Blackwood is clearly impressed by the current product line and personnel - including recently appointed managing director, Steve Flower, chief technical officer, Tom Waterman and sales and marketing director Luke Baldry. "I have keenly followed Audient's success over the years, so the opportunity to work directly with the team to take the business to the next level was too compelling to turn down," he says.
"The brand has become universally recognised for producing award-winning, innovative products for modern music recording and production," he continues, highlighting the landmark sale of the 500th ASP8024 flagship mixing console to a studio in Canada, and the nomination of the "ASP-console grade iD22" audio interface for a 2013 TEC award as recent examples in a long line of achievements.
Blackwood has wide leadership experience within the audio industry, having founded the Soundcraft Spirit business, led the resurgence of Focusrite/Novation and most recently the turnaround at Turbosound and its eventual sale to the Music Group.
He cites David Dearden as the brand's lynchpin, having first met him at the Frankfurt MusikMesse in 1999. "In those early days of Audient, the ASP8024 was clearly a superior product in terms of ergonomic design and pristine audio performance. I figured any brand David was involved with was going places," he says. "He's one of a very small group of world class audio designers who continue to innovate for today's digital markets. He has migrated from engineering in studios, building bespoke mixers for the home studios for three of the four lads from Liverpool, to designing DDA and Midas mixers and founding DDA and Audient with Gareth Davies. His designs have stood the test of time because, quite simply, they sound great."
So with Audient's success firmly in his sights, Blackwood is focused on the future. "We are going to invest in product and people more than ever before, we are going to build a lot of great products and have a lot of fun along the way. After all, we have a compelling story, one of the world's best teams of audio designers, a highly creative team and high user expectations to exceed."
(Jim Evans)
