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GEAR TREND | BY DAN DALEY
n the battle to win the recording hobbyist’s dollar, computer-based recording gear
has trumped hardware.
The most recent market
statistics provided by NAMM
indicate MI sales of computer/software-based recording equipment grew more than
20 percent between 2001 and
2002—from $184.5 million to
$223.4 million.
In the same period, dedicated hard drive-based multitrack recorders dropped to $75
million in sales, down from $91
million the year before—half of
what the sector generated in
1998, digital recording’s watershed year.
I
THE MICRO-RECORDER
ne area of dedicated audio
recording hardware that
has proven immune to the rush
to the desktop is the microrecorder. While NAMM’s statistics don’t break out this
equipment subset, manufacturers report sales of palm-sized
recording systems remain robust.
“It’s one of the best-selling
products in our PortaStudio
line,” said Tascam national
sales manager Rick McClendon
O
68 | MUSIC INC. | SEPTEMBER 2004
MicroMultitracks
Are Still
Big Business
in the
Recording
Market
of the company’s Pocket
Studio5, a tiny four-track
recorder that stores audio data
to a flash memory card.
The Pocket Studio5 features
a built-in MIDI file player and
sound module, 100 onboard
digital processing effects, and
can mix down to the MP3 format and transfer data to a computer via a USB port. It has an
MSRP of $449.
According to McClendon,
the sales growth mini-recorders
experienced comes largely from
the musician market.
“Even though the musicians who are into recording
a n d p ro a u d i o a re m ov i n g
quickly over to computers,
they’ve discovered these palmpilot-sized recording systems
for use as practice and rehearsal devices, and as songwriting sketchbooks, especially
now that you can port the
data over to your computer
running Pro Tools.”
ToneWorks’ PXR-4 palmsized unit is regarded by some
as the industry’s prototype.
The three-year-old unit has
four actual tracks, each of
which hosts up to eight virtual
tracks. It boasts 77 sounds
derived from parent company
Korg’s audio modeling technology, 55 onboard drum patterns, USB interface and can
m i x d ow n w i t h i n i t s e l f t o
stereo, with an MSRP of $299.
ToneWorks product manager Paul Kramer reported the
unit has done well at the retail
level since its introduction.
“Initially, musicians have
to get over a pretty steep learning curve on these kinds of
products, compared to larger
hard drive multi-track systems,” he said. “Everything is
scaled down, like the multifunction cursor wheel. You
have to read the manual. But
once they get it, people get
addicted to them.”
Much of the PXR-4’s digital
audio derives from ToneWorks’
Pandora line of pint-sized guitar
processors, giving it a distinctly
MI lineage, versus products
from Tascam or Fostex—companies that have an immediate
pro audio association. To
counter that preconception,
Kramer said the company leverages Korg’s high degree of consumer awareness in the sound
generation domain.
“People using a Korg Triton
LE will recognize the PXR-4 as
a vertical extension of that,”
he said.
Samson Technologies’ new
PS-04 palm four-track builds on
the company’s Zoom line of
guitar processors, and at $199
is one of the least expensive on
the market, a downward pricing trend that Samson marketing manager Pete Moe said is
still in progress. It’s also tiny, at
3-3/8 inches by 5 inches and little more than 1-inch deep.
“There’s a physical limit to
how small you can go and still
make it usable,” said Moe. “But
we’re getting close to that limit.”
Moe added that the palm
sector is spawning its own culture, with users mailing and
trading the SmartMedia cards
that many of the units use as
memory storage.
“We’re seeing it break out of
the MI side and into lifestyle,”
he says, noting that new ads for
the unit are going into Men’s
Journal as well as musician
magazines. “It’s the hardware
that mirrors GarageBand,” he
said, referring to Apple’s highly
successful software.
THE RETAIL TREND
etailers have seen the trend
develop. Despite a sales
slump in hard disk recording
systems in the last few years,
palm-sized multitracks have
helped the category pull back
some of those losses.
“Pro audio has been a hot
department lately, mainly
because of software recording
systems and palm-sized hard
disk recorders,” said Chris
Gleason, senior vice president
for the 20-store chain Daddy’s
Junky Music. “The small
devices get a good response, and
it seems to be almost a generational thing. Younger customers
feel more comfortable with
these kinds of products, just as
older ones feel more familiar
with tape systems, in many
cases.”
Gleason said that the micromultitrack has established
itself as the digital notebook of
the recording-savvy musician.
“These things have so much
functionality built into them
now,” he said. “Some musicians use them to replace notebooks and cassette recorders,
R
but others are using them as
primary recording devices,
because they have built-in
effects and, in some, cases can
interface with the internet and
MP3.”
POP POSITIONING
weetwater Music generates most of its revenues
from telephone and online
sales, but at its brick-and-mortar locations in Ft. Wayne,
Ind., and Chicago, the micromultitrack device has become
an impulse buy, often placed
in a POP location near checkout counters, noted Adam
Cohen, Sweetwater’s director
of marketing.
“It was a of light-bulb-overthe-head realization,” he said.
“Most of them cost a few hundred dollars, but relative to
much of the pro audio gear,
that’s an impulse product. So
we have been displaying them
that way with big success.”
Cohen added that his staff
noted the product category’s
strong points for musicians—
portability, ease of use and the
increasing ability to interface
with larger recording platforms via USB busses.
“We try to have very personalized relationships with
our customer,” he said. “If a
salesperson knows that a customer is a guitar player who
tours a lot or is a composer
into recording, they’ll make of
point of bringing one of these
products to their attention.
Now that they have features
like editing capability and
MIDI files on board, they’re
not just for demos or casual
u s e a ny m o re. Pe o p l e h ave
made them part of their practice and rehearsal habits as
we l l a s t h e i r re c o rd i n g
approach, and they’ve become
an important part of the creative process, especially for
guitarists and songwriters.”
S
The mini-multitrack’s application as a practice and learning aid has not escaped notice
by schools. At the American
Institute of Guitar, in New
York City, assistant director
Annabel Chiarelli reported the
school encourages the use of
such devices to record lessons
and play along with music.
“You can record music from
a CD on two tracks and play
your own solos on the other
two tracks,” she said.
The institute now sells various guitar accessories such as
picks, strings and string
winders, and according to
Chiarelli, the school is considering adding the micro-multitrack to that mix.
“If we could budget for it,
I’d also like to see these things
in every classroom, because
they really do help students
learn,” she said.
Retailers, however, have
found that multitrack recorders
have not become what some
manufacturers hoped—an
entry-level conduit into continued pro audio sales by novices.
“It’s not doing that,” said
Rob Brambila, assistant manager at the Guitar Center in
Hollywood, Calif. “These
devices store data to memory
cards, and they’re just not big
enough to handle multiple
songs. If someone comes in
who wants to get seriously into
recording, I wouldn’t steer
them towards this category of
product; there’s a new line of
comparably priced systems,
such as Digidesign’s M-Box
and Lexicon’s new Omega that
do that job much better as
desktop systems. But what the
micro products have that nothing else does is portability and
the ability to let someone capture an idea or a lick immediately. That will probably keep
them selling well for some time
to come.” MI
“With palm-size
recorders, there’s a
learning curve because
everything is scaled
down, like the
multi-function cursor
wheel. You have to
read the manual.
But once musicians
get it, they get
addicted to them.”
Paul Kramer,
ToneWorks product manager
“Most micro-recorders
cost a few hundred dollars,
but relative to much of
the pro audio gear, that’s
an impulse product. So
we have been displaying
them that way with big
success. If a salesperson
knows a customer is
a guitar player who tours
a lot or a composer into
recording, they’ll bring
one of these to their
attention.”
Adam Cohen,
Sweetwater Music
director of marketing
SEPTEMBER 2004 | MUSIC INC. | 69