string with
brilliant sound and volume.
Next day delivery is
available on these items, for
orders placed before 12:30pm.
To find out these new prices,
contact Stentor on the
telephone number below.
STENTOR: 01737 240226
RETAIL NEWS
58 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
A NEW dedicated electric bass
specialist retailer, Bass Gear has
opened in the UK.
With demonstration facilities
at its base in Harrogate, this new
online store is now open with
the self imposed remit ‘to serve
bassists across the country’.
Bass Gear currently has
exclusive representation on high-
end boutique basses from luthier
brands such as Alleva Coppolo,
Fodera and Shuker. Zon bass
guitars are also on the site, along
with Purple-Chili lightweight
cabs, Bag End bass speakers and
self-powered systems.
Managing director, Phil Nixon
said: "Our mission is to bring to
UK bass 'prosumers', that which
hitherto was difficult to find, so
most items found on
bassgear.co.uk are not available
elsewhere in the UK.”
Nixon has been a keen bass
player since the 1970s and a
digital marketing professional for
the last 15 years. "We are an e-
commerce business, but not
because of price, as we have
unique stock, but because our
customer base will be small and
spread far and wide," he said.
BASSGEAR.CO.UK
Bass Gear opens its doors
BARNES & MULLINS has
announced that the first
version of its online hub, String
Gallery, promoting the sale
and use of orchestral strings
has gone online.
The website aims to
convince general music stores
that bowed instruments
should be seen as more of a
priority, as well as providing a
valuable resource for those
selling orchestral strings.
Revealed by the
distributor’s joint managing
directors, Bruce Perrin and
Brian Cleary, in last month’s
MI Pro supplement guide for
the MI Retail Conference &
Expo as part of the company’s
‘manifesto’ for dealers, String
Gallery has been created in
conjunction with the European
String Teacher’s Association.
Thought up by the supplier’s
creative and sales teams, the
launch of version 1.0 marks
the start of what will be a
growing initiative.
“The ultimate vision behind
String Gallery was to create a
space in which the bowed
instrument community can
connect and share, then find
ways to improve the services
offered by local stores to
string-players, provide links
between local teachers,
makers, restorers and local
stores,” explained Alex Mew
(pictured), Barnes & Mullins’
marketing manager.
Mew explained that
retailers are to play a major
part in this project. “A large
part of the reason for the
String Gallery project being
realised was our desire to
make bowed instruments less
‘scary’ to the general music
store. Granted, there are a
good number of general music
stores that do business in this
area, but there are many more
that tend to steer clear.”
“Members will also be able
to connect with each other
and discuss a variety of topics
via the String Gallery forums,”
continued Mew. “All of this will
be free of bias and censorship
from the distributor.”
The website is free to join
and use and includes a
number of tools and resources,
with regular updates.
Next month’s MI Pro will
have an in-depth focus on
String Gallery and how the
site will develop.
B&M: 01691 652449
B&M launches String Gallery
Blueridge have taken America by storm withtheir authentic vintage style guitars, and nowwe have made them available in the UK. Thisrange, renowned for spectacular value formoney, continues to receive excellent reviewsin all the best known guitar press, includingGuitar & Bass, Guitarist, Guitar Buyer, AcousticMagazine...
The leading brand of resonator guitars, with along US heritage, available in the UK exclu-sively from Gremlin Music. Saga Music, haveapplied the same dedication to quality to theseguitars as they have to the Gitane andBlueridge guitars, and the results are spectacular.
SK120 Rated ‘Exceptional’ in AcousticMagazine. “A wonderful little amp designedby people who understand what musiciansneed”. Also Guitar & Bass have awarded the
SK60 a massive 82%.We distribute these ShireKing Acoustic Ampsalong with Headway’s very popular pickupsfor acoustic instruments, including the Snake3 and SA1 pickups, and the ‘Band’ violin andcello pickups.
The best selling aluminium whistles inthe UK. Renowned for their clear sound,they appeal to whistle players of all stan-dards. Though ideal for beginners, theyare professional instruments and areused on stage by many leading players.
For the Gypsy in your soul!These beautiful guitars pay
homage to the Selmer andMaccaferri guitars of the early
20th century. They have solid tops,are a joy to play, and look andsound like the real thing, right
down to the excellent reproduction of the orig-inal tailpiece. More to the point, they are veryaffordably priced.
The Kentucky mandolins are the pinnacleof affordable bluegrass instruments, andoffer exceptional quality at excellentprices. These mandolins are a very wel-come addition to our growing section ofgreat quality bluegrass instruments,which includes mandolins, banjos,dobros, guitars and more.
A competitively priced range of stu-dent squeezeboxes, including PianoAccordions from 12 to 120 Bass,B/C, D/G and Cajun one-rowmelodeons, and Anglo and Englishconcertinas, all ideal for beginners.
As well as being the first point of call for all the hard to find traditional musical instruments your customers are askingyou for, Gremlin Music is a one stop shop for any musical instrument retailer. We can supply a massive range of acousticmusical instruments, spares, accessories, strings, books and DVDs. Become a Gremlin Dealer and give your customersa better choice! We pride ourselves on the personal touch - you can always reach us by phone during work-ing hours, and we’ll always send your order as fast as possible, no matter what the size. If you’re a dealer,you can browse our website for prices (retail and wholesale), contact us by email, and place orders online! We’ve beenin the business for over 25 years, and can offer you an experienced, friendly and professional service.
www.gremlinmusic.co.uk post@gremlinmusic.co.ukTel: +44 (0) 1903 203044 (9.30 - 5.30 Mon - Fri) | Unit A, Easting Close, Worthing, West Sussex, BN14 8HQ
Musical Instrument Co.
A new range of Ashbury ukuleles, tenor guitars andmandolin family instruments have been designedby British Luthier Phil Davidson and are hand madein Vietnam.Ashbury also has a professional quality range ofAcoustic Guitars, Mandolins, Banjos & Fiddles,Basses, cases, electrics and more manufactured toa high standard in China and Indonesia.
“I was amazed and Impressed”Build Quality: 5/5, Sound Quality: 4.5/5,
Value for Money :5/5.Acoustic Magazine reviews the AU-24T
Ashbury solid koa Tenor Ukulele
Just a few of our Leading Brands...
RETAIL
60 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
INDIE PROFILE Clive Haviland and Chris Eborall, joint owners of Scarborough Music
may be weary of the online giants, but see good service as their best
How is business compared to this time last year?
Not good, business is down a lot on last year. We’re
doing OK though, as we’re the major music retailer in
Scarborough. Of course, we want to be doing better,
but we’ve still got our heads above water.
How do you market the shop?
We do a lot of marketing. We have posters on the
back of buses in the local area and we advertise on
the radio, we’ve actually just finished doing one
recently. We also have our website, of course, which
helps a great deal with the business.
How do you compete with the online
competition?
We don’t really, it’s as simple as that. You just have to
do your best to compete against them and offer as
good a service as you can. When there are big online
retailers like GAK out there, we have no chance
against them.
What are your biggest strengths?
Our biggest strength is obviously personal service and
our ability to demonstrate and let people try things.
We’re not a faceless warehouse full of boxes just
waiting to be despatched on internet demand.
Musical instruments are personal. 'Feel' is the most
important aspect. I know price is a consideration but
anyone who is serious about buying an instrument
needs to deal with a music specialist. At Scarborough
Music, that message seems to be taken on board.
How do you ensure a good level of customer
service?
We are always friendly and helpful when dealing with
customers and we’re great at providing little services
as well, like retuning a guitar for free or when
someone snaps a string, replacing it for them.
What is the one product you couldn’t live
without?
One type of product almost everyone
underestimates, but that we find so valuable, is
books. We have over 1,000 music books always in
stock covering everything from guitar and piano
through to tin whistle. This ensures that just about
every music lover is catered for and at every level.
Once again we are serious about providing a total
music service and having such a huge choice of books
allows us to do this.
How can the industry do more to support retail?
We need a price maintenance scheme similar to the
one in the US, which allows for a more level playing
field. The industry could do more to support retail by
being a bit more thoughtful as to who they supply
and how internet companies (and when the going
gets tough, selling directly from ebay) can and do
affect us. The likes of Argos, Tesco, Toys R Us and
most recently, Amazon are not music specialists. This
industry attitude of supplying virtually anyone just
spreads the butter thinner and has helped in spelling
the end for so many independents.
FACT BOXAddress: 23 Aberdeen Walk, Scarborough, North
Yorkshire, YO11 1BB
Phone: 01723 373757
Owner: Chris Eborall and Clive Haviland
Established: About three years ago
Employees: Four
Best-selling lines: I would definitely say
Tanglewood acoustics are among our best sellers.
Although we consider ourselves as an ‘all rounder,’
we certainly get most of our business in the strings
department. Ukeleles are another product that does
particularly well, as well as Peavey amps, which we
have only recently started stocking.
RETAIL LOCATION REPORT
The seat of Lancashire County Council and home of the
mighty Lilywhites, Adam Savage discovers Preston also
has a good choice of MI stores to wander through…
PrestonTHE MUSIC CELLAR
This exceptionally friendly store is sure to
have the solution to most customers’
musical needs, due to its decision to stock
more or less everything, with the
exception of drums. Downstairs is home
to its range of guitars, accessories and in a
separate room, a lovely selection of
acoustic and digital pianos can be found.
Upstairs is where The Music Cellar’s
preferred area, brass and woodwind is
located. A large cabinet is home to an
array of shiny, polished goods, with a
couple of gorgeous Yanagisawa saxes and
York horns the main highlights. There is
also an extensive sheet music collection.
Brass and woodwind repairs also
represent a significant percentage of this
shop’s business. It’s nice to see a retailer
that still values more traditional services
and continues to profit well from it.
On MI Pro’s visit, the store was also
being graced by the presence of several
professional brass and woodwind
musicians, which underlined the
reputation this establishment enjoys and
it seemed that the staff had a great
relationship with the customers.
Experienced staff, who no doubt love their
work, adds to the number of reasons why
this place is well worth a visit.
HW MUSIC
Situated just down the road from The
Music Cellar, HW Music is an all-out rock
n roll music retailer, representing a much
different approach to that of the previous
stop on this tour.
The guitar offering from this retailer is
staggering and with several nicely
displayed amp ranges, this shop is truly a
guitarists’ paradise. Head up the stairs and
you’ll find an array of drum kits and in a
separate room, an impressive PA selection,
which the shop is aiming to grow further.
One thing that can’t he ignored about
HW Music is the amount of space that
the building offers – a dream for music
retailers. There’s no danger of accidentally
knocking a guitar over here and it means
that there is plenty of opportunity to
expand. This is sure to happen, with
ambitions for an extended cymbal wall, as
well as the aforementioned audio growth.
A younger, eager work force is perfect
to appeal to both of its target audiences –
students and high-end guitarists.
Preston is certainly inhabited by a high
number of metal and heavy rock fans, as
well as a large student population, which
is why this retailer has done well since it
became the second HW Music, after its
flagship store in Bolton.
One thing’s for certain, this store
certainly fills a niche within Preston’s
overall MI scene and on top of its friendly
service and dizzying selection, this should
be a serious consideration for any rock n
roll musicians across the North West, not
just Preston.
A&C HAMILTON
This shop might be based out of the city
centre, but that hasn’t stopped it from
building an excellent reputation, one that
they claim has put them in the top 20
music retailers in the country.
A quick glance around when entering
confirms this as a piano and keyboard
specialist. The level of choice is remarkable
and there is even a special, roped off
section of high end Yamahas. This store
stocks primarily the middle level to the
upper echelons of the keyed market,
causing customers to travel from far
and wide to cast their eyes over
Hamilton’s offering.
In terms of customer service, the team
here seems to go one step further than
other similar retailers. One member of
staff, who turned out to be the owner,
Alan Hamilton, was giving an extensive
demo to a pair of customers, allowing
them to see the instrument’s full
capabilities. It was evident that they made
a real effort not just to sell, but to ensure
that people go home satisfied.
Also on show was a nice display of
guitars, at the centre of which was a
lovely collection of Tanglewood acoustics,
which they are exclusive main dealers for.
In a second room, a Roland V-Drum kit sits
as a centerpiece alongside a well-
presented Korg section. All in all,
Hamilton’s is certainly worth leaving the
city centre for and its no surprise
customers come from so far afield to visit
this retailer.
62 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
Sound • Lighting • Special Effects • Distribution Power Squared • Tel: +44 (0) 1525 850085 • www.leisuretec.co.uk
bringing brands together
The Leisuretec Listings Plus 2010 • Call us to Order Your Copy • Experience • Choice • Value • Service
64 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
MI RECRUITMENT
ADVERTISE YOUR VACANCIES AT
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
NEW RECRUITNMENT
ADVERTISING POSITIONS
NOW AVAILABLE
FOR MORE DETAILS
CONTACTJodie.Holdway@intentmedia.co.uk
OR PHONE
01992 535647
One of the most successful independent music retailoutfits in the UK, Newcastle Drum Centre is lookingfor a Sales/Operations Manager to play a central role
in developing and growing the business.
You will take charge of all day-to-day operationsreporting directly to the Managing Director.
This will involve everything you might expect in atightly run, dynamic, go-ahead organisation which hasstrong sales both on the shop floor and across the
internet. You will be running a busy team of customer-facing staff, dealing with suppliers, keeping
on top of the paperwork and planning for the future.Must-haves include organisational abilities, successful
retail management experience, skills in sales, EPOS systems, admin, team management, business
development and a good understanding ofIT/internet/online sales. If you are a quick thinker and
have a sense of fun, that would help too!
For more info or an application form contact us on0191 2210301 or team@newcastledrum.co.uk
OPERATIONS / SALES MANAGER WANTED
SALES MANAGER, YORKOrganise and lead a team within a busy salesenvironment in one of the largest and most
recognisable music stores in the country. You willneed to plan staffing requirements, organise local
marketing initiatives, motivate and manage adiverse team across various product disciplines
including guitars, drums, sheet music, and pianos.You will need proven experience in sales, with agood record of achieving targets. Good sales
and management skills. Excellent rewardspackage and career progression possible.
Please apply in writing with a CV to Iain Davidson, Musicroom, Distribution Centre,
Newmarket Road,Bury St Edmunds,Suffolk, IP33 3YB
or by email to iain.davidson@musicsales.co.uk
SU
PP
LIE
R S
PO
TLI
GH
T
Rothwell maintains an unparalleled reputation for
quality – and it’s all truly British made...
Although Rothwell Audio
Products started making
guitar related gear back in
2004 with the Stompjuice effects
pedal power supply, it was when it
introduced its first effects pedals –
the Atomic Booster and Hellbender
in 2007 – that the world started to
take notice. Since then, the pedal
range has expanded and the
brand's reputation has continued
to grow. The company now has
dealers in 14 countries around the
world with America and Japan the
biggest markets. Not bad for a
workforce of just two.
"We're a very small company –
there's just the two of us at the
moment, but we're currently
making about a thousand pedals a
year," commented Andrew
Rothwell, the company’s founder.
"We might take on another
member of staff towards the end
of the year."
The company’s most popular
products are the Hellbender, for its
vintage Marshall-style roar, and the
Love Squeeze compressor for its
ability to do compression without
adding noise or sounding artificial.
Based in Bolton, Lancashire,
Rothwell’s premises and workforce
may be modest, but the company
uses a range of top quality UK
subcontractors to enable reliable
and efficient production. Cases,
circuit boards, badges and
subcontracted services such as
metal polishing and engraving all
come from UK sources, making
Rothwell truly ‘made in Britain,’
rather than just designed in Britain.
“I’m sure things could be made
cheaper if everything was farmed
out to the Far East, but our pedals
aren’t unreasonably expensive and I
like the control that using UK
suppliers gives us,” says Rothwell.
And what about the future?
Rothwell insists that he’s always
experimenting with new ideas and
has plans to expand the company’s
range of pedals, but was keeping
tight-lipped about details of
anything new.
“We have got one or
two things in the
pipeline, but we also
need to concentrate
on producing the
existing pedals so that
dealers are never
waiting long for stock.”
ROTHWELL: 01204
366133
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 65
CLASSIFIEDS: MINIMUM 12 MONTHS - ONE ANNUAL CHARGE QUARTER PAGE £1,295
MARKETPLACE INDEX
TO ADVERTISE CALL DARRELL CARTER OR JODIE HOLDWAY ON 01992 535647
THE PLACE FOR BUSINESS
MIMARKETPLACE
440 DISTRIBUTION ..................................0113 258 9599
AARIA ........................................................01483 238720AVSL ......................................................0845 270 2411
BBILL LEWINGTON ......................................01268 413366
CCOVERNOTES ..........................................0121 327 1977
DDADDARIO ..............................SALES@DADDARIO.CO.UKDBT........................................................0800 234 2848
FFCN ......................................................WWW.FCN.CO.UKFENDER ............................................WWW.FENDER.COMFOCUS MERCHANDISE ............................020 8245 9035
HHOT ROX ................................................0115 987 3163
IINDIE GUITAR ........................................01235 851 189
JJAM PERCUSSION ..................................0151 494 1492
LLEISURETEC ............................................01525 850085
MMARSHALL AMPLIFICATION ....WWW.MARSHALLAMPS.COMMCLELLAND/GREMLIN MUSIC ..................01273 491333MEL BAY ................................................020 8382 8010MUSIC SHIPPING CO. ................................01562 827666
OOCARINA WORKSHOP ..............................01536 485963
RROBERT MORLEY ....................................020 8318 5838ROTHWELL AUDIO ....................................01204 366133
SSOAR VALLEY MUSIC ................................0116 230 4926
TTEAC ........................................................01923 438880
WWIND PLUS..............................................0116 243 1698WORLD RHYTHM ......................................01242 282191
To find out more about the JVM Series and other Marshall products contact: Marshall Amplification plc Denbigh Road, Bletchley, Milton Keynes MK11DQ www.marshallamps.com
AMPLIFICATIONS
0845 270 2411
0845 270 2433
sales@avslgroup.com
www.avslgroup.com
A leading distributor within the Audio Visual, Sound & Light, Public Address and MI trades.
GRO
UP
Order online
Friendly sales team
Over 4000 products in stock
DISTRIBUTOR
66 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
Active & passive speakers Line array InEar & Wireless Public adress
The sound of experience
a member of
dBTechnologies UK16 Whitebeam CloseNewhey, RochdaleOL16 4NDDirect: 07595 672157Freephone: 0800 234 2848mail: sales@dbtechnologies.com
www.dbtechnologies.com
www.dbtechnologies.com
DISTRIBUTOR
MI MARKETPLACE
www.daddario.co.uk/inked
DISTRIBUTOR
DISTRIBUTOR
Call Tom Harrison on 01132 589599 or email - tom@440distribution.com
DISTRIBUTORDISTRIBUTOR
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 67
MI MARKETPLACE
DISTRIBUTOR
www.gremlinmusic.co.uk
Acoustic, Celtic and TraditionalMusical Instrument Specialists
Become a Gremlin Dealer and giveyour customers a bigger and betterchoice! We pride ourselves on thepersonal touch - you can alwaysreach us by phone during workinghours, and we’ll always send yourorder as fast as possible, no matterwhat the size. We’ve been in thebusiness for over 25 years, and can
offer you an experienced, friendly andprofessional service.
Email: post@gremlinmusic.co.ukTel: +44 (0) 1903 203044 (9.30 - 5.30 Mon - Fri)
DISTRIBUTOR
68 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
MANUFACTURER
Find out more at www.fender.com/gdec3Fender® and G-DEC® are trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. © 2010 FMIC. All rights reserved.
Like no other guitar amplifi er you’ve ever experienced.
ALL NEW
MI MARKETPLACE
MANUFACTURER
DISTRIBUTORDISTRIBUTOR
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 69
MI MARKETPLACEMANUFACTURER
Rothwell effects pedals are trulyhand-made here in the uk and built to thehighest standards. The cases are handpolished and the electronics carefullyassembled by skilled uk workers. The circuit designis innovative and original (we don't do clones, repros ormods) and the sound is the sound of classic rock guitar - pure tone.Our pedals are quickly gaining a reputation for superb quality and are being played on some of theworld's biggest stages. The Hellbender (overdrive) and Switchblade (distortion) are currently beingheard by thousands of fans on Justin Timberlake's world tour, played by Mike Scott (also Prince'smain guitarist), who says "you make truly great, great pedals".
Why not join our growing list of uk and international dealers and stock Britain's finest boutiqueeffects pedals.
BRITAIN'S FINEST BOUTIQUE EFFECTS
WWW.ROTHWELLAUDIOPRODUCTS.CO.UK01204 366133
INSURANCE AND BUSINESS
MUSIC PUBLISHERS
OCARINAS
Making Music in SchoolsSince 1983
UK made rainbow ocarinas fromOcarina Workshop are easy to playand great fun to teach with.
These pocket-sized instrumentsare popular with kids & well-tuned.Together with 'Play your Ocarina'music books, they are the key tosuccessful music-making in manyschools around the country.
Make sure school ocarinas are onyour counter-top and availablewhen customers request them!
Quote ‘MI Pro’ when you order12 Ocarinas & 12 Books and beamazed at the ocarina’s potential...
Trade orders are sent by return:free delivery & no minimum order
www.ocarina.co.uk
tel: 01536 485 963fax: 01536 485 051
email: sales@ocarina.co.uk
70 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
Rober t MORLEY Co Ltd
34 ENGATE St. LONDON SE13 7HA
020•8318•5838Grand & Upright Pianos by
Elysian, Grotrian-Steinweg, Bechstein,Monington & Weston
and other famous makers
John Morley Clavichords, Spinets,Harpsichords, Virginals & Celestes
Antique, Modern & New, Rental, Repairs,Sales lists & colour brochures on request.
Robert MORLEY & Co Ltd.Piano & Harpsichord Makers
Established 1881
www.morleypianos.com
PIANOS PERCUSSION & DRUMS
MI MARKETPLACE
PERCUSSIONPERCUSSION
PROMOTIONAL
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 71
PERCUSSION
MI MARKETPLACE
WIND INSTRUMENTREPAIRS
AUGUST 2001Cover Stars: The BMF continues to stagger
through at the NIA, although exhibitors and
visitors alike said they were happy with
proceedings… It’s just there weren’t very many of
the latter. The printed music ‘village’ in the
Olympia hall were pretty disgruntled, though
News: IMP and Music Sales continue JV
negotiations, Studer buys Amek, Future says
everything’s fine, Yamaha EKB launch, Solihull rock
and pop
Features: Electric guitars (Part 2), PLASA preview,
Andy Wood’s exposé on ligging, Yamaha-Kemble
Family Tree, Wireless microphones, Muzonet
Products: Garrison acoustics, Musicman OLP
licensed guitars, Meinl Generation X cymbals,
Stromberg Montreux Jazz guitar, Ludwig Classic
Birch kit, E-mu Paris recorder, E-mu XL-7
command station, Yamaha Xeno trumpets,
Technics SX-PX662M, 4M and 5M digital pianos
Number one singles: So Solid Crew: 21 Seconds;
Five: Let's Dance
Number one albums: David Gray: White Ladder;
Atomic Kitten: Right Now
RETRO
MI Pro is the only place the UK’s MI trade turns for the news and analysis of everything going on in the industry. Aside
from that, we appreciate the fun that lies at the root of everything we do, so this is the section to crack open a beer, put
your feet up and have a laugh. If you have any pictures you’d like us to include, send them to mipro@intentmedia.co.uk...
72 miPRO AUGUST 2010 WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
THE LAST WORD IN MI PRO
Mel Bay’s Chris Statham (right) talks printingwith Oliver Makings of Caligraving
PARTY TIME
After the MI Retail Conference & Expo, the
300-plus delegates all piled into the adjacent
Parker McMillan bar for the very best in
drinks, eats, networking and music, courtesy
of the After Show Sponsor, Roland.
It was a splendid affair, with numerous
delgates uttering the famous ‘last words’ of:
‘I’ll only be staying for one’ and then
proceeding to party well into the evening.
Music came courtesy of the Fabulous
Beatles – a tribute act that not only looked
and sounded exactly like the original Fab Four,
but impressed those more observant among
the clientelle by sticking to the songs of the
suited, mop-top era of 1962 to 65.
Whatever else anyone might wish to say
about the MI trade, no-one can deny that it
knows how to party.
SEND YOUR PICTURES TO CODA@INTENTMEDIA.CO.UK
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK miPRO AUGUST 2010 73
When a product not only proves
to be a significant milestone in
its field, but also inspires a
whole new sound within popular music
and goes on to stand the test of time, it
clearly deservesthe moniker of MI Icon.
The Boss CE1 Chorus Ensemble was
the very first true effects unit from this
brand and sparked a chorus
craze among guitarists, an
effect that became all the
rage in the late 70s and
early 80s. Surprisingly, its
circuitry was taken
completely from the
previously released JC
amplifiers, which were also
hugely successful.
Unlike other MI Icons,
the CE1 actually sold
extremely slowly at first
and in its early days, it looked more like
an MI flop. This was due to its high price
and the fact that its first buyers mostly
used it as a mono effect. It was when
stereo amplification really took off in
the later prog era that musicians started
to realise the CE1’s potential and in a
remarkably short amount of time, Boss
was heading towards shifting its
millionth unit.
Of course, due to it being around 35
years old, the inclusion of just one level
knob for the chorus effect is nothing
compared to stomp-boxes of today.
However, this turns out to be a minor
hindrance, as the range that this one
control offered was hugely impressive.
Vibrato made up the other half of the
CE1’s available effects and this was
tweaked via speed and depth controls.
Some loved this effect as much as the
chorus, due to its resemblance to the
Magnatone vibratos of the 50s and 60s.
Gain control was another trick it had
up its sleeve. It gave the guitarist the
ability to fiddle with the input level, in
order to suit any guitar. With legendary
guitarists, such as Andy Summers from
The Police and Jeff Baxter of The Doobie
Brothers falling in love with this small
grey box, it’s no wonder that Boss
quickly found itself rocket to the top of
the guitar effects ladder as a result of
this little gem.
MI ICON Boss CE1 Chorus Ensemble
MI Retail Conference& Expo
An event
in association with
Tanglewood’s James Day and Shea Rider, Christine & Del Eyre-
Walker of Guitar Village getting into the swing of things
AFTER SHOW SPONSORSharon Music’s Cliff Williams (front) and Colin Freeman (far
right) home in on Julian Markson (of Markson’s Pianos and
obscured by bottle) because his gang had food
NEXTMONTHMI’s run up to Christmas begins now and MI
Pro covers Casio’s 30th, previews the first
London Drum Show and looks at the
acoustic piano market. As it’s September,
that means PLASA and the BPM show, so
there’s an overview of DJ lighting, no less.
EDITORIAL: ANDY BARRETT
mipro@intentmedia.co.uk
ADVERTISING: JODIE HOLDWAY
jodie.holdway@intentmedia.co.uk
Company/job title:
Shure Distribution UK, marketing
communications manager
Years in the industry?
Three
First single bought?
Brown Girl in the Ring by Boney M, with my
pocket money.
Favourite album?
It depends on my mood, but I’ll go for
Bowie’s Hunky Dory today.
Currently listening to?
LCD Sound System, This is Happening
Favourite musician?
Stevie Wonder
Which instruments do you play?
A comb and tissue paper is about it, I
leave playing instruments to those with
some talent.
Are you currently in a band?
After being forced to sing (I sing badly) as
a backing vocalist in a school band, I
choose to keep off the stage and now just
appreciate music from afar.
MI SPACE
© Intent Media 2010 No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission
of the copyright owners. Printed by The Manson Group, AL3 6PZ
Enquiries to MI Pro, Intent Media, Saxon House 6a St.
Andrew Street, Hertford SG14 1JA.
Tel: 01992 535646 (Editorial)
Tel: 01992 535647 (Advertising)
Fax: 01992 535648
miPRO is a memberof the PPA
ISSN 1750-4198
MI PRO Magazine. Saxon House, 6a St. Andrew Street.
Hertford, Hertfordshire. SG14 1JA
ISSN: 1750-41980 Copyright 2010
Printed by The Manson Group, AL3 6PZ
the international monthlymagazine for musicinstrument professional andeveryone in the MI business
MI Pro has a monthly circulation of well
over 6,000. It is distributed to all MI
retailers and industry professionals plus
carefully selected pro audio executives
and resellers.
UK: £50 Europe: £60 Rest of World: £90
SUBSCRIPTIONEnquiries, please email: mipro.subscriptions@c-cms.com
Telephone: 01580 883 848
Charges cover XX issues and 1st class postage
or airmail dispatch for overseas subscribers.
MI PRO is published 12 times a year, reaching well over
6,000 readers throughout the UK and international market.
Managing EditorAndy Barrettmipro@intentmedia.co.uk
Editor at LargeGary Coopergary@garycooper.biz
Staff WriterAdam Savageadam.savage@intentmedia.co.uk
Advertising ManagerDarrell Carterdarrell.carter@intentmedia.co.uk
Sales ExecutiveJodie Holdwayjodie.holdway@intentmedia.co.uk
DesignerClaire Brocklesbyclaire.brocklesby@intentmedia.co.uk
Production ExecutiveRosie McKeownrosie.mckeown@intentmedia.co.uk
CirculationPaul Littlemipro.subscriptions@c-cms.com
Editorial ProductionManagerHelen Frenchhelen.french@intentmedia.co.uk
PublisherDave Robertsdave.roberts@intentmedia.co.uk
Managing DirectorStuart Dinseystuart.dinsey@intentmedia.co.uk
74 miPRO AUGUST 2010
JHS EVENT
KIRSTYLAMPORT
JHS EVENT
The 14th JHS Event brought in the
crowds once again. Top: Alison & Steve
Busby with Tony Wilkins; HK’s Andreas
Mayerl and Hans Stamer with prize
winner David Ferriter. Right: Gordon
Giltrap with his signature guitar. Far
right Tony & Rachel Rodgers with
children Katie and Charlie and JHS’
Mike Onza. Below: The Wembley Guitar
boys Matt Curtis and Roger Smith flank
Danelectro’s Danny Dugan and JHS’
Dave Pomeroy. Soundhire’s Bob Stewart
and Ivor Johnson with JHS’ David Law.
Distributed exclusively by EMD Music
The V-Studio 20 from Cakewalk: an audio interface and control
Call 01792 702 701 or
Guitar FX by Boss
Control surface by Roland
Recording software by Cakewalk
Killer tunes by you
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