Sound Wave Spotlight with Sound Devices – rAVe (PUBS)

Name:Matt Anderson
Title: President and CEO
Business: Sound devices

rAVe (PUBS): Tell us a little about who you are and what you do at Sound Devices.

MATT ANDERSON: My name is Matt Anderson, President and CEO of Sound Devices. I am one of the founders of the company and have been the lead designer on every product we have ever released. That said, I am surrounded by an amazing team and I could not do any of this without all of my amazing collaborators!

rAVe (PUBS): How does your company approach product development and innovation to ensure audio solutions remain at the forefront of technology?

MOM: First and foremost, we talk to our customers every day to find out how products are being used—both ours and those of other companies—and where they can be improved or innovated. Our service and support teams, sales staff, and engineers are always talking to people in the field, so they have a lot of great information on that. It’s a solid feedback loop from users in the field that drives us to design better and make things easier to use, which is always the goal at Sound Devices. It’s all about the customer. Knowing what people want, what they dream of, where they’re going. That’s the first half of the equation.

The other half is our own interests and engineering research. I am an engineer and I am surrounded by other very talented engineers. We are up to date with all the new technologies, hardware and software, which makes us think of ways to improve our products or create new ones.

It’s really a combination of what customers want and their frustrations with the possibilities of new technology. Many companies have dedicated product groups that boast they are customer-centric, and they don’t have any actual R&D engineers directly involved in the group. I think that misses the point. Design that is primarily engineering-centric is a mistake, and design that is primarily customer-centric is a mistake. One without the other is nothing! The magic happens right in the middle.

rAVe (PUBS): What priorities do you place on user experience and ease of integration for ProAV professionals when designing audio equipment?

MOM: Our equipment has long had a reputation for being easy to use. Our products tend to be deep in terms of features, but we try to keep the menu structure and operation as simple and the controls as conventional as possible. This means that someone with the right skills can walk up and use them the first time without having to read the instructions.

Our A20-Nexus is an example of this – we looked at it and said touchscreens! Let’s put a few on the front of the device so that our users can easily access the advanced features of SpectraBand. This has made it easier for our customers to adopt this technology and make it a seamless part of their workflows.

Finally, backward compatibility is incredibly important to us. We continue to service every product we’ve ever made and offer extended service warranties to keep them in circulation. This means that if a customer is committed to their current workflow, they don’t necessarily have to upgrade to our latest products to continue getting the performance they expect.

rAVe (PUBS): What is the biggest challenge facing audio professionals today and why?

MOM: The pace of change in the industry is constantly accelerating, and trying to keep up with new technology and equipment is always a challenge. That said, how one responds to this change is very important, and for me and Sound Devices as a whole, we really see this trend as something that creates opportunities, not adversities.

Take AI for example – it’s quickly become a hot topic in almost every field of technology, and audio is no exception. We’re already using it to help us explore different ways of working on projects and figure out ways to integrate it into our products.

We’re excited because a lot of R&D engineers know, and people outside of engineering don’t quite see it, engineering is very much a creative process. It’s a combination of art and science because you’re producing something that has a lot of variables and not all of them are controllable. When we design products, let’s take the A20-Nexus, it took a couple of years and it was hardcore locking yourself in a basement with schematics and components and ideas to get it right. It’s really on the same level as a band going into a studio and making a record from scratch or a director making a movie. It’s a group of people coming together to create something that didn’t exist before. It’s the same process, with all the excitement and energy. Coming back to AI, it’s great to have tools like ChatGPT because when you’re talking about the less creative aspects, like the more routine aspects of coding or running tests, you can automate those parts of the process and focus more on the creativity. It’s fantastic!

rAVe (PUBS): What do you think is the most important trend shaping the future of professional audio equipment right now and how does Sound Devices plan to capitalize on this trend?

MOM: Wireless! More and more connections are becoming wireless, whether it’s audio components, data connections, control mechanisms, or all of the above. We may not think about it every day because it’s been a gradual process, but every year the number of wireless channels is growing and growing, and it’s not just on concert stages. It’s in installations, corporate conference rooms, schools, you name it. Wherever you install audio equipment. People have gotten used to it, and that’s driving it even further.

Sound Devices is poised to capitalize on this because that’s where we invest in technology and research. The Sound Devices Astral wireless family is a great example of this, and we have many other cool products in the pipeline that explore this technology to its limits.

rAVe (PUBS): What new initiatives or innovations in audio does Sound Devices propose?

MOM: As I mentioned earlier, we put a lot of time and thought into our wireless hardware, and many of our innovations were there, like SpectraBand. We have a number of patents pending in this technology, and fans of our hardware will see more of them in new products before the end of the year.

That said, we continue to support our core mixer/recorder audience and continue to grow there. We just released a long-awaited free update for our 8 Series recorders that added 32-bit floating-point recording, usability improvements, and more flexible routing options in response to user feedback. And while that major update was free, the release involved over a year of hard work by many people across the company. The 8 Series recorders have been in the field for some time and continue to be the standard for field audio professionals, and we want to help keep them in the field for as long as possible.

rAVe (PUBS): Anything else you would like to add?

MOM: We are so grateful for our industry and the loyalty and commitment we have seen from our long-time users. And always stay alert!