Fender To Acquire PreSonus Electronics

[v1o]

Why do you think graphics cards are so expensive at the moment?

GPUs are not expensive because they think they can sell them at a higher price to consumers. All manufacturers in electronics are facing supply constraints because of chip shortages in Asia caused by the covid. There's a chip crisis.

[Hink]

so what the hell are you going on about? If you are not afraid of losing features, why would you care if guitar players get some features too? Like I said, if that's your worst problem...talk about entitlement

just make music and when your DAW no longer works for you in this day and age, trust me, it has absolutely nothing to do with the DAW and perhaps it's time to take up watching paint dry

[syntonica]

As long as this is indeed a horizontal merger, as it seems to be portrayed, it should be okay. I'm sure a couple of high up muckety-mucks will be doing their golden parachutes before jumping out of the plane, but I doubt too many heads will roll. For now.

It will take a few years before all the effects of this merger will be seen. At worst, you'll see a cash grab with poorly-engineered products made from old Presonus tech, a la Alesis/Akai. S1 may be dropped or sold/spun off or even be put in the oubliette next to SVP. At best, it will hopefully be business as usual.

[Danilo Villanova]

Let me enlighten everyone about corporate acquisitions. My company was acquired by a huge corporation in 2009. Do you know what changed? Payroll, HR dept, chain of command, and benefits

Our corporation was able to fund tremendous product growth and development. Corporations really only care about incoming revenue, they dont care how you get it. Dont think that Fender is going to change the landscape of S1. They will likely let them continue to do whatever they want to do as long as the revenue keeps coming

^^ THIS ^^

This post right here is the most important post in the entire 8 pages of this thread, IMHO. As long as PreSonus continues to be profitable (not just Studio One, but also their hardware) - no one has anything to worry about.

That said, maybe they should change their name to "Studio One Studios".

How do you know it actually is profitable? They could be bailing out...

[jamcat]

Any discussion about the future of a software developer acquired by Fender needs to include Riffstation.

[Tronam]

The correlation between acquisitions and subscription services feels stronger than ever these days across all sorts of industries. I guess introducing some form of software or games as a service is the ultimate honeypot move to attract the interest of prospective buyers and appeal to investors. How much longer before we see iZotope and Native-Instruments' "partnership" result in an everything subscription plan?

[EnochLight]

How do you know it actually is profitable? They could be bailing out...

To be clear, I don't know anything. I'm just one of the many armchair CEO's chiming in to this thread.

[jamcat]

Here's a Fender/Riffstation timeline:

April 2017 - Fender® Announces Acquisition of Dublin-based, Sonic Ladder

“We are thrilled to welcome Sonic Ladder to the Fender team as we continue to work toward building digital products for the next generation of musicians,” said Ethan Kaplan, Chief Product Officer and General Manager, Fender Digital. “The expansion of the team allows us to further enhance our capabilities as a digital learning resource for Fender players globally.”

“We are honored to have joined the Fender brand, one that is so rich with heritage, as the company continues to evolve in the digital space,” said Dan Barry, Vice President, Research and Development at Fender Digital and CEO/Co-Founder of Riffstation. “Alongside our newly integrated team at Fender, we will continue to bring an even more enhanced and positive musical experience for the booming base of Riffstation users.”

(sound familiar?)


May 2018 - Fender sets free Riffstation Pro app for Windows and Mac

While we work with labels and publishers on a paid Riffstation service, Riffstation will no longer be available on the web or mobile devices.

We hope to bring a similar service back in the future, but in the meantime, we’d like to offer you a free copy of Riffstation Pro desktop app (normally $34.99), on us.

Riffstation Pro is an amazing tool for beginners and advanced guitar players and will help unlock your potential as a guitarist.

Thank you in advance for your patience as we work on what’s next.



Feb 2019 - Goodbye Riffstation - gone after March 15th

We are sad to announce that Riffstation Pro (Mac/PC) will no longer be available for download.

We are immensely proud of the success Riffstation has experienced and of the legion of dedicated guitar players it has seen develop along the way. We'd like to thank you for your support over the years.

We will be coming out with an exciting new product soon. In the meantime, if you are using an older version of Riffstation Pro, we strongly recommend that you update to the latest version now to future-proof your app. It's free to download until March 15, 2019.



No “exciting new product” ever came, unless they were talking about Studio One...

[EnochLight]

Yikes. Wonder if Dan Barry got the boot after that.

[bonch]

I was interested in Studio One, but I'm glad I held off.

[Danilo Villanova]

How do you know it actually is profitable? They could be bailing out...

To be clear, I don't know anything. I'm just one of the many armchair CEO's chiming in to this thread.

Oh, I frequently induge in being an armchair CEO, soccer coach, president, and Kirk Hammet.

[jamcat]

Yikes. Wonder if Dan Barry got the boot after that.

Dan Barry obviously left his ceremonial VP position at Fender when they killed Riffstation. He's got a new startup VRX Audio.

The person who should have been booted is Ethan Kaplan, Chief Product Officer and General Manager of Fender Digital. He spent $5 million of Fender's money to kill Riffstation, with nothing to show for it. Hopefully he is not involved in this PreSonus merger at all.

[MuzikFreq]

At least Fender is a guitar-oriented company, and they’re not Gibson.

If PreSonus merged with Technics or AKAI, I’d be worried about Studio One’s future.

But as long as They don’t stick a clip launcher in Studio One, I’m OK.

Actually would be interesting as AKAI has the MPC range which is pretty much a standalone DAW.

[cryophonik]

At least Fender is a guitar-oriented company, and they’re not Gibson.

If PreSonus merged with Technics or AKAI, I’d be worried about Studio One’s future.

But as long as They don’t stick a clip launcher in Studio One, I’m OK.

Actually would be interesting as AKAI has the MPC range which is pretty much a standalone DAW.

I don't understand why including a clip launcher would be a problem. I personally have no use for them, even though several of my DAWs have one (e.g., Live, Logic, Sonar). If other people want them, it doesn't bother me at all - I just don't use it. Hell, it's one of the most prominent and defining features of Live, yet a lot of Live users, such as myself, never even touch it. Besides, people have been asking for one in Studio One for years, so it may have been on Presonus' to-do list long before this Fender deal.

[jamcat]

The people asking for such are people who actually want to use some other DAW that is not Studio One.

It is not a big request among actual Studio One users. Check the feature requests at answers.presonus.com.