Do EM Gear Companies Talk to Each Other About Upcoming Releases?

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

When selling gear it is common courtesy in small communities for people to chat and wait for someone to first sell their piece before you put up yours. This is so you both don’t compete too much and have to lower prices.

Since low volume EM music gear market is somewhat niche, I wonder if these gear manufacturers communicate with each other and announce/release products some time apart to avoid ruining their business prospects down?

This isn’t uncommon in the gaming industry either, to shift release dates based on some things otherwise coming out at the same time.

[EDIT] Sorry, the question :)) I’m wondering if somene has any insight on this, just out of curiosity.

#2

Or in the oli industry etc - most probably they will have their CEO in contact with the competition - i would for sure try to do that. Probably the larger companies always try to buy out the smaller ones, and check up once in a while.

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#3

I guess I would as well try to mitigate by talking to others, but probably companies that sell large scale, with bigger marketing budgets and the ability to mass produce would do it the opposite way and try to choke the competition instead.

#4

So you mean conspiracy ? Collusion, market allocation, and price fixing are generally illegal throughout most of the industrialized world.

There are legitimate and beneficial ways companies cooperate, like in setting standards, permitting equipment to interoperate. MIDI, USB, CV standards like volt per octave, as well as selling parts and components to others. In keybeds as for instance. This is mutually beneficial, and also benefits consumers.

The MIDI Association is a prime example of this, as for instance the new MIDI 2.0 product standards.

So another example of what you are asking could be Studiologic, which is part of Fatar. Fatar, sells keybeds to Studiologic’s competitors, and would have inside knowledge in advance of competitors products. Similarly this is true of Medeli and Ashun Sound Machines.

This goes beyond keybeds to some specialized electronic components. Cool Audio might be another example.

Also there is the growth of of larger companies that buy up competitors, and thereby legitimate segmentation, and anticompetitive behavior. Novation and Sequential. Moog and Akai. This so long as it doesn’t break monopoly regulations is allowed.

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#5

I think that this isn’t how capitalism works in the real world. There’s often more competition than courtesy. But I wouldn’t discount corporate spies or “scouts” who try to get intel on other companies and then use that to forecast releases and use that info to either beat the competition to a release or avoid simultaneous release so as not to kill their product launch.

I read an interesting article not long ago about good movies that were unlucky on release and killed at the box office because they simultaneously released with some major blockbusters, it’s the same concept.

Maybe this works between small friendly companies, but I think on the whole there isn’t any reason to trust the competition because they are “the competition”.

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#6

Some of these are beautiful coincidences and makes you think aside from copying how much things are copied because they are in the current zeitgeist.

The quote about the Truman Capote ones is wonderful:

Both are drama films about Truman Capote and the writing of In Cold Blood.[9][10] The confluence of the two films led to an incident in 2003 when Infamous writer-director Douglas McGrath called producer Bingham Ray to announce that his script had been finished, and Ray responded “I know, I’ve got it on my desk!” before realizing that he actually had the screenplay to Capote.[9]

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#7

This is exactly what I was thinking, since it sems mutually beneficial for small niche markets especially. I know competition breeds creativity, but at least from my point of view, if I was part of such a ring of companies, I would not necessarily want to “destroy” the competition, or steal from them, but more complement, since everything usually is meant to work with other things when it comes to other gear.

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#8

I was just referring to (not actual case) but if the little mermaid dropped the same weekend as goodfellas, one of them is going to lose and it’s happened a bunch of times where a movie that would have killed a week earlier just got statistically beat out by the numbers.

The one’s like you’re referring to are interesting too though, definitely. “Polygenesis” where it starts as an innocent coincidence, and turns into all out war.

#9

It’s an incredible thing to watch the wolves come out when money is involved, that’s the sad reality. Perhaps this is only my own nihilistic view of the world, but it is more often true than not. Maybe more so in a niche market, where the money-pool is limited.

But! If two companies are run by friends, let’s say, I don’t discount that they may exercise common courtesy.

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#10

Be the first.

#11

I don’t know, even in highly competitive business (I have experience), where competitors are called enemies by some high-up folks, when there is money to be made, all things are considered regardless. But in limited markets, I can see even more companies cooperating, and then also experience some “dick moves” obviously, which would fuel rivalry.

I guess we can see some collabs, Polyend and Dreadbox comes to mind, can’t think of others, but I’m pretty sure there are.

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#12

Without knowing the whole portfolio of dreadbox and polyend, they might collab because they complement each other and excell in different areas to create a better product.

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#13

My first day on the job as a scout:

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#14

A favorite of mine with this is Befaco, with their FX Boy. ( link ) That has parts from like 6 “competitors”, sharing profits, promoting each other, and creating an open standard that permits anyone in.

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#15

Dreadbox have also worked with Sinevibes FX on quite a few projects, notably the Typhon.

Cre8Audio and Pittsburgh Modular is another notable collaboration.

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#16

This is actually awesome. I purposefully avoid modular, but this is still amazing.

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#17

Not a collaboration in a strict sense, they are quietly part of a larger group.

#18

You’re right, that’s what I’m talking about. Dreadbox seems to be up for it, can’t be sure if it hurt their bottom line though, but it definitely helped Sinevibes. I can’t see any downside for them, even if they agreed that it marketing would be enough of a payment (which I’m quite sure that they also got a monetary compensation). On the other hand Sinevibes is known for quality FX, so for sure it helps sell Dreadbox’s hardware product.

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#19

Come to think of it now. In EM Gear Marketing I see a lot of official product presentations where gear from other manufacturers is used or is there in the frame. It actually happens a lot.

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#20

Steinberg now part of Yamaha i believe, and the VST plug-in standards. This is both similar and different to the MIDI standardization.