Music Group acquires TC Group

[Shez]

So Behringer now has Tannoy, Lab.gruppen, Lake, TC Helicon and TC Electronic in their stable.

 

Interesting. Good / bad?

[Bobbsy]

I wonder how many of those companies would still exist in a year or two if Music Group HADN'T bought them?

 

...and, on a practical level, wouldn't it be nice to have TC reverb algorithms in Behringer and Midas digital mixers?

[Alec]

I wonder how many of those companies would still exist in a year or two if Music Group HADN'T bought them?

...and, on a practical level, wouldn't it be nice to have TC reverb algorithms in Behringer and Midas digital mixers?

 

Completely agree. It's just like the consolidation in the car market, and many others. We'll mourn the loss of the old independent brands, but better to be under new strategic ownership than to wither and die in the open market place.

 

Plus the opportunity to exploit IP and facilities - you're quite right, TC algorithms across the digital mixers is a great opportunity.

[Simon Lewis]

I wonder how many of those companies would still exist in a year or two if Music Group HADN'T bought them?

 

 

TC group has been up for sale since last September, and AFAIK there have been one or two owners (investment / hedge fund types?) over the past few years.

 

Pro audio has somewhat struggled in its evolution from small boutique businesses run by dedicated and brilliant individuals to the large companies that have to vie for market share using the full panoply of modern manufacturing processes, business techniques and management methods.

 

 

We might not always like this trend of mergers and acquisitions, but most seem necessary to actually grow the businesses and make them thrive,,,

[BigYinUK]

Whatever we may think of Music Group (historically), the X32, M32 and family of products are stonking products and are giving the "big boys" a proper challenge. I'd think (no expert here) that everyone will have to raise their game and drop their prices.

 

Can't wait to see TC algorithms in X32 and M32 etc :)

 

Jon

[djmatthill]

It would be nice if the products released under the Beringher label were just a little bit better build and build quality was slightly better.. originally I was nt a fan of the Beri stuff but even I have had my mind changed since the release of the X32 etc... It think that Beringher are buying all these companies for their IP and technologies only to then go ahead and use cheaper and in some cases inferior components to make it work... I for one would nt mind paying and extra 30 or 40 percent more for Beringher kit if I knew the extra ££ had been spent on build quality and components... Beringher designs look amazing on paper and make sense truly amazing products but their "Last-a-bility" is some what questionable. ....

[Hugh]

Music group being a top lead business not one developed from a live show mentality, are making the same mistakes with their products the veterans of the industry made years ago and then corrected. For example mounting your switches, pots/encoders and connectors directly onto the circuit board with no other means of physical support. This means that over time with repeated use they inevitably come loose from the circuit board, resulting in intermittency and unreliability. Once a gigging engineer has had one nightmare with unreliable desk on a show, they then tend to avoid those desk as much as possible in the future. Allen and heath took years to recover their reputation after having issues with their mixers. With the soundcraft K series it was random from day to day which buses worked and which do not, due to the huge number of edge connectors. Many of the current crop of mixers are entirely designed this way and I fear they will become very unreliable very quickly, runing shows for many people, potentially ruining careers in the process. And don't get me started on this marketing crap of "Midas preamps" and Midas faders. Yes midas did make good preamps, but the current preamps are nothing like midas's original design (please don't get me wrong I am not saying the new ones sound bad) and as for "Midas faders" MIDAS USED P&G FADERS so "Midas faders" is complete marketing bull. Buying a brand name and sticking the badge on everything does not suddenly turn something into a quality product. Peeling a label of a bottle of Moet and sticking it on a bottle of Lambrini does not make the contents any better. Midas, TC, Lake and Lab gruppen built their reputation on making good reliable bombproof tools for the live engineer. Quality is not just about sound, reliability is possibly more important in a live situation.

[ghance]

All becoming dangerously homogeneous, lacking independent creativity. What's next for MG?.. Harman Group.. Yamaha?

[parky58]

I was brought up in Leyland when Leyland motors made trucks and busses which was a profitable company. Everything was good until it was merged with the loss making Midlands car industry. Eventually everything was sold to foreign competitors. Now there is nothing left of a once thriving British industry.

Deja vu?

[S&L]

I'm 5 miles from the old Leyland factory site and worked on the site after it was divided up and before it was finally levelled - I'm not sure this is the same thing.

for one, the music manufacturing industry is relatively small - people bemoam speeds of software updates and so on but you aren't dealing with companies on the scale of Microsoft - they aren't small but in the grand scale of things they are really only a few steps up from cottage industries - if you want your car services you can return it to your ford (or whoever) dealer in pretty much every town in the UK. meanwhile there is (I understand) a dedicated but quite small staff doing music group r&d in Manchester and an even smaller staff doing service and repair in Kidderminster - probably no more than a few bodies actually hands on.

and while the x32 is the most popular mixing console in history there are only one or two in every small town.

my point being, this isn't REALLY like the motor industry at all - they may look professional but £13 mil on a new factory is quite small in global industry terms.

 

my tuppenny worth? ..and I say this as an x32 owner and fan... I think behri are in a spot of bother and have been for a while. not financially but they have a big development bottle neck. they publicly apologised for the late delivery of the x-touch, blaming it on diverting resources and won't now put a date on release but it's likely to be 2 years at least after they were unveiled in jan 2014. the iq series of turbosund speakers took almost 2 years to come to market after being announced and still aren't due while next month.

the first x-air is here but the others haven't arrived yet, much less the xseries stage drop boxes and 32 channel digital snake.

and the former behri, now turbosound line array has still to appear.

my guess, born out by their statement, is that they have a bottleneck. post concept and pre mass manufacture - possibly during manufacture of speakers too. buying tc may just buy them the extra brain power they need to move along their concepts more quickly - in this fast moving market, a product announced 2 years ago has the potential to look tired and lacking fanfare when it does finally arrive - if I were sitting in the big chair and wanted to stay on top, that's something I would be looking hard at.