PROdUcTS - Music & Sound Retailer

Ad Index
Company Pg
AAA WHOLESALE .......................50
ACE PRODUCTS GROUP .............6
AMERICAN DJ .........................C-IV
AMERICAN MUSIC & SOUND ...7
BEHRINGER ..................................23
CASIO ........................................C-III
CHAUVET LIGHTING ..................17
CHEM-PAK ....................................48
DJ TECH / JAMMIN PRO .............37
DJ TECH / JAMMIN PRO .............39
DJ TECH / JAMMIN PRO .............41
DJ TECH / JAMMIN PRO .............43
GALAXY AUDIO ..........................3
GE CAPITAL ..................................21
GIBSON PRO AUDIO ....................25
GLP - GERMAN LIGHT
PRODUCTS .................................49
HANSER MUSIC GROUP ............33
JBL PROFESSIONAL
BY HARMAN .............................9
KORG .............................................10
NAMM .......................................14-15
PEAK MUSIC STANDS ................53
PRESONUS ....................................45
RCF .................................................19
ROTOSOUND ................................35
SOUND ENHANCEMENT
PRODUCTS .................................8
STRING SWING ............................11
TKL PRODUCTS ......................C-II
VOCOPRO ......................................13
YAMAHA .......................................29
YORKVILLE ..................................5
While every care is taken to ensure that
these listings are accurate and complete,
The Music & Sound Retailer does not accept
responsibility for omissions or errors.
sPinninG Faster tHan a turntaBLe
(continued from cover)
are buying mixers,
controllers
and sound card
combinations.
Dual-transport CD
players used to be
a [top seller]. Now,
they are gone.
Dead. You can’t
give them away.
Five years ago, you
were considered a
nerd if you used a computer [as
a DJ]. Now, it’s the standard.”
Thus, Fryman advised DJ and
lighting retailers to sell controllers,
but he offered this caveat.
“Don’t stock 300 [different styles
of] controllers…or even 30 of
them,” he said. “Stock six of
them at peak price points like
$299, $399, $599, $799 and $999.
And make sure to learn those
controllers. Because, otherwise,
you’ll go crazy. You can’t know
everything about everything.”
Fryman added that, when it
comes to lighting, light emitting
diode (lED) has become the
number-one hot seller. Incandescent
bulbs, for the most part,
have been forgotten. “lED is
the buzz word,” said Fryman.
“Incandescent light bulbs don’t
even sell below our cost.”
Even as Audiolines.com,
which operates a 15,000-squarefoot
brick-and-mortar business
in lincolnwood Il, has found the
right product mix to sell, Fryman
told The Music & Sound Retailer
that the rapidly weakening
economy has been too staunch
a foe to overcome. Although the
U.S. economy appeared to stabilize
early in 2012, it has derailed
recently, led by rising unemployment
and continued European
uncertainty.
“The price of gas has killed
people,” Fryman said. “When
you have to put gas in your gas
tank, you don’t have the money
to buy a DJ system.”
Robert Marsh, President and
Founder of Ronkonkoma NYbased
I DJ Now, admitted the
DJ and lighting market has been
changing rapidly recently. But he
added that that segment of MI
often sees dramatic shifts.
Despite a weakening economic
landscape, Marsh told The
Retailer that DJ/lighting sales at
his stores and Internet Web site
have increased year-over-year.
In fact, the company’s sales have
increased in 22 of the past 23
years (with the flat year registering
back in 2002).
“DJ sales are in-line with our
projections, and have been consistent
in growth,” he said. “Sales
improved nicely in our retail
stores, [as well as] our Internet
sales [this year].”
Sales in the segment are also
strong at Fort Wayne IN-based
Sweetwater Sound, confirmed
John Grabowski, the company’s DJ
and lighting Category Manager.
“DJ and lighting are both growth
categories at Sweetwater Sound,”
he said. “Business this year has
continued on the previous year’s
growth path, and we expect that
growth to continue, especially as
the DJ market moves even more
into computer-based music production.
lighting is a newer category
at Sweetwater, and the many
choices in reliable, cost-effective
lED lighting solutions are helping
fuel growth there.”
As for Fryman’s assertion that
DJs have ceased purchasing dualdrive
CD players, Marsh admitted
that a majority of DJs have moved
away from buying them. “But
there’s still a large portion of DJs
using CDs when you consider a
national customer base,” he said.
“of course, CD usage is shrinking
as a whole. Many of today’s play-
ers still house CD
drives to support
a migration of the
media transition,
as many players
still utilize CDs.
The conversion
to a completely
digital format is
obvious.”
Grabowski held
a similar sentiment
to that of Marsh. “Some DJs
are still using CDs, and we still
see steady sales of professional
CD players like Pioneer’s CDJ series.
But the market is definitely
shifting more to media players
that might have the ability to play
an audio CD, but, more importantly,
have the ability to play and
control audio files from a variety
of storage media, from audio files
on CD or DVD-RoM, to USB
thumb drives and SD cards, to internal
and external hard drives,”
he said. “Manufacturers have
already answered the market shift
with a variety of media players
and well-designed hardware controllers
for computer and laptopbased
DJ rigs.”
Although, clearly, fewer CDbased
players are sold by DJ retailers
as compared to a few years
ago, the President and Founder
of I DJ Now said controllers, software,
media players and lighting
effects have been hot sellers at
his stores thus far this year. “The
trend in [DJ] products is in efficiency,
size, speed and optimizing
what you can do when you go to
the digital media format,” Marsh
said. “Now, DJs are uncovering
how they can be even more creative
and individualized.”
“The strongest product
category for us continues to be
well-integrated hardware/software
solutions for DJs, like Native
Instruments’ Traktor Kontrol,”
reported Grabowski. “These
integrated hardware/software
solutions require minimal setup
and offer complete hands-on
control of the DJ software via
the hardware controller. They
52 AUGUST 2012