OT: working in the music industry

[The Proteus]

Agusto & List,

	From what I've heard in my travels as an engineer and consultant,
things vary for the very good, to the absolutely horrendous. A lot of
tales about Ensoniq are true - especially since I'm working for them now,
indirectly. Ensoniq during its latter years in the MI industry wasn't so
sure that they could stay in the industry, and had a half-hearted approach
to designing products for MI. I've talked with a few engineers, and third
parties that worked to forge licensing deals with Ensoniq, and their
opinions varied from "Okay" To "Spotty at best." 
	As things stand now, Ensoniq MI engineering is no more. All of the
MI projects that are in current production from Ensoniq have been, or are
in the process of being moved to E-Mu / Ensoniq's headquarters in Scotts
Valley, CA. That's Ensoniq's MI division now, and all further Ensoniq
products will be an E-Mu engine with the Ensoniq label stuck on it.
	As an engineer working on the transition of all these products
from Ensoniq to E-Mu, all I can say is that it's like pulling teeth to get
any co-operation out of Ensoniq. We request documents, and we get the
incorrect ones, we request for engineering information and software
archives, and we get CD's of encoded visual sourcesafe libraries. Any time
we've wanted to get some serious information out of them, we've had to
literally fly someone out there and search all of the engineering
computers for the data - they're too busy making sound cards now to worry
about MI gear.
	I've only been in the industry officially for the past 6 months,
but my personal opinions of working for a MI company is that it's a dream
- but I've heard stories of others I work with getting shafted, quitting,
and then coming back after hellish times. It seems that the MI industry is
so critical, that you have to have all of your ducks lined up in a row to
be a "major contender". One wrong move, and you could destroy the business
you've worked so hard to create, and the products you have slaved over and
hoped that they'd be successful.
	A lot of people at E-Mu's engineering used to work for Sequential,
Flying Faders, Opcode, and other companies in the industry - and there's a
lot of diversity. The main problems I've heard of is when fresh (read:
business major) management steps in and tries to "professionally"
re-organize the company to achieve what they feel is "the absolute future"
of it. A lot of people are well-intentioned, but unfortunately it takes a
musician to understand a musical product - and there aren't many Business
majors out there that carry a tune, let alone care what a quaver is. They
only see projections, profits, losses, and then make arbitrary decisions
based on those figures in this industry, namely because they can't make
informed decisions when they have no idea what the market is. 
	In the case of Gibson, that's just a bad company to work for
unless you're an artisan specializing in guitars - and even that's getting
trashed slowly. From my experience, Opcode is no more, period. The only
thing that's being maintained is the web site, and Gibson is not
interested in carrying out Opcode's products either since all the talent
is gone. They did the same thing to Lynx Crowe (Father of ZIPI), and
indirectly to Tom Oberheim, through the buyout and subsequent destruction
of their product line as well. I could rant about Gibson for quite some
time, but I'll wrap it up with this: To me, Gibson takes this business WAY
too seriously. The music industry is supposed to be fun and educational
while making money. If it can't be fun, then why do we call it music?
	In summary, I love working in the industry - but I'm sure others
wouldn't share my enthusiasm. I've been lucky enough to be hired by a
company that has a good management team, and a strong financial backbone
that can potentially absorb any little mistakes we make. It's a
challenging thing to build something that's not only functional, but
aesthetically pleasing as well, and it's honestly what I've always dreamed
it would be. I guess, it's all how you see things - and I've always been
an optimist at best.

The Proteus

- - - T h e  U n d e r g r o u n d  W a r e h o u s e - - -
- - - Subversive - Tools - For - A - Chaotic - Planet - - -
-  h t t p : / / w w w . u g w a r e h o u s e . o r g /  -
--<T h e  P r o t e u s>-<Musician>-<Producer>-<Engineer>--

On Wed, 24 May 2000, Augusto Pinoche wrote:

> Some time ago there was some discussions
> about how it was to work in the electronic
> field as an ingeneur or designer etc, there
> was some issues that was raised.
> 
> Some years ago those issues was up again and there
> was someone who was tierd of being hired and fired
> every two months, he was working for Ensoniq writing
> software for the Ensoniq keyboards,
> if i can recall this right.
> 
> Another case is the dude who did the ASR-X
> machine for Ensoniq and suddenly was fierd for as
> it seams to no reason at all, whit some other 20
> dudes of the engineering department!
> 
> And the last thing i heard about Ensoniq was the DSP
> engineer who made the signal synthesis algos for ensoniqs
> effect boxes was sued by Ensoniq for some paper that was
> published!!
> 
> In some ways it seams that Ensoniq is no god employer!
> 
> Then we have the idiotic behavior of the CEO of Gibson
> who main purpose is to kill Opcode as much as he possibly
> can, as far i have heard that hassle is still not solved!!
> 
> Then we have the stories about how companies was
> more or less stolen,like Tom Oberheims, etc.
> 
> Some of you have or still do work for some of the
> brand names in this electronic industry as engineers
> techs etc etc, it would be interesting to know what is
> your experience of working in the music industry!
> 
> Has the Music industry been taken over by the
> economist in suits as the telecom and internet
> field has been?
> 
>