Alesis
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Alesis is a company that designs and markets electronic musical instruments, which it has manufactured primarily in China. Alesis is owned by Numark and based in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
[edit] Targeted market
The products manufactured by Alesis are mainly for studio and live performance (as opposed to practice) use and are now targeted at professional and semi-professional musicians. Alesis is known for budget equipment but has sometimes produced surprisingly high-quality and innovative gear such as the Alesis Fusion, Andromeda A6 analog synthesizer and virtual analog modeling synthesizer called Ion and the Micron which is based on the Ion. Alesis developed equipment for recording studios in the 1990's, including the ADAT modular digital multitrack recording machine that allowed eight channels of CD-quality digital recording on SVHS tape, a machine which many consider to be the harbinger of the modern home studio recording era and the true beginning of the downturn of the commercial recording studio business.
Alesis achieved an early success with their original MidiVerb device, a stereo reverb (2 in, 2 out) at a reasonable price. Although the MIDI specification was not extensive, it was sufficient. The unit responded to patch changes 1-63 to select different preset reverb sounds, higher numbers activated "Defeat" mode (which was Alesis parlance for Bypass). The MidiVerb was built using off-the-shelf parts, which enabled the device to be repaired in the field easily.
The list of popular Alesis gear includes the MicroVerb, SR-16 drum machine (introduced in 1991 and still in production), the Quadrasynth line of sample-based synths, and the ADAT 8-track digital tape recorder, ubiquitous in the early 90s.
The company suffered financial turbulence in 2001 following an April 27 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, after investing heavily in the hard-disk equivalent of the ADAT, the HD24. In the subsequent restructuring, Jack O'Donnell (president of Numark Industries) acquired the company.
[edit] List of Alesis Gear
- M1 Active (Mk1 and Mk2)
- M1 Active 520 and 620
- HR-16, HR-16:B
- D4 rack-mount drum machine
- DM5 electronic drum brain
- DM5 Pro Kit with SURGE Cymbals electronic drum kit and drum brain
- DM6 Kit
- DM10 Pro Kit
- Quadrasynth
- Quadrasynth Plus
- S4
- S4 Plus - Rack version of Quadrasynth -
- QS6
- QS6.1
- QS6.2 Voice Expandable Synth
- QS7
- QS7.1
- QS7.2
- QS8 88-key Synthesizer Keyboard
- QS8.1 88-key Synthesizer Keyboard
- QS8.2 88-key Synthesizer Keyboard
- QSR
- SR-16 drum machine
- SR18 drum machine
- ION Analog Modeling Synthesizer
- Fusion 6HD 61 note Semi-Weighted Keyboard Workstation
- Fusion 8HD 88 Note Fully Weighted Keyboard Workstation
- A6 Andromeda Polyphonic Analog Synth
- micron synthesizer
- micron se synthesizer
- MMT8
- Performance Pad
- Control Pad
- XGuitar
- M-EQ 230 rack-mount equalizer
- 3630 Compressor/Limiter with Gate
- Sumo 100 & 300 (resp. 100W and 300W) keyboardamplifiers
- io|26 and io|14 Firewire Recording Interface
- iMultiMix 8 USB (mixer with iPod dock)
- iMultiMix 16 USB (mixer with iPod dock)
- USB Pro Drum Kit
- Trigger i|O (drum trigger to MIDI interface)
[edit] See also
- Numark Industries
- Akai (also owned by Numark)
- Alesis Fusion workstation
- Alesis Quadrasynth
