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Keyboard Magazine Dead At Age 42 new magazine will be called Electronic Musician ?


techristian

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it seems that they're planning to keep the Electronic Musician brand that Craig started by merging the current EM with Keyboard (as they did a few years ago with EQ and EM). The result is to earn less money from those of us who subscribed to all the magazines.

 

If true, I'll be really sad to see Keyboard go. I was a charter subscriber to Contemporary Keyboard and am still a subscriber today. It did a great job of serving the keyboard community for over 40 years.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

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Sad indeed. It just kept getting thinner and thinner until it disappeared. EM looks pretty thin these days too, so maybe combining them is an attempt to have one healthy magazine...although I think of pool of advertisers isn't that different.

 

The irony was I was just talking with Cakewalk about whether there was something we could "donate to the cause," like some free software for people who subscribed or renewed a subscription.

 

I don't get it, though...virtual instruments are doing better than ever, companies like Dave Smith and Moog are doing incredible synths, we have MIDI extensions coming up (an important one will likely be set in stone at NAMM), and companies like Casio, Roland, Yamaha, Korg, etc. continue to do amazing things with digital synths. Either all these companies are making products that they just put in a shredder, or people are buying them.

 

If it had been up to me, I would have made Keyboard online-only as an incubator for developing a really viable online magazine model. It it worked, it could apply to their other mags. Oh well.

 

I see Gino Robair will be Editor-in-Chief. Anyone know if Sarah Jones will still be Editor at EM? Guess I'll find out at NAMM.

 

 

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English magazines like Sound on Sound, Music Tech, Future Music, and Computer Music all cover similar turf and they seem to be flourishing among a population a fraction of our size. Can the United States be so different, or is New Bay doing something wrong?

 

Best,

 

Geoff

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Man all I remember is spending $15k a month to advertise between KB and EM when they were complete separate entities. I don't miss those invoices at all :) And almost a matching amount to all the other publications that were around in the 80s, early 90s. Although those were the days when we were generating a zillion dollars every ten minutes and the phones wouldn't shut up. And then ....the internet came along. Glad I basically gathered my stuff, cashed out my investments and caught one of the first spaceships out of town just before the dot com crash. After that and y2k and 9/11, everything's just been wonky imo. Not for the millennials of course, since they were born just as the wonkiness kicked in and they don't know what it was like before hand. But economics and marketing is really a screwy thing to observe now for me. Luckily, I don't need to be involved in it.

 

But it sure is funny to pick up a People or whatever magazine at checkout and realize it's now only 6 pages long.

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I had a subscription to "Electronic Musician", I think from it's Genesis, or close to it. I think Messrs Anderton went there after leaving "Guitar Player"...Which had a lot, well everything to do with me subscribing to it and dropping the sub to Guitar Player. I took it for years.

 

But magazine hoarding was something my wife started to take issue with(No pun intended). I literally had a entire closet filled with Nat Geo's, Musician's, Guitar Player's, Home and Studio Recording's, Electronic Musician's, Military History,Time, Newsweeks, Saturday Evening Posts, Playboy's, Rolling Stones......It really was insane. So finally i relented...Spent an entire weekend going through the music related mags and clipping out articles I might find a use for or want to reference in the future. Then I literally spent 2 hours humping all of them downstairs and loading them in the truck, then dropping them off at the Elementary School my Lad was attending and loading them in their recycle bin.

 

I still have a binder full of clippings. Don't think I've opened it since however..Kept a Playboy with John Lennon's description of the genesis of all the Beatles songs. Kept a Time magazine from when George Harrison died. A Rolling Stone with John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" interview, and the issue with the last interview he did with RS. The issue when Elvis died.

That's about it. Haven't subscribed to a print magazine since...Cause I've clearly got a problem..

 

 

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There's no question that print as "a way to print money" is on the decline. Yet look at Sound on Sound. They use print for what it does best, and they have a web component that does well. Or Premier Guitar; when they came out with their first all-web + print issue, people said they'd last three months at best. But they understood that you use print for what it does best, and online for what it does best - and they've flourished at both. Guitar Player is doing well too, but I think that's also because the print version uses the medium well.

 

A lot has to do with business models. SOS's model is to put out a really great magazine and as long as they've shown a profit at the end of the year, they get to keep doing it. It gets much more complicated when you're not privately held.

 

The bottom line is print is going to go away. But that doesn't mean magazines have to go away, they just morph into other things. Case in point: Harmony Central's newsletter has a higher circulation than a lot of music industry magazines...just sayin.'

 

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Keyboard was the first magazine I started to read when I was a teenager and just getting into the production side of music. Then there was Home and Studio Recording which became Recording magazine. I also read Electronic Musician which was and still is one of my favorite magazines to read. Honest reviews, very helpful columns, interesting interviews, etc... then there was MIX, probably the driest and dullest read going... politically correct reviews... I`m surprised its still going honestly.

 

Today, I still enjoy EM. SOS is a nice change but pricey.

 

If I was a betting man, I would venture to say Tape Op will outlast all of them. Its just an authentic publication that seems to satisfy most points of interest for pros and amateurs. Just my $.02

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Tape Op will survive' date=' but don't bet against Sound on Sound. It just keeps going from strength to strength.[/quote']

 

Those are (IMHO) two of the best print MI magazines left. While considerably different from each other, both are excellent, and obviously done with a lot of love and respect for the subject matter. Neither one gives me the impression that they're just in it for the money... and I can't always say that when it comes to the "pay to play" magazine industry.

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Neither one gives me the impression that they're just in it for the money... and I can't always say that when it comes to the "pay to play" magazine industry.

 

Well, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the people working in editorial for the magazines, either staff or freelancers, aren't in it for the money. Or if they are, they have really nailed how to live inexpensively :)

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A lot has to do with business models. SOS's model is to put out a really great magazine and as long as they've shown a profit at the end of the year' date=' they get to keep doing it. It gets [i']much [/i]more complicated when you're not privately held.

Well put, Craig! This seems to me to be the main difference.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

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Geoff, one of the reasons I'm at Gibson is because it's privately held. That's what allows a company to take chances. Yes, taking chances is risky and sometimes it doesn't pay off. But when it does...you create something exciting, and maybe even change the world.

 

When I present a proposal to the CEO and he approves it, that's it. No focus groups, no discussion, no second-guessing. Henry taught me a very important lesson when I joined Gibson. He said "You aren't used to failing. You are now in a position where at some point, you will fail. You will then need to pick yourself up, and keep going." Those words are burned into my brain.

 

I understand being averse to risk, but magazines have to realize it's not 1985. Either go big, or go home.

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I have been a EM subscriber even before EM...with "Polyphony"

 

 

I don't get it, though...virtual instruments are doing better than ever, companies like Dave Smith and Moog are doing incredible synths, we have MIDI extensions coming up (an important one will likely be set in stone at NAMM), and companies like Casio, Roland, Yamaha, Korg, etc. continue to do amazing things with digital synths. Either all these companies are making products that they just put in a shredder, or people are buying them.

 

I suspect that THE INTERNET is the culprit cutting into the print market. It is also cutting into the "brick and mortar" music stores, as well.

 

Dan

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I have been a EM subscriber even before EM...with "Polyphony"

 

 

 

 

I suspect that THE INTERNET is the culprit cutting into the print market. It is also cutting into the "brick and mortar" music stores, as well.

 

Dan

 

Exactly. Newspapers and magazines are archaic forms of communication. I still read magazines for the interviews but I have not read a newspaper in 17 years. I will buy the NY Times on Sundays if I have a couple of hours to relax but for the most part, I don`t see the point of it any more. Everything ends up online eventually.

 

Brick and mortar stores are also closing up everywhere thanks to the internet. I have not done any shopping in a store for clothes or gear or any other electronics in ages. Whats the point? I can watch videos, read reviews, see images of products, and get all the info at my own pace without some overly anxious salesperson up my ass. I do miss book stores though. And record stores... But I think I`m one of the few who actually enjoy reading and thumbing through records...

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I started advertising in the classified sections of both Keyboard and EM back in 1990. I did so for over 20 years. Then the classified ad people didn't tell me my ad was about to expire, and it did. When I noticed it, I called and they reinstated it but didn't let me know when it was about to expire again. I guess they didn't care.

 

But after a non-renewal on both, I did not notice and difference in my business.

 

The magazine got thinner and thinner, so I suppose fewer and fewer people were reading it, of course that means less profit for the mag, and it just seemed like a death spiral.

 

A lot of print media is going the same way.

 

The Internet has changed the world for so many industries, magazines, newspapers, musicians, accountants, the Post Office, and so on.

 

Paper put the parchment people out of business, cars nuked the horse traders, refrigerators ruined the ice companies, computers took the typewriter business away, cell phones cut into the land line business, and so forth.

 

Me? I started reading EM in the 1980s when Craig was editor and the logo was a cable. Keyboard soon followed. I just bought an Atari/ST computer and wanted to learn. This is what these magazines did, they taught me things.

 

They also supplied editorial opinion that made me think.

 

As time progressed, they morphed into gear ad magazines with little or no teaching or editorial content (remember Freff anyone?).

 

The same thing happened to PC World. I subscribed to that one for years, dropped it when the went all electronic, picked it up again when I got an iPad, and will not renew. It too has turned into nothing but a gear mag.

 

I suppose the Internet has become our teacher. Me? Sometimes a video is the best way, but other times having a printed pile of papers that I can mark up, dog ear, or whatever is a better way. While I'm happy to see the new, I'm also sad to see the old go.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

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Unfortunately, it's now official:

 

January 25, 2017

 

Dear Keyboard Subscriber:

 

We have some important news about your Keyboard subscription that we need to share with you.

 

Effective with the April, 2017 issue, Keyboard will now be combined with Electronic Musician, uniting the best of Keyboard and Electronic Musician. The remaining issues in your subscription will automatically transfer to Electronic Musician.

 

Led by veteran Editor-in-Chief Gino Robair, the new Electronic Musician will focus on topics from both magazines, as well as adding new insight into how artists and producers use technology to create today’s best music. The content will incorporate techniques and music lessons for recording, producing, and performing musicians with a focus on those who use the keyboard as a primary tool of expression.

 

Keyboardmag.com and newsletters will continue in full force, serving digital audiences with enhanced artist interviews, video, gear reviews, lessons, and more.

 

Should you not wish to continue your subscription, please contact customer service at customerservice@nbmedia.com.

 

Sincerely,

 

Bill Amstutz

Vice President & General Manager

Best,

 

Geoff

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