Yamaha to Acquire Steinberg Media Technologies

MacMoney wrote on 12/21/2004, 9:02 PM
Yamaha to Acquire Steinberg Media Technologies

December 21, 2004
Yamaha Corporation has reached a basic agreement to acquire 100% of the common stock of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, a division of Pinnacle Systems, Inc., a California-based maker and seller of video editing systems. The acquisition, which includes Steinberg's US sales operations, took place through closed competitive bidding on December 20, 2004.

Founded in 1984, Steinberg Media Technologies became part of the Pinnacle Systems Group in January 2003.

In the mid 1990s, Yamaha forged a relationship with Steinberg by using its computer music products and bundled software. In April 2004, Yamaha and Steinberg deepened their cooperative relationship with the Studio Connections initiative, a joint-development project to seamlessly integrate Yamaha's hardware products with Steinberg's software.

Now, Yamaha has reached agreement to acquire all of Steinberg's common stock through closed competitive bidding. Eying growth in the music creation market and expanded sales of sound equipment, Yamaha has incorporated Steinberg's assets, including its strong technical capabilities in software development and intellectual property, into its Group efforts and further strengthened these activities through joint-development projects. Having determined that Steinberg's competitive capabilities will be very formidable going forward, Yamaha decided to acquire all of that company's common stock through participation in closed competitive bidding.

Yamaha will acquire Steinberg's US sales business operated by Pinnacle (Yamaha plans for its wholly owned US sales subsidiary Yamaha Corporation of America (YCA) to oversee US sales of software developed by Steinberg.)

The total acquisition amount is $28.5M. This acquisition will be effective in late January 2005 after the necessary legal steps are completed.

With the acquisition of Steinberg, Yamaha plans to further promote the Studio Connection initiative and realize seamless technical integration of hardware, such as synthesizers and digital mixers, and software. Another goal of the acquisition is to expand the market by making it easier for both general users and professionals alike to create music in a broad variety of genres.

George Ware

Comments

adowrx wrote on 12/21/2004, 9:24 PM
This can only be good news as Pinnacle=Video and Yamaha = Audio, and motorcycles and you name it. Anyway, Pinnacle has messed with a loyal customer base for too long.


Trends

-jb

Rednroll wrote on 12/22/2004, 2:02 PM
Cool!!! I have always aspired for the day when I could ride my Yamaha snowmobile and dirt bike and edit audio at the same time. This is good news.
lineout wrote on 12/22/2004, 3:51 PM
oh, come on guy's. Yamaha has for years put out some very good brass and woodwind instruments. My 5- string bbg5s is the most versitile best sounding bass I've ever played. I didn't even know they made anything but music related products until the honda 90 came out. I'm glad they took over steinberg- I hope they straighten and de-steinberg their new software.
Maybe they can give us the vegas style editing and interface while also giving us the midi that should have been added since version 3
Rednroll wrote on 12/22/2004, 4:26 PM
Pssssst......Lineout. It was a joke :-) I actually own quite a few Yamaha musical equipment, FX units, and a hardware mixing board.
adowrx wrote on 12/22/2004, 4:58 PM
Same here, I was just joking about the motorcycle stuff. Yamaha builds solid reliable audio/musical gear and they also run a very tight ship (a VERY LARGE tight ship). I'm excited to see how the integrate their hardware know how w/Nuendo and Cubase.

-jb
PipelineAudio wrote on 12/23/2004, 12:13 AM
well this sucks, when is Sony going to start making motorcycles??? I want something to go blasting through the desert on. 125 and quiet please I dont want to frighten the animals as I am jumping over them.
MrPhil wrote on 12/23/2004, 12:22 AM
" ... integrate Yamaha's hardware products with Steinberg's software."

- If only Sony had had the same thought with Vegas on the audio side...
Caruso wrote on 12/29/2004, 1:41 AM
"I hope they straighten and de-steinberg their new software."

Mr. Phil - just curious if you could clarify what you mean by this. I use Wavelab as often as I use Vegas 5. For me, they work in a very similar manner. More important, you can post questions/suggestions on their board at cubase.net, and as likely receive a reply from the program developer as any other user.

I've toyed around with cubase, but can't really get into it. But, Vegas w/ Wavelab make a powerful combination of tools, IMHO.

Although I own them both, for my money, WL5 is the preferable wave editor to SF7. Via the Montage, it can handle recording/editing of multiple tracks (like V5), incorporates a good CD/DVD burning routine (for audio and data), allows you, in either Wave editing mode, or the Montage, to sample FX in real time (who else offers this?).

Tell me what features ("Steinberg") you find restrictive or unappealing. This is not an attack on your post, and, I'm in no way defending or pushing Steinberg. Even as I type this, I realize that you may be referring to their other offerings, and not Wavelab.

I have no interest in Nuendo, little interest in Cubase - only use (and love) Wavelab.

Of course, my favorite of all favorites is Vegas. It's the most stable, most versatile, perhaps most useful of all. Aside from its tremendous video capability, it is least fussy about what burner I use for making CD's, and works well in combination with DVDA2.

It's a great multi-track recorder (my system isn't sophisticated enough to allow me to play around with bus assignments, etc), and a great sound editor, all rolled into one.

Thanks for your previous post - I look forward to hearing from you again.

It was discussions not unlike that in this thread that first caused me to take notice of Vegas. I was struggling with a buggy installation of Pinnacles's Studio 7 at the time - wishing that I could have more flexibility with audio attached to video, and a host of other problems - when I read about this Vegas Video package that allowed unlimited video/audio tracks, etc., etc.

Sorry to run on so,
Caruso
Caruso wrote on 12/29/2004, 1:45 AM
"I hope they straighten and de-steinberg their new software."

Mr. Phil - just curious if you could clarify what you mean by this. I use Wavelab as often as I use Vegas 5. For me, they work in a very similar manner. More important, you can post questions/suggestions on their board at cubase.net, and as likely receive a reply from the program developer as any other user.

I've toyed around with cubase, but can't really get into it. But, Vegas w/ Wavelab make a powerful combination of tools, IMHO.

Although I own them both, for my money, WL5 is the preferable wave editor to SF7. Via the Montage, it can handle recording/editing of multiple tracks (like V5), incorporates a good CD/DVD burning routine (for audio and data), allows you, in either Wave editing mode, or the Montage, to sample FX in real time (who else offers this?).

Tell me what features ("Steinberg") you find restrictive or unappealing. This is not an attack on your post, and, I'm in no way defending or pushing Steinberg. Even as I type this, I realize that you may be referring to their other offerings, and not Wavelab.

I have no interest in Nuendo, little interest in Cubase - only use (and love) Wavelab.

Of course, my favorite of all favorites is Vegas. It's the most stable, most versatile, perhaps most useful of all. Aside from its tremendous video capability, it is least fussy about what burner I use for making CD's, and works well in combination with DVDA2.

It's a great multi-track recorder (my system isn't sophisticated enough to allow me to play around with bus assignments, etc), and a great sound editor, all rolled into one.

Thanks for your previous post - I look forward to hearing from you again.

It was discussions not unlike that in this thread that first caused me to take notice of Vegas. I was struggling with a buggy installation of Pinnacle's Studio 7 at the time - wishing that I could have more flexibility with audio attached to video, and a host of other problems - when I read about this Vegas Video package that allowed unlimited video/audio tracks, etc., etc.

Sorry to run on so,
Caruso
lineout wrote on 12/29/2004, 2:48 PM
My biggest dislike is the interface. Why the mixing board. the knobs are very disagreeable. Very screen hungry even with my twin monitors. As intuitive as an old allen & heath but anybody can easily fiddle around in Vegas and in minutes get what they want DONE.
MrPhil wrote on 12/30/2004, 12:49 AM
"I hope they straighten and de-steinberg their new software."

- Eh, I could and probably would... if I was the one who said it in the first place. I think you should ask Lineout.
I said something else (probably something that upsets drbam...)
Caruso wrote on 12/30/2004, 1:34 AM
Yup, Mr. Phil, my apologies. Ok, so, Lineout, perhaps you could comment furhter?
Caruso
Caruso wrote on 12/30/2004, 1:37 AM
Lineout:
Which Steinberg ap are you talking about? I don't use anything but Wavelab. Just curious.
Caruso
drbam wrote on 12/30/2004, 5:35 AM
>>I said something else (probably something that upsets drbam...)<<

To be clear, its simply your sarcasm Mr. Phil (as evidenced here in the comment above which doesn't have a damn thing to do with me). Its annoying as hell, but of course that's my problem and I'll discontinue further comments about it with this post.

Peace,

drbam
PipelineAudio wrote on 12/30/2004, 11:32 AM
I was under the impression that Steinberg didnt make wavelab, and only sells it, which is why Wavelab is so utterly useable
lineout wrote on 12/30/2004, 11:47 AM
the bad interface started with cubasis, then to cubase 24, and nuendo 1 and 2. I have not used wavelab. I have used sound forge. Currently use cool edit. Mixing boards are the way they are because they are made out of parts that have to fit in a limited area and budget. They are the great tool they are but what if you didn't need to keep that interface? What you would end up with is Vegas. Similar to how windows 3.1 made DOS friendly, the user interface. I also feel burned by steinberg with cubase 24 and how the render would be very different than the preview. After they refuse to refund my purchase, I switched to vegas 3 and haven't changed yet.
Caruso wrote on 12/31/2004, 2:18 AM
Pipeline:
I dunno, the same programmer has been responsible for development of Wavelab since as long as I've been acquainted with the program - and, until they were purchased by Pinnacle (was that last year??), he did so under the auspices of Steinberg Labs. As you say, it is an utterly useful piece of software. Personally, I prefer it to SF only because it so seemlessly lets me sample FX in real time. You can click a button to hear the FX or bypass it - very useful.

The Montage feature allows you to assemble multi-tracks, assemble CD's etc, and you can also apply FX in real time and also record multiple tracks (not true multi-track where you can record to more than one track at a time).

The program also allows you to create CD/DVD labels - and can draw on its own database created from your CD/DVD content to list the selections on the label.

In my collection, it ranks even with Vegas, and I use those two pieces of software more than anyother item on my system (other than my Mozzilla browser).

Lineout - if you're using Cakewalk, you might want to have a look at WL. I know it's a matter of personal opinion, and, the deeper one gets into a particular application, the more comfortable we get with it, but, WL always struck me as being better than CW - I could be wrong, of course.

In the end, they're all good, and the end results depend more upon the talent of the user than the software, itself.

What I always appreciated about WL was that you could post a message on their board, and the developer, himself, would respond - with a solution, or, often, with a promise to incorporate whatever fix, feature, etc, into the next release. I always felt that pretty cool and reassuring.

In the case of WL, it was one developer - in the case of Sony (and formerly SF) it was a group of developers. In any case, that factor alone has kept me loyal to both Vegas and WL.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Caruso
MrPhil wrote on 1/3/2005, 2:41 AM
I prefer it to SF only because it so seemlessly lets me sample FX in real time. You can click a button to hear the FX or bypass it - very useful.

You can in SF too actually.