Usually nothing interests me less than distribution deals, but this one caught my eye. Yamaha, the only synth and instrument maker I know of that also makes jetskis, has partnered with our favorite French synth geek-gurus, Arturia. Arturia’s products, from its Moog-endorsed analog emulations to the Storm synth studio, will now be distributed here in the U.S. It’s a natural fit for at least one product: Arturia’s CS-80V is a terrific emulation of Yamaha’s classic CS-80 keyboard.
This announcement tells us two things: one is, Yamaha is serious about software; their purchase of Steinberg wasn’t just a fluke. Second, if you want to distribute music software, you need a big distributor; this announcement follows a rash of soft synths going under the M-Audio/Digidesign umbrella.
So is that bad; is this just the growing power of The Man? I don’t think so. All in all, I think it’s good news — small software houses rarely have the resources to get their stuff into users’ hands. I hope the big companies will market these products aggressively. (Need any tips, just give me a call!)