Yamaha Partners with French Synth Gurus at Arturia
by Peter Kirn
Usually nothing interests me less than distribution deals, but this one caught my eye. Yamaha, the only synth and instrument maker I know of that also makes jetskis, has partnered with our favorite French synth geek-gurus, Arturia. Arturia’s products, from its Moog-endorsed analog emulations to the Storm synth studio, will now be distributed here in the U.S. It’s a natural fit for at least one product: Arturia’s CS-80V is a terrific emulation of Yamaha’s classic CS-80 keyboard.
This announcement tells us two things: one is, Yamaha is serious about software; their purchase of Steinberg wasn’t just a fluke. Second, if you want to distribute music software, you need a big distributor; this announcement follows a rash of soft synths going under the M-Audio/Digidesign umbrella.
So is that bad; is this just the growing power of The Man? I don’t think so. All in all, I think it’s good news — small software houses rarely have the resources to get their stuff into users’ hands. I hope the big companies will market these products aggressively. (Need any tips, just give me a call!)