Ahhhhh Nuts...

One of the better companies out there for MIDI interfaces just got bought out by the proverbial 300-pound gorilla... Yahoo has the story. bq. Avid to Acquire M-Audio Avid Technology, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Midiman, Inc., doing business as M-Audio - a leading provider of digital audio and MIDI solutions for electronic musicians and audio professionals. At closing, Avid will pay approximately $80 million in cash, issue approximately 2 million shares of Avid common stock, and assume all outstanding M-Audio stock options. The deal also includes earn-out provisions, which would be payable to M-Audio's equity holders based on the successful achievement of certain financial milestones. Under the terms of the agreement, M-Audio will become a business unit of Avid's Digidesign audio division and market its line of computer audio peripherals, PCI sound cards, keyboard controllers and control surfaces, microphones, speakers, and distributed software and proprietary sound libraries alongside Digidesign's award-winning digital audio workstations for the professional and home/hobbyist markets. Avid has a division called Digidesign that manufacturers software called ProTools which is used by most recording studios. It's good but fairly pricey for what you get and the formats and the hardware are proprietary for the most part. I can see that Avid might like to get a share of the low-end home studio market but I'm really wondering if they will leave well enough alone or will their corporate culture start creeping into the feature sets of the M-Audio line. I hope it doesn't... Midiman's website is here Some of the cool stuff they do: * FireWire 1814 - Firewire interface to your computer. 8 24bit/96K inputs, 4 24bit/96K outputs plus ADAT Lightpipe, S/PDIF interfaces, two independent headphone outs, two Mic/Instrument preamps and a MIDI interface. All this in one box for $750 * USB MIDISPORT 8*8 - basic 8*8 MIDI interface with SMPTE. Also acts as a stand-alone MIDI patch bay. Very handy unit - I have one as my primary interface in the studio. * USB MIDI controllers hey also have a line of MIDI keyboards and control surfaces that are very nice and flexible. The one I have is the UC-33e which offers 24 knobs (fully assignable to any parameter), nine faders, 33 memory locations for instant recall of settings. Very handy and at $329 (MSRP). A steal considering what other companies are asking for their controller surfaces... Keeping my fingers crossed...