AES Convention Kicks Off

[MacRumors]

The 115th AES Convention kicks off today.

A last minute report notes that Guitar Center will start stocking Apple products and essentially open small pro-Audio Apple stores in Guitar Center's 120 locations.

An official Press Release is expected later today.

 

[dstorey]

This is great news. Much easier to target musicians if they are sold in a shop they normally go in anyway. Hopefully it'll work out well.

 

[chickengrease16]

a few of the guitar centers ive been to already had some apple stuff, but not computers so this is great. pro audio users need to just give up on their windows machines. anyone thats ever used a mac for pro audio knows that they are painless compared to sonar/cubase/whatever on a pc. did you happen to watch the G5 keynote on logic? haha

 

[skymaXimus]

sounds about right

I was in guitar center a few weeks ago and was impressed by how many Mac's and Apple displays they had running their studio there. I think I counted like five Mac's. This will be great.

 

[sugarprobe]

That is where I have bought all of my macs including My Dual G5. I prolly would never had bought a Computer had the Music store I buy all my guitar stuff at not sold them.

 

[hvfsl]

Although this is a good thing, remember that music creation is a very small and specialised market. Apple would only increase their market share by about 1% if they got all musicians to use Macs. I just hope Apple does not concentrate too many resources on music and neglect its core market, DTP and graphics.

All the musicians I know use PCs, but would prefer to use Macs if the price was lower, especially since Macs have a lot less noise than PCs. I am actually the only sound engineer I know that does use a Mac.

 

[spankalee]

This is *huge*. I have my own home studio, and I first bought a Mac so I could run Digital Performer. During the slump I worked at a music store and dreamed about getting a Mac in there, but my store was content with selling mediocre products with slightly higer margins, quality and customer satisfaction be damned.

Guitar Center is universally hated among all other music stores, but they lead the way. This is a great move. I hope they have lots of MOTU products hooked up to the Macs.

 

[nagromme]

I don't think anything Guitar Center does indicates Apple losing focus in other markets. And whatever the music market size, Apple does need to keep--and grow--core creative markets: not just for the direct sales to musicians, but for the mindshare gained among the many non-musicians who will then know what pros use! (I also suspect that 1% figure is far too low. There are probably MORE musicians than Mac users. Getting them "all" would be a big boost.)

 

[lewdvig]

Garage Band?

Apple just registered a TM for Garage Band. I wonder if this is related.

When I think garage bands I think guitars and the kind of musicians that hand out at these stores.

hmm. Maybe Apple agrees with 'nagromme.' I do. Niches can + lots of $$$ if you get lots of them.

 

[arn]

hmm.... guess not. (no press release)

arn

 

[D*I*S_Frontman]

Sam Ash Stores

I currently work for a Sam Ash music store in the Chicago area. We have a couple of Macs running DP/Logic/ProTools and we sell them as well.

I just saw a brand new G5 in our warehouse tagged for a customer two days ago. We are definitely Mac dealers as well. I think most units are sold preconfig'd for your pro audio platform of choice.

 

[CraigMiami]

Originally posted by hvfsl
I am actually the only sound engineer I know that does use a Mac.

You must not know very many sound engineers. I happen to be one, and let me tell you, out of the litteraly hunderds of studios i've been in and out of around new york, philly, and miami during my career so far, at LEAST 95% use macs.

It's rare today NOT to see a mac running ProTools in professional recording studios. I don't know whos feeding you the info about sound engineers and macs, but it's obviously very, very wrong. Macs are the top choice amongst musicians and recording engineers. Most, not all. Just most.

 

[nimbusthegreat]

>>I am actually the only sound engineer I know that does use a Mac.


>>It's rare today NOT to see a mac running ProTools in professional recording studios. I don't know whos feeding you the info about sound engineers and macs, but it's obviously very, very wrong. Macs are the top choice amongst musicians and recording engineers. Most, not all. Just most.

the first poster doesn't seem to run in the same circles as me. many of my friends use macs on shows (live) and even more in the studio. i will say that for live events pc's do seem to outnumber macs pretty significantly, but in the studio the trend is reversed.

many musicians i know run pcs however those that also engineer tend to run macs. get into a professional studio environment though and macs will outnumber pc's 3 or 4 to 1. at least that has been my experience. at the studio i work at we have one of each and both have their strengths...however for my money i wouldn't use anything but a mac running protools.

brian

 

[VIREBEL661]

Originally posted by CraigMiami
You must not know very many sound engineers. I happen to be one, and let me tell you, out of the litteraly hunderds of studios i've been in and out of around new york, philly, and miami during my career so far, at LEAST 95% use macs.

It's rare today NOT to see a mac running ProTools in professional recording studios. I don't know whos feeding you the info about sound engineers and macs, but it's obviously very, very wrong. Macs are the top choice amongst musicians and recording engineers. Most, not all. Just most.

Agreed - in Los Angeles if you use a PC for ProTools or something, you're a joke. Every major studio uses Macs for this purpose out here (there?). I remember going to a seminar or something where DigiDesign was showing off a new version of ProTools. They mentioned that it was available for PC. Then the rep said 'if your serious, you should be using a Mac for this'...

 

[Noiseboy]

Originally posted by hvfsl
I am actually the only sound engineer I know that does use a Mac.

Er...you might need to get out a bit more.
I was just at the AES and it's like an advert for Apple. There are countless Macs there and a few pitifull PC's. Apple could do a lot worse than have a presence at the AES, perhaps extolling the virtues of the G5 which is the only Mac I didn't see there.

I use a 17" PB 1.33Ghz and Pro Tools for live concert recording and while I'm primarilly a live engineer I've been in enough studios to realize it's at least 95% Mac.

 

[bassheavymusic]

Originally posted by hvfsl
I am actually the only sound engineer I know that does use a Mac.

I'm a producer/dj/sound engineer and I work in a facility with 4 music studios, 2 video editing suites, and 2 graphics suites, all of which use macs. If you're serious about your creative work, a mac is the obvious choice.

I can honestly say that I don't know more than 3 producers who use PC's, and those guys only use PC's because there are cracked versions of just about every single program and plug-in imaginable... cheap asses.