Last but not least, Soundwide has formed a new Artist Board, further building upon the relationships Native Instruments and iZotope have fostered with some of the industry’s leading musicians and producers. Inaugural board members include singer-songwriter Alicia Keys, recording and mix engineer Ann Mincieli, producer and rapper EL-P of Run the Jewels, musician/producer/composer Jacob Collier, composer Ludwig Göransson, producer and engineer Noah “40” Shebib, production duo Take A Daytrip, singer-songwriter Tayla Parx, and producer and engineer Young Guru, all of whom have previous relationships within the Soundwide group. Often these artist board or creative director declarations are window dressing, but Soundwide is looking to their board for guidance on how professionals utilize their products, feedback on new product ideas and working together to improve the health of the industry and surrounding communities in terms of equity and inclusion.
That said, Soundwide’s real focus is going to be on the music production enthusiast whose passion is what has been driving revenue since day one, not listening to Young Guru babble incoherently on Clubhouse. Integrating all the companies, as well as others that Soundwide may acquire in the future, into one seamless platform would provide a compelling and rewarding experience from top to bottom – think Native Access or the PluginAlliance platform on steroids. Now add Cattini’s intense focus on customer experience and Francisco’s coffers and you can begin to chart where the Sound Stacks party boat is heading.
What precisely does this affiliation mean in terms of products? Will there be collaborations? Will all products be available inside of a single entity instead of PluginAlliance, iZotope Product Portal or Native Access as mentioned above?
“We are not yet announcing any product specifics, but you can be sure we are considering integrations and more unified customer experiences,” states Melissa Misicka, iZotope’s Senior Director of Brand Marketing. “We believe the power in our coming together is to maximize the time that creators spend in the creative flow—that can include everything from offering more interconnected, assistive technology that makes the creative experience more inspiring and joyful, to more logistical enhancements that streamline time spent on purchases, authorizations, and critical updates. We’re also looking forward to exploring how we can connect our communities and provide education that makes all creators feel welcome and supported.”
The next question is how much does hardware now play into Soundwide’s future? Clearly it will be much easier to rollup new players into a cohesive software entity, as opposed to a hardware platform like Kore. Not to mention, Native hasn’t debuted a significant hardware product since Maschine+, putting the pandemic and supply-chain issues aside. However, Soundwide doesn’t think we should head down this path. “Native’s skill at tightly integrating software with hardware is still something we’re really proud of and aren’t looking to change [moving into the future],” Misicka offers.
Another thought is how many doors can Spetzler open for Soundwide in terms of leveraging the know-how from the many other investments Francisco Partners has made over the years into technology companies? For example, could Forcepoint help Soundwide beef up their online security? With approximately 150 investments across a large array of companies, Soundwide could potentially have easier access to sophisticated knowledge and intelligence in non-competing sectors.
Ultimately, what does Soundwide feel is the real tangible benefit to end users of bringing Native Instruments, iZotope, PluginAlliance, Brainworx, SoundStack and others together?
“The immediate tangible benefit from our view is that we’ve grown to an extended team of nearly 700 talented people who have no secrets from each other as we work to deliver products that empower the creative community,” Misicka responded. “Across our Soundwide teams, we have capabilities in highly integrated software and hardware, artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud, sound design, hardware emulation, audio platform technologies, and more. No longer ‘competitors,’ we can work together to design the most comprehensive music and audio creation ecosystem the industry has ever seen.”
