Say „M-Audio" and you think of the affordable audio interface a lot of producers got their start on. The company was founded in 1988 by Tim Ryan, a Caltech-trained engineer and the son of a concert pianist, who had previously co-designed the Con Brio digital synthesizer and helped write MIDI sequencer software for the Commodore and Apple II. Wanting to run his own company, Ryan first registered it as „Music Soft" — only to find Yamaha already held the rights to that name, so the company was renamed Midiman. After failing to compete in sequencer software against giants like Steinberg and Opcode, Ryan pivoted to hardware in 1990 — the first product was a small device syncing MIDI data to tape, sold simply under the company's own name.
Midiman quickly built a reputation as a maker of affordable, problem-solving MIDI gear — the MIDISPORT and Bi-Port interfaces, the Syncman timecode converters, and eventually its own A/D converters like the Flying Cow and Flying Calf. In 2000, the company unveiled its Delta series of PCI audio interfaces under a brand-new name — M-Audio — which it adopted as the official name for the entire company two years later. That same period also saw the launch of the first Oxygen controller keyboards, which established an entire category of portable MIDI controllers, and the brand's first studio monitors (the Studiophile SP5B).
At Wired Tunes we carry the full M-Audio range — M-Track and AIR series audio interfaces, Oxygen and Keystation keyboard controllers, and BX and AV studio monitors. It's the choice for anyone starting out in music production and looking for reliable, affordable gear — a brand that's introduced three decades' worth of producers to digital recording.
M-Audio
