Sibelius Software Ltd., maker of the popular Sibelius music notation software, has been acquired by Avid’s pro audio division, Digidesign, maker of Pro Tools. That means Sibelius joins M-Audio in industry-leading products in Digidesign’s portfolio. Here’s the official word from Sibelius co-creator/co-founder Ben Finn:

I’m delighted to inform you that Sibelius Software Ltd has been acquired by Digidesign, the audio division of Avid Technology Inc.
…

Digidesign has acquired Sibelius because of its strong brand and expertise in music education and its advanced notation technology, not to mention its loyal user base.

Day to day, there will be no major changes to the running of the business ­our existing management team remain in place, and we will continue to develop all our existing products as before. Looking forward, there will be new possibilities for linking Sibelius’s products with both Digidesign’s and M-Audio’s ranges of software and hardware solutions.

Other than that, there’s not much word on what this will actually mean. I’m always a little sad to see an independent company cease to be independent, but M-Audio has flourished under its ownership by Digidesign, and M-Audio employees have told me privately they’ve been able to retain a lot of their independent spirit. The team at Sibelius seem generally enthusiastic about this partnership, and just as Digi’s purchase of M-Audio demonstrated recognition for computer music accessories, the buyout of Sibelius represents real support for music notation products and music education.

The headline below really sums up the major part of the issue here, though, which is marketing reach:

Avid Acquires Sibelius, Expands Reach into Global Education Market [Sibelius Press Release]

What Price Sibelius? TradingMarkets reports the price of the deal at US$23 million. Note that, because Avid is a public corporation (ticker: AVID), you’ll see more information disclosed about factors like Sibelius market share. Sibelius was a private corporation.

The question on everyone’s minds, of course, is what this will mean for the products. “Linking” Sibelius software with Digidesign and M-Audio gear could mean simple bundles (think the G7 guitar product with an M-Audio interface, or the full Sibelius software with Pro Tools). Down the road, it might mean actual integration, like the Sibelius notation engine inside Pro Tools, or in lighter form, in M-Audio’s new entry-level Session product, both of which lack music notation facilities. (In comparison, competition from Logic Pro, Digital Performer, Cubase, and SONAR all have built-in notation features. Logic actually began its life as a notation tool.) Sibelius won’t confirm these possibilities now, of course; even if they would, I’m not sure they yet know.

My hope, of course, is that Digi/Avid follow the model of M-Audio, and keep focusing on products that can be used by everyone, and not just Pro Tools (or Session) users. But so far, there’s no indications otherwise; the primary impact for existing Sibelius users may be a company with greater resources for development.

Here’s the real question: will Sibelius move from England to sunny California? Time will tell. In the meantime, that “A part of Avid” logo sure seems to be showing up in a lot of places these days. (I know where it would fit under the CDM logo. Kidding.)

Digidesign has acquired virtual instrument / soundware / effects maker Wizoo. [via] No big deal, right, since Digidesign’s M-Audio unit already distributes Wizoo products? Think again — Digidesign claims this is a very big deal: think Digi-branded, new products. From the press release:

“We plan to deliver powerful integrated synthesis and sampling instruments that provide the highest levels of quality and reliability for music creation, post production and sound design. In addition to the great products Wizoo currently offers, we look forward to delivering new products for the Pro Tools platform that will be equally as ground-breaking as Turbosynth and SampleCell were earlier in our history. The addition of the Wizoo R&D team’s expertise will allow us to continue to drive innovation, creativity and unique capabilities on the Pro Tools platform.” -Dave Lebolt, Avid VP/GM of Digidesign

Furthermore, the Wizoo website headlines with “Digidesign Acquires Wizoo to Advance Music Creation Tools & Sound Design for Post.”

Note the words, for the Pro Tools platform. So it looks like Digidesign’s thinking was to make Pro Tools-exclusive products — just as its purchase of M-Audio had the benefit of making Pro Tools for M-Audio audio hardware. Now the question is, what products? Digi says they like the intelligent instruments Wizoo has done (think Virtual Guitarist), but innovating in the soft synth world in this day and age is no small challenge. Further, Wizoo’s recent Drum & Bass Rig and Key Rig for M-Audio were decidedly lackluster. Stay tuned.

It’s hard to get solid information, but a storm appears to be brewing on KVR Audio. The developer of Wusikstation is allegedly calling it quits — a combination of business and personal reasons, and sales lost to warez. That’s led to an unprecedented solution for some of the users: band together and try to acquire the software, either to continue it commercially or open source it. Why the groundswell of public support? Aside from users who love the instrument, there are plenty of developers who created sounds for this engine; if Wusikstation is gone, so is their work. Some of the KVR threads have been deleted, and it’s not clear how serious this group is or whether they’ll succeed. If they do, it could change the business of independent music development — instead of software falling off the face of the earth (see Opcode), users might wind up owning it.

Let me know if you know any more about this.

Keeping up with acquisitions these days is darn near impossible. We wake up this morning, and Adobe has acquired Macromedia.
A few humble suggestions from the digital music / interactivity / VJ
side of things (and, no, one of them is NOT "bring back SoundEdit" –
you'd be amazed how many times I hear that, weirdly):

• Kill Director, PLEASE. What we need is Flash that's more
  interactive, not two programs with slightly overlapping capabilities.
  In fact, what we really need is for you to
• Add MIDI to Flash. Why this wasn't added natively to Director or Flash eons ago is beyond me. It's time. Can it really be that hard, Adocrodobia?
• Add OSC to Flash. If anyone could back the OpenSoundControl initiative, it's Madocromedibe; flosc is a decent start. (OSC is a networked-based successor to MIDI and oh so much more.)
• Beef up Flash Video. Flash could be the ultimate
  interactive – programmable – live audio – live video system, with some
  development resources. Imagine a Flash – After Effects love child.
  Okay, probably not going to happen.

So, come on, Acrododia. You have competitors for every product
except Flash and Director (right?), so that's where we'll be expecting
the action. Don't let us down.

Don't believe Flash could be relevant to music? Check out the insane beat/looping Web app Beaterator.

In a surprise announcement, Toyota Motor Corporation announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. (commonly known as Cakewalk) in a cash and stock transaction for an estimated $324 million.

Boston-based Twelve Tone Systems is the industry-leading provider of
software for creating music and sound on the desktop, with
award-winning products used by more than 1,000,000 professional and
home users around the world. Tokyo-based Toyota Motor Corporation is
"one of the world's leading automakers", with diverse offerings from
minivehicles to large trucks, along with the Lexus, Daihatsu, and Hino
brands, plus prefabricated housing and leisure boats. TMC's FY2003
earnings were 17.29 trillion yen worldwide.

The combination of the leading Windows audio developer with a carmaker
may come as a surprise to some, but it's consistent with a wave of
acquisitions of audio developers by Apple (Emagic), Sony (Sound Forge),
Adobe (Audition — formerly Cool Edit), Yamaha (Steinberg), Avid
(M-Audio and Pinnacle), Microsoft (who acquired FL Studio aka Fruity
Loops in a story we'll cover later today), and Wal-Mart (who acquired
DJ manufacturer Stanton, also in an agreement today — we expect $1.99
versions of Final Scratch soon).

With the growing popularity of digital music (as exemplified by the
iPod), this agreement is no surprise at all. The acquisition of
Cakewalk by Toyota's should complement Toyota's diverse technology
initiatives, like clean-burning fuel and automobile safety. In
particular, the Toyota-Cakewalk partnership is likely to further the
open-standard Remix as You Drive initiative, which encourages
commuters to create "mash-ups" on the go via beat-slicing controls
initiated via steering-wheel controls and voice command. We've yet to
see a working prototype of this technology, but an early version was
promised at AES.

Cakewalk and Toyota were unavailable for comment, probably because they
were busy pursuing their April Fool's festivities. Full details on the
announcement here.

Avid announced today that it will acquire Pinnacle,
one of Avid's few remaining competitors in media production technology.
At the ultra-high-end broadcast level, Avid already nearly owns the
market, and Pinnacle will complete that integration. Meanwhile, you can
expect Avid to make a big play for the consumer market with Pinnacle's
consumer-level offerings. Add this to Avid / Digidesign's purchase of M-Audio last year.

It's pretty much Avid vs. Sony vs. Apple at this point in the video
market. No tears shed here, because Sony's Vegas and Apple's iMovie and
Final Cut are in my mind preferable to Pinnacle's offerings.

One thing that is clear: Steinberg
just dodged a huge bullet. If Steinberg had been part of this deal,
Digidesign would almost certainly have wanted to kill Steinberg's Pro
Tools competitors. On the other hand, the buyout probably wouldn't have
happened at all: Pinnacle shrank when it sold off Steinberg to Yamaha,
making it riper for a takeover deal the company was likely courting
anyway.

In other news, CDM is proud to announce we've been acquired by Sony and
are discontinuing all our coverage of other products. Just kidding. I
think.