headquarters cumberland rhode island united states key people 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 . contents 1 early years 2 the alesis adat 3 boom and bankruptcy 4 after 2001 5 targeted market 6 alesis models 7 references 8 external links early years edit keith barr born 1947 or 1948 aged 36 founder of alesis alesis studio electronics was founded in 1984 by keith barr who co founded mxr 1 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 . 2 the alesis sr 18 was made and released in probably 1990 . midiverb hr 16 modified the alesis adat edit 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 . 3 as a side note design firm fast forward designs was responsible for some of the software development for the adat and also the aided development of several future alesis products including the quadrasynth . fast forward designs was co founded by marcus ryle and michel doidic both who had notable careers before their alesis involvement as designers at oberheim as well as a notable career following their alesis involvement they later co founded line 6 . alesis adat xt little remote control lrc adat xt controller alesis adat hd24 big remote control brc adat master controller boom and bankruptcy edit for the next 10 years alesis created a wide variety of innovative and affordable products such as the quadrasynth synthesizer dm5 drum module and monitor one studio monitors . in 1997 alesis semiconductor was formed again taking advantage of barr s custom integrated circuits to produce and market chips for the audio industry . a series of chips were introduced that ranged from digital signal processors for audio effects to low cost analog to digital and digital to analog converters . by 2001 however the company s business suffered as market trends changed and on april 27 of that year alesis filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy . in the subsequent restructuring jack o donnell acquired the company . in 2012 alesis together with the rest of o donnell s companies was acquired by inmusic brands . alesis quadrasynth dm5 with surge cymbal m1 active after 2001 edit under o donnell s direction alesis expanded into new product categories such as electronic drums mixers portable pa speakers and other recording equipment . some time tested alesis products remain including the sr 16 drum machine still a current product more than 20 years after its introduction . today alesis is the fastest growing brand in drums and it continues expansion into new product categories in mobile music making recording video and live sound . alesis founder keith barr died of an apparent heart attack on august 24 2010 at age 61 . 4 multimix8 sr 16 performancepad airfx targeted market edit the products manufactured by alesis are mainly for studio and live performance as opposed to practice use and are now targeted at professional and semi professional musicians . alesis is known for budget equipment but has produced high end and innovative gear such as the alesis fusion andromeda a6 analog synthesizer ion virtual analog modeling synthesizer as well as the ion based micron . alesis developed equipment for recording studios in the 1990s including the adat modular digital multitrack recording machine that allowed eight channels of cd quality digital recording on svhs tape which was one of the first digital recorders affordable for home studios . alesis models edit quadrasynth and quadrasynth plus synthesizer keyboards andromeda a6 polyphonic analog synthesizer fusion 6hd 8hd synthesizer workstation keyboard ion analog modeling synthesizer alesis qs8 alesis andromeda alesis fusion alesis ion references edit home & studio recording uk september 1986 issue p11 interview with keith barr george petersen in memoriam keith barr 1949 2010 mix magazine online aug 2010 http mixonline.com news keith barr obit 2508 1991 alesis adat tecnology hall of fame mix magazine online http mixonline.com tecnology hall of fame alesis dat multitrack 090106 george petersen in memoriam keith barr 1949 2010 mix magazine online aug 2010 http mixonline.com news keith barr obit 2508 external links edit alesis company website jack o donnell owner of alesis and numark pro music news 2001 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title alesis & oldid 736096092 categories music equipment manufacturersaudio equipment manufacturerssynthesizer manufacturing companiesdrum machinespercussion instrument manufacturing companieshidden categories use mdy dates from july 2014 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschfran aismagyarpolskiportugu s suomi edit links this page was last modified on 25 august 2016 at 04 08 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view