Alesis
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| Private company | |
| Industry | Electronics |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Headquarters | Cumberland, Rhode Island, United States |
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Key people
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Jack O'Donnell president and CEO |
| Products | Musical instruments, audio/video, electronics, computer-related products, pro audio, music recording equipment |
| Website | Alesis.com Alesis China |
Alesis, based in Cumberland, Rhode Island, is a part of inMusic Brands that designs and markets electronic musical instruments, digital audio processors, audio mixers, digital audio interfaces, recording equipment, drum machines, professional audio and electronic percussion products. Alesis products are designed in the United States and manufactured in China.
Alesis Studio Electronics was founded in 1984 by Keith Barr (who co-founded MXR) in Hollywood. Leveraging his ability to design custom integrated circuits, Barr's company was able to introduce products with feature sets that, up to that time, had been extremely expensive. Alesis' products were within the realm of most project studios, making them very successful. Alesis' first product was the XT Reverb. Introduced in 1985, the XT Reverb was an all-digital reverb that carried an unprecedented low price of $799. Barr recruited Russell Palmer as Operations Manager and Robert Wilson to handle international sales so that Barr could continue to focus on engineering.
In 1986 Alesis produced the first under-$1000 16-bit professional effects processor, the MIDIverb. Next, after teaming up with Marcus Ryle (who later founded Line 6), Alesis introduced the MMT8 hardware sequencer and the very successful HR-16 drum machine in 1987. The Alesis SR-16 was made and released in probably 1990.
MIDIVerb
HR-16 (modified)
Over the next few years, Alesis introduced many new products and enjoyed great success, but the industry was unaware of what was being developed back in their R&D department, something that would revolutionize digital recording. At the 1991 Winter NAMM show, Alesis introduced the ADAT digital tape recorder. Each ADAT could record 8 tracks of 16-bit audio on an S-VHS videocassette tape, and up to 16 ADATs could be connected together to record 128 tracks of audio simultaneously. With the same digital resolution as an Audio CD and a price that was a fraction of the other digital recording solutions for home recording at the time, the ADAT was a tremendous success, and was later honored by induction to the Technical Excellence & Creativity (TEC)nology Hall of Fame.
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Wikipedia