Business The strategic position Audient’s participation 26
APRIL 2015
In a rare interview, Audient owner Simon Blackwood shares his vision for the industry with Phil Ward
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n December 2013, one of pro audio’s more recondite business leaders emerged as the new owner of Audient, the fader-friendly home of recording consoles, preamps and more created by industry veterans David Dearden and Gareth Davies (both of DDA and Midas). Simon Blackwood had recently completed a turnaround/sale to Music Group and launch projects at both Turbosound and DiGiCo, but this is less than half the story. Under his guidance, some of pro audio’s most pivotal products saw the light of day in the recording and live sound sector and – having “bought Gareth his beach towel” and with David Dearden fully engaged in the next step of Audient – he sincerely intends that more of the same is nigh from the Hampshire-based manufacturer. Audient is not his first ownership venture. Blackwood had invested in Focusrite in the mid-’90s following a highly successful period of “making a lot of money for Dr Harman” – as operations director of SoundcraftStuder in the late ’80s, VP of business development for Harman/UREI/JBL in California and then, especially, founding and launching the Spirit brand that generated annual revenues of $45 million before his departure. Indeed, it was the sheer ascendancy of this achievement that led to a level of corporate management that began to lose its appeal as it drew Blackwood away from a presiding passion: to guide creative and innovative technical teams to create groundbreaking products and lead them to meaningful marketshare. Not that Spirit was without significant meaning, of course. The combination of those mixers with the Alesis ADAT, the ‘project’ recording platform du jour, helped to build the very markets that Audient can dovetail into today, and it’s hard not to see Blackwood as now reaping the benefits of his own premise as technological
“It’s difficult to come into pro audio and enable change without understanding the market in its widest sense. You have to know the ramifications of each and every step” Simon Blackwood
evolution places the Spirit-ADAT nonpareil onto the desktop. “I was lucky enough to work with Graham Blyth in the formation of Spirit,” Blackwood says today, “and it was a privilege to get to know such a visionary as Sidney Harman, who gave me that opportunity. The common denominator through all the opportunities I’ve been given is the encouragement I’ve had – and that’s a big part of my role as I see it here. It’s about coaching and helping people beat their potential.” The Focusrite period began when Phil Dudderidge’s own post-Soundcraft venture was roughly the same size as Audient is today. It was the time of the affectionately known “golf course” Green range; and what followed was Platinum, ISA, Saffire and perhaps one of the most revolutionary product lines in recent history, Liquid Technology, the building blocks that has made Focusrite the success it is today. These were all responses to the
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Spirit-ADAT – and, to be fair, the Mackie-ADAT – template and its Pro Tools aftermath. The large-format console had had its day, at least as a Focusrite flagship, and Blackwood saw an opportunity to recalibrate an iconic, independent brand in a way that, in many respects, is being repeated today. “The new product lines drove the business forward,” he recounts, “but what really was transformation from a brand development and business perspective was the opportunity of expanding the relationship with Digidesign. The Control|24 and Command|8 controllers that followed was a watershed for both companies, and I must say the Digidesign opportunity was a major attraction when I first started talking with Phil [Dudderidge] as I could see just how disruptive DAWs were destined to be. It was a way of marrying a software expert, Digidesign, with excellent hardware – at a time