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Ten Years of Wizoo

A retrospective by Ralf Willke

An Author' Publishing House

By 1997, the fast-growing Internet afforded content providers direct access to users worldwide. Peter Gorges had been providing quality content for years, penning successful books, workshops, and test reports that unveiled the mysteries of synthesizers and music production. He had even helped various manufacturers develop keyboards and software. High time for Peter to launch a company of his own, bringing the benefits of his experience to musicians everywhere, and sharing the insights of his comrades in music, an international crew of musicians, authors, and programmers. As fortune would have it, Peter was a key contributor to KEYBOARDS magazine, and its publisher Musik-Media-Verlag had the necessary infrastructure in place. So after six months preparation, Wizoo hit the ground running in September 1997.

It's All in the Name

Naming a fledgling company may be the most daunting challenge a young entrepreneur faces. Peter's options were to choose a name that best reflects what the publishing house for music production, music technology, and sound design has to offer, or to coin an altogether new word. Peter decided to do both.

Designer Axel Hartmann, whose company designbox created Wizoo's corporate identity in the real and virtual worlds, came up with Wizard of Oscillators . Wizoo's founder was indeed famous for his sonic sorcery, but Wizard of Oscillators might prove a tongue-twister for some, so the words were blended to create the portmanteau Wizoo.

Books and CD-ROMs

The publishing house's first offering was devoted to two of the hottest synthesizers of the day - the Clavia Nord Modular and the Kawai K-5000, both made by manufacturers Peter had worked with for years. The first installments of the Wizoo Guide series were born, with many more to follow. The Wizoo mastermind's logic was simple enough: “Why would anyone buy an 800-page book to avoid wading through a 500-page operating manual?” Concise and to the point, Wizoo Guides aimed to provide as much information, tips, and tricks as possible in the fewest words. This concept worked, with much of its success owed to internationally renowned authors such as Craig Anderton. The company's other winning card was professional samples, at the time available exclusively on CD-ROMs. The online portal at www.wizoosounds.com , long awaited by fans and the company's founder, followed in 2002. The first Wizoo sample libraries were a treasure trove for electronic music enthusiasts. They featured T-REX, a collection of savage sounds produced by synth dinosaurs such as the Moog and the like; Hamburg Loops, electronic drum loops sorted by bpm and stridency; and Lofi Junkiez Vol. 1, a smorgasbord of bizarre blips and bleeps from Cologne 's electronic underground.

Wizoo International

1999 was a busy year for the company. It brought to market a fully bilingual range of books, set up distribution in the USA , launched the first Wizoo Online Shop, and presented its offering at the industry's leading fairs, the NAMM show in LA, and Musikmesse Frankfurt. The Wizoo Guide Cubase VST was the first to break the five-figure mark in sales, and the Wizoo Basics series kicked off with Analog Sound Synthesis , a perennial favorite still available today in its second edition .

Wizoo Powered (Waldorf) Wave , Wizoo Powered Nord , and Magnetica enriched the company's line of sample CDs. The latter is a collection of top-drawer Rhodes , Wurlitzer, Clavinet, and Hammond B3 samples in Akai and E-mu sample formats. Carrying on the work that Peter Gorges had so expertly performed before Wizoo was born, the company continued to satisfy the music industry's demand for sound design services. For example, sounds designed for the Magnetica line feature prominently in Kawai stage pianos such as the MP9000, among others.

10 Jahre Wizoobooks

The 1999 catalog comprised 14 books and ten CD-ROMs

The Millennium Catalog

As music took a turn towards computerized production, the demand for how-to books grew. At the turn of the millennium, another best-seller, The Perfect Music PC , led readers through the tangled maze of Windows 98. In the pre XP era, when driver problems and conflicts between computers and software brought such “fun” to musicians' day-to-day lives, the demand for such a book was dire. Thousands of satisfied readers were grateful for the help this book provided. And the Wizoo Platimum24 drum series raised the quality bar for the CD-ROM market.

Musik-Media-Verlag sought to focus on its magazines; Peter wanted greater control over his enterprise. So he bought Musik-Media's share and relaunched Wizoo in Bremen on the first day of the new millennium, bringing five employees on board.

The reputation of the company founder and his network of experts grew, sparking a growing interest on the part of the music industry in the Wizoo team's excellent work. A joint effort with Steinberg called VST Drum Sessions offered the world's first multi-track drum grooves. It marked a milestone achievement in drum samples for the LM-4, long Nashville's first-call software drum machine, and sold several ten thousand times. This project and the friendship with Steinberg founders Manfred Ruerup and Charlie Steinberg fostered closer cooperation. It also inspired Steinberg to participate in Wizoo Sound Design GmbH, a Wizoo spin-off launched in 2001. Peter retained full control over the book publishing house. The first virtual grand piano to hit the market, The Grand was developed in cooperation with Kawai, which contributed its premium grand pianos and recording lab to the effort. And with hip offerings such as Virtual Guitarist, Xphraze, Hypersonic and Virtual Bassist , Peter and his team cemented their status as software instrument pioneers, intermittently boosting Steinberg's Virtual Instruments sales by nearly 20 percent.

10 Jahre Wizoobooks

2000 AD. Wizoo charts the course of software instruments.

The Great Application Race

At the time, Steinberg Cubase VST and Logic Audio were engaged in a neck-to-neck race for musicians' favor. In 2001, Wizoo offered eight books specializing in different facets of these sequencers for Win and Mac platforms. The year after, 2002, saw the debut of the Quick Starts, a series produced in cooperation with Voggenreiter in Germany and Music Sales in the USA and England . Home Recording, MIDI , CD Burning, Publishing Music Online – these and similar guides helped get newcomers off to a good start. The series also offered Cubase and Reason boot-camps in book format.

Mixtended featured sensational sounds on CD-ROM captured in the day's most important formats, Halion/LM-4, EXS, and Battery . The masterminds behind this groove grab-bag multi-tracked five drum kits on one CD-ROM, with each channel offering twelve velocity stages.

Epic Works for Inquisitive Minds

In 2003, Wizoo books began to put on some serious weight. Cubase SX/SL Reference offered the most extensive Cubase documentation of all time comprising 900 pages. Another best-seller that year, Cubase SX/SL - Mixing & Mastering , focused on producing music in the integrated virtual studio surroundings offered by Cubase SX. It gave readers a compass to guide them through an uncharted frontier in music technology.

The first edition of the book Logic 5 - Solutions from A to Z was a contender in 2003 with 656 pages, but the follow-up Logic 7 - from A to Z won the heavyweight title with 1012 pages. No other Wizoo author managed to write as prolifically as the tag-team of Baum and Lange.

A Touch of Hollywood

In 2003, Hans Zimmer, Oscar-winning soundtrack composer and one of the best-known users of Wizoo instruments, bought a stake in Wizoo Sound Design. Steinberg founder Manfred Ruerup, who had left his enterprise following its takeover by Pinnacle, held another third of the shares. Hans Zimmer, Peter, and the Wizoo team nurtured the idea of creating the supreme orchestral system, with Wizoo developing the technological underpinning for it. At the same time, Zimmer's team set out to create an unprecedented library comprising samples of the London Symphony. Hans Zimmer unveiled the results of this project in his score to Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End .

What's up Today

Among many other ventures, Wizoo launched its own product line featuring Latigo, Darbuka, and Wizooverb , distributed by M-Audio. This brought a decisive turn of events in 2004 for Wizoo Sound Design GmbH, when M-Audio's parent company Digidesign, a global player in the music technology industry, made a bid to take over the enterprise. In the meantime, the team helmed by Peter Gorges and chief programmer Paul Kellett had grown to 20 developers. After negotiating for six months, the three owners agreed to the deal. Digidesign had something of great value to offer beyond mere money - outstanding prospects, as the past two years' performance attests. Today Peter heads the company that operates under the new name of Digidesign AIR Group ( www.digidesign.com/air ).

Though Peter is more Wizoo Publishing GmbH's patron than head publisher, leaving its day-to-day business to trusted colleagues, the company has in recent years branched out its wizoobooks.com offering to include audio-visual media.

The founder can look back with pride on ten years of impressive achievements. In that time, he transformed his freelancing career into a very successful publishing house and had a formative hand in shaping the genre of virtual instruments, a field in which he is hailed as a pioneer.

10 Jahre Wizoobooks

Wizoo - The Sound Generation. The gap between expectations and reality was bridged in the 1999 catalog...

10 Jahre Wizoobooks

Dimensions Beyond Reality : The catalog claim announcing the first Wizoo website may have been a bit over the top, but the site did feature cutting-edge Web2.0 elements, shop functionality, and the charm of a strong community.

10 Jahre Wizoobooks

The Virtual Percussionist: Probably not high on flesh-and-blood hand drummers' wish-list, the product was one of many successful Virtual Musician offerings. Pictured here is the edition for Arabian countries and the Middle East ...

10 Jahre Wizoobooks