6 ms·

I'm going to file this under "examples of Yamaha doing the right thing" (Steinberg is owned by Yamaha) previous examples: * Yamaha saved Korg by buying it whe

I'm going to file this under "examples of Yamaha doing the right thing" (Steinberg is owned by Yamaha) previous examples: * Yamaha saved Korg by buying it when it was in financial trouble and giving it a cash injection, only to then sell it back to its previous owners once they had enough cash[1]. * Yamaha in the 80's had acquired Sequential (for those not familiar: Sequential Circuits is one of the most admired synthesizer makers). Many years later, Sequential's founder Dave Smith established a new company under a different name and in 2015 Yamaha decided to return the rights to use the Sequential brand to Smith, as a gesture of goodwill, on Sequential's 40th anniversary (this was also thanks to Roland's founder Ikutaro Kakehashi who convinced Yamaha that it would be the right thing to do) [1][2][3] [1] https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/history-korg-part-2 https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/history-korg-par... [2] https://www.gearnews.com/american-giants-the-history-of-sequential/ https://www.gearnews.com/american-giants-the-history-of-sequ... [3] https://ra.co/news/42428 https://ra.co/news/42428

pantulis 1y ago
Great recap!
coldtea 1y ago
customer: hello, I want to buy a piano please yamaha: sure, here you go customer: great, thanks! lol, I also need a motorcycle. Do you know where I can buy a good one? yamaha: you're not gonna believe this...
- sparky_z 1y ago
  Completely separate companies, both called Yamaha. One was spun off from the other, but I don't think there was ever a time when the same company sold both. (Basically, the musical instrument company was redirected to making war materiel during WWII. After the war, they didn't want to just throw away all of their new industrial capacity so they spun off a company to make use of all their new equipment and expertise and then went back to making instruments.)
  - tessierashpool9 1y ago
    The OG Yamaha produced a motorcycle in 1954, the YA-1. That success then led to the spin off. (fun fact: the motorcycle Triumph and the undergarment Triumph are two entirely different companies that just happen to share the same name)
    - alterom 1y ago
      Triumph is also a garment brand? Never heard of it.
      - pegasus 1y ago
        I had no idea you've never heard of it. Thanks for keeping us informed.
        alterom 1y ago
        >I had no idea you've never heard of it. Thanks for keeping us informed. I see. In that case, you'll appreciate the fact that the Three Musketeers chocolate bar bears no relationship to Alexander Dumas, the author of the famed book series featuring D'Artagnan and three musketeers. You might also be interested to learn that Zenit launch vehicles are not made by the organization that produces Zenit optics and cameras. Most crucially, Lucky grocery store chain in California turns out to be completely different from the Korean Lucky chemical products and electronics conglomerate (known as "Lucky GoldStar" after merging its chem and electronics wings, and, currently, "LG"). The more you know!
      - smcnally 1y ago
        It’s also a Wonder Dog, a Canadian power trio not featuring Neal Peart, and a moment when we shouldn’t evacuate the Death Star.
        thunky 1y ago
        > Wonder Dog I think you meant Insult Comic Dog.
- cisophrene 1y ago
  I don't think Yamaha Motor is producing any large trucks. They do a lot of things but mostly motorcycles, atv, boat engine, even car engines but not the whole car. Also, you should note that Yamaha Corporation, the musical instrument maker and Yamaha Motor are now 2 distinct independent companies, even if were originally part of the same group.
  - coldtea 1y ago
    They are independent yes, but originally the motor company was an affiliate spin-off. They do have an agreement and share the same logo, and Yamaha Corporation has some shares in the Motor one tho.
    - aatd86 1y ago
      a former keiretsu?
      - actionfromafar 1y ago
        Former, current, reformed keiretsu?
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    > but not the whole car They actually made at least one model, of which only 3 prototypes were built before the project was cancelled due to the economic situation at the time: the Yamaha OX99-11 supercar was using a detuned version of their formula one v12 engine when they switched to v10. I guess they had built to many of them?
- somat 1y ago
  Apparently they also make network switches. I guess it is in support of their computerized audio equipment. but I was a bit surprised when they showed up in a search result. https://usa.yamaha.com/products/proaudio/network_switches/index.html https://usa.yamaha.com/products/proaudio/network_switches/in... They have the technical capability to design one, but on the surface it is enough outside their core product line that I wonder if it is a oem rebadge.
  - bobson381 1y ago
    Huh, thanks for sharing. Funny to see the switches in the same color scheme as some of their receivers.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    They claim that they're developing routers since 1995 and they're used widely in domestic Japan (SME and SOHO). Looks like switches came in 2011 and there's some secret sauce which makes them autoconfigure each-other to reduce networking setup. It might not be a standard OEM stuff. Citing the page: > Yamaha entered the router business in 1995, and has grown to hold a significant share of Japan’s small to medium enterprise and SOHO network market. Yamaha gigabit L2 switches that could be linked to Yamaha routers/firewalls were introduced in 2011, with features that significantly reduced the network setup, maintenance, and management workload.
  - conradfr 1y ago
    They make Dante licenced products.
- jurip 1y ago
  I love Yamaha Motor using the tuning forks as their logo. It's a proper beautiful old-timey logo (well, from 1967, apparently, but anyway) and it's just so weird seeing them on a motorcycle. https://www.yamaha.com/en/about/history/logo/ https://www.yamaha.com/en/about/history/logo/
  - Shadowmist 1y ago
    Just pretend it is the thing that hold the front wheel.
    - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
      Coincidentally also called a fork/forks :)
- ErroneousBosh 1y ago
  See also Hitachi ;-) Customer: "So, I need some huge IGBTs for an electric train motor, I need a 44-tonne excavator to lift the train, I need a new stereo to listen to while I fix it, and I need an, uhm, 'personal massager' to relax afterwards" Sales guy: "Here's our catalogue, page 40, page 32, page 108, and page 7. Let me know what colours you want."
- drcongo 1y ago
  Wait till you find out about Mitsubishi.
  - temp0826 1y ago
    I remember being bewildered their diversity as a teenager, and then even more so when I found out that MUFG actually backed my bank at the time.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  "We build things that make noise."
bayindirh 1y ago
Yamaha is an old company found on very different ethos compared to others. Their history is interesting, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6t5F3cb810 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6t5F3cb810 It's worth a watch. On another note, it's very telling that companies that protect their "hey! we do this interesting thing, gonna buy?" character survives for much longer compared to companies which say "we can earn a ton of money if we do this". The companies in the second lot does a lot of harm to their ecosystems to be able to continue existing.
- singingfish 1y ago
  I've had some impressive customer service from Yamaha concerning decades old saxophones that they have zero prospect of generating revenue from in the future, for an unrelated (musical) data point.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    Japanese companies don't give you a good service because of future revenue prospects. They give a good service because they respect the thing they built and the person who cares for it. They want their products to live and bring joy to people who guards and cares for them. This is a completely different and much deeper philosophy. This is not limited to Japanese companies though. A Lamy representative told me that the factory in Germany restored an out of production fountain pen to mint condition, for free.
    - ErroneousBosh 1y ago
      Want a bit for your early 80s Mercedes? Your local dealer probably has it, or knows where to get it. Want a bit for your early 50s Mercedes? Your local dealer knows a guy in Stuttgart who will send it over. Want a bit for your early 30s Mercedes? Your local dealer knows a guy in Stuttgart who knows a guy who will *just go and make you one*, albeit it will be priced accordingly.
      - Wistar 1y ago
sim7c00 1y ago
interesting stuff. I love Yamaha for audio stuff for sure, didn't know they owned Steinberg though. Their speakers i think are lovely examples of their engineering quality. Great and honest sound, some of the best out there, and they are not super over-priced. Also ,they are super repairable. Had some really bad experiences with other brands which were, more expensive for a more biassed sound, had 'black gunk' over the PCBs as some kind of anti-repair mechanism. (overheats the boards too! ew!) and other crappy issues. Cool to hear there's such a story behind the quality. Makes sense!
TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago
Yamaha still document their products properly and provide very long driver support. I currently have a Yamaha product with USB from 1999 and there is still a maintained driver for it 26 years later, for Windows 11 and modern macOS versions.
- oidar 1y ago
  I wouldn't depend on them to do this for all their products esp software. I can think of two of the top of my head that they dropped support.
  - keeganpoppen 1y ago
    i’ll add a third anecdote i to the ether to say that i steinburg ur mark ii from a million years ago still works as well as it ever did, including regular driver updates. in no means meant to discredit your experience, ymmv as always.
tannhaeuser 1y ago
Had no idea it was bought by Yamaha. Still they're a separate legal entity and their HQ, development, support, etc. are still located in Hamburg like they used to be since the early-mid 1980s when they released their MIDI sequencing software for Atari ST (Steinberg Twenty 4 I believe it was called?). I guess you could do worse than being bought by Yamaha, but I think this decision isn't related to it.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
unleaded 1y ago
Strangely enough Yamaha has never released a software version of any of their synths. (there's S-YXG50 and the Montage one but I wouldn't really count those)
giancarlostoro 1y ago
What really kills me about companies and maybe Yamaha is a little different, or rather drastically, is any time CEO's shift, or original founding CEO is swapped, the company culture changes too drastically. There's companies whose original culture I admired, and then the CEO shifts and its just meh, or worse.
iainctduncan 1y ago
Another thing they do right is build cheap instruments that are actually decent and have high build quality. It is quite remarkable how high quality their "beginner" and "intermediate" line saxophones are. They are really well respected in professional music circles. I don't like their tenor saxes, but man they made some great altos and sopranos, including the mid tier ones.
seg_lol 1y ago
Yamaha also makes excellent musical instruments, pianos, saxes, trumpets, etc.

pantulis 1y ago

Great recap!

coldtea 1y ago

customer: hello, I want to buy a piano please yamaha: sure, here you go customer: great, thanks! lol, I also need a motorcycle. Do you know where I can buy a good one? yamaha: you're not gonna believe this...

sparky_z 1y ago
Completely separate companies, both called Yamaha. One was spun off from the other, but I don't think there was ever a time when the same company sold both. (Basically, the musical instrument company was redirected to making war materiel during WWII. After the war, they didn't want to just throw away all of their new industrial capacity so they spun off a company to make use of all their new equipment and expertise and then went back to making instruments.)
- tessierashpool9 1y ago
  The OG Yamaha produced a motorcycle in 1954, the YA-1. That success then led to the spin off. (fun fact: the motorcycle Triumph and the undergarment Triumph are two entirely different companies that just happen to share the same name)
  - alterom 1y ago
    Triumph is also a garment brand? Never heard of it.
    - pegasus 1y ago
      I had no idea you've never heard of it. Thanks for keeping us informed.
      - alterom 1y ago
        >I had no idea you've never heard of it. Thanks for keeping us informed. I see. In that case, you'll appreciate the fact that the Three Musketeers chocolate bar bears no relationship to Alexander Dumas, the author of the famed book series featuring D'Artagnan and three musketeers. You might also be interested to learn that Zenit launch vehicles are not made by the organization that produces Zenit optics and cameras. Most crucially, Lucky grocery store chain in California turns out to be completely different from the Korean Lucky chemical products and electronics conglomerate (known as "Lucky GoldStar" after merging its chem and electronics wings, and, currently, "LG"). The more you know!
    - smcnally 1y ago
      It’s also a Wonder Dog, a Canadian power trio not featuring Neal Peart, and a moment when we shouldn’t evacuate the Death Star.
      - thunky 1y ago
        > Wonder Dog I think you meant Insult Comic Dog.
cisophrene 1y ago
I don't think Yamaha Motor is producing any large trucks. They do a lot of things but mostly motorcycles, atv, boat engine, even car engines but not the whole car. Also, you should note that Yamaha Corporation, the musical instrument maker and Yamaha Motor are now 2 distinct independent companies, even if were originally part of the same group.
- coldtea 1y ago
  They are independent yes, but originally the motor company was an affiliate spin-off. They do have an agreement and share the same logo, and Yamaha Corporation has some shares in the Motor one tho.
  - aatd86 1y ago
    a former keiretsu?
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Former, current, reformed keiretsu?
- prmoustache 1y ago
  > but not the whole car They actually made at least one model, of which only 3 prototypes were built before the project was cancelled due to the economic situation at the time: the Yamaha OX99-11 supercar was using a detuned version of their formula one v12 engine when they switched to v10. I guess they had built to many of them?
somat 1y ago
Apparently they also make network switches. I guess it is in support of their computerized audio equipment. but I was a bit surprised when they showed up in a search result. https://usa.yamaha.com/products/proaudio/network_switches/index.html https://usa.yamaha.com/products/proaudio/network_switches/in... They have the technical capability to design one, but on the surface it is enough outside their core product line that I wonder if it is a oem rebadge.
- bobson381 1y ago
  Huh, thanks for sharing. Funny to see the switches in the same color scheme as some of their receivers.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  They claim that they're developing routers since 1995 and they're used widely in domestic Japan (SME and SOHO). Looks like switches came in 2011 and there's some secret sauce which makes them autoconfigure each-other to reduce networking setup. It might not be a standard OEM stuff. Citing the page: > Yamaha entered the router business in 1995, and has grown to hold a significant share of Japan’s small to medium enterprise and SOHO network market. Yamaha gigabit L2 switches that could be linked to Yamaha routers/firewalls were introduced in 2011, with features that significantly reduced the network setup, maintenance, and management workload.
- conradfr 1y ago
  They make Dante licenced products.
jurip 1y ago
I love Yamaha Motor using the tuning forks as their logo. It's a proper beautiful old-timey logo (well, from 1967, apparently, but anyway) and it's just so weird seeing them on a motorcycle. https://www.yamaha.com/en/about/history/logo/ https://www.yamaha.com/en/about/history/logo/
- Shadowmist 1y ago
  Just pretend it is the thing that hold the front wheel.
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    Coincidentally also called a fork/forks :)
ErroneousBosh 1y ago
See also Hitachi ;-) Customer: "So, I need some huge IGBTs for an electric train motor, I need a 44-tonne excavator to lift the train, I need a new stereo to listen to while I fix it, and I need an, uhm, 'personal massager' to relax afterwards" Sales guy: "Here's our catalogue, page 40, page 32, page 108, and page 7. Let me know what colours you want."
drcongo 1y ago
Wait till you find out about Mitsubishi.
- temp0826 1y ago
  I remember being bewildered their diversity as a teenager, and then even more so when I found out that MUFG actually backed my bank at the time.
HPsquared 1y ago
"We build things that make noise."

bayindirh 1y ago

Yamaha is an old company found on very different ethos compared to others. Their history is interesting, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6t5F3cb810 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6t5F3cb810 It's worth a watch. On another note, it's very telling that companies that protect their "hey! we do this interesting thing, gonna buy?" character survives for much longer compared to companies which say "we can earn a ton of money if we do this". The companies in the second lot does a lot of harm to their ecosystems to be able to continue existing.

singingfish 1y ago
I've had some impressive customer service from Yamaha concerning decades old saxophones that they have zero prospect of generating revenue from in the future, for an unrelated (musical) data point.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  Japanese companies don't give you a good service because of future revenue prospects. They give a good service because they respect the thing they built and the person who cares for it. They want their products to live and bring joy to people who guards and cares for them. This is a completely different and much deeper philosophy. This is not limited to Japanese companies though. A Lamy representative told me that the factory in Germany restored an out of production fountain pen to mint condition, for free.
  - ErroneousBosh 1y ago
    Want a bit for your early 80s Mercedes? Your local dealer probably has it, or knows where to get it. Want a bit for your early 50s Mercedes? Your local dealer knows a guy in Stuttgart who will send it over. Want a bit for your early 30s Mercedes? Your local dealer knows a guy in Stuttgart who knows a guy who will *just go and make you one*, albeit it will be priced accordingly.
    - Wistar 1y ago

sim7c00 1y ago

interesting stuff. I love Yamaha for audio stuff for sure, didn't know they owned Steinberg though. Their speakers i think are lovely examples of their engineering quality. Great and honest sound, some of the best out there, and they are not super over-priced. Also ,they are super repairable. Had some really bad experiences with other brands which were, more expensive for a more biassed sound, had 'black gunk' over the PCBs as some kind of anti-repair mechanism. (overheats the boards too! ew!) and other crappy issues. Cool to hear there's such a story behind the quality. Makes sense!

TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago

Yamaha still document their products properly and provide very long driver support. I currently have a Yamaha product with USB from 1999 and there is still a maintained driver for it 26 years later, for Windows 11 and modern macOS versions.

oidar 1y ago
I wouldn't depend on them to do this for all their products esp software. I can think of two of the top of my head that they dropped support.
- keeganpoppen 1y ago
  i’ll add a third anecdote i to the ether to say that i steinburg ur mark ii from a million years ago still works as well as it ever did, including regular driver updates. in no means meant to discredit your experience, ymmv as always.

tannhaeuser 1y ago

Had no idea it was bought by Yamaha. Still they're a separate legal entity and their HQ, development, support, etc. are still located in Hamburg like they used to be since the early-mid 1980s when they released their MIDI sequencing software for Atari ST (Steinberg Twenty 4 I believe it was called?). I guess you could do worse than being bought by Yamaha, but I think this decision isn't related to it.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

unleaded 1y ago

Strangely enough Yamaha has never released a software version of any of their synths. (there's S-YXG50 and the Montage one but I wouldn't really count those)

giancarlostoro 1y ago

What really kills me about companies and maybe Yamaha is a little different, or rather drastically, is any time CEO's shift, or original founding CEO is swapped, the company culture changes too drastically. There's companies whose original culture I admired, and then the CEO shifts and its just meh, or worse.

iainctduncan 1y ago

Another thing they do right is build cheap instruments that are actually decent and have high build quality. It is quite remarkable how high quality their "beginner" and "intermediate" line saxophones are. They are really well respected in professional music circles. I don't like their tenor saxes, but man they made some great altos and sopranos, including the mid tier ones.

seg_lol 1y ago

Yamaha also makes excellent musical instruments, pianos, saxes, trumpets, etc.