Alesis
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Alesis designs and markets electronic musical instruments, which are manufactured primarily in China.
History
Alesis Studio Electronics was founded in 1984 by Keith Barr (who co-founded MXR) in Hollywood, California.
In 1985 Alesis introduced the XT reverb, an all digital reverb at an unbelievably low (at that time) price of $799. Keith also brought in Russell Palmer to help run the business side while Keith concentrated on the engineering.
In 1986 Alesis produced the first, under $1000, 16-bit professional effects processor.
In 1987 the MMT8 sequencer and HR-16 drum machine were unveiled.
Over the next few years, Alesis introduced many new products and enjoyed great success. But the industry was unaware of what was being developed back in the R&D area of Alesis, something that would revolutionize digital recording.
At the 1991 Winter NAMM show, Alesis introduced the ADAT digital tape recorder. Each ADAT could record 8 tracks of 16-bit audio on an S-VHS tape, up to 16 ADATs could be connected together to record 128 tracks of audio.
For the next 10 years, Alesis created a wide variety of innovative and affordable products such as the QuadraSynth series of keyboards, X2 recording console and DM5 drum module.
One of the unique strengths of Alesis was the ability to design their own integrated circuits, this proved key in the development of products such as ADAT and the QuadraSynth series. In 1997 Alesis Semiconductor was formed to produce and market chips for the audio industry. A series of chips were introduced that ranged from digital signal processors for audio effects to low cost analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters.
The company suffered financial turbulence in 2001 following an April 27 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. In the subsequent restructuring, Jack O'Donnell (president of Numark Industries) acquired the company.
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 1990s, 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.
List of Alesis Gear
- MicroVerb (I,II,III,IV)
- MidiVerb (I,II,III,IV)
- 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
- DM10 Studio 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
- QuadraVerb
- Q2
- NanoVerb
- 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)
See also
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