Woah, that’s a headline for you. And it’s mostly true, as long as you don’t take it literally, although for the record I’d love to see a cannibalistic bloodbath the day before Christmas Eve. It puts me in the spirit, you know?
But no, it’s just a business devouring. Yamaha owns Line6 now, in its entirety, as a “wholly owned subsidiary to fully realize the compelling opportunities for the two brands with Line 6’s operations continuing as before and its management team remaining in place.” What exactly will this mean for product lines and manufacturing? It hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s interesting to see this happen right after Yamaha just moved their high-end drum manufacturing to China.
For product standpoint though, it makes a lot of sense. Yamaha is big in percussion (I think they have the most underrated snare drums of any of the large mass-market companies) but have never set the world ablaze with their guitar lines. And they’ve pretty much dropped out of the amp market all together, with only one little modelling amp currently in production.
I’ll be sure to make a beeline to Yama6 at NAMM in January to see if I can get any info on what, if any, changes are in the air.
Benninho / December 24, 2013 8:52 am
Let’s hope it means Line6 will start to make quality products and have decent support for customers from now on.
/
Benninho / December 24, 2013 8:53 am
To be fair I already like their delays and modulations pedals.
/
Vigilantelove / December 24, 2013 7:58 pm
T.C. Electronics is better for digital delay and Electro Harmonix is better for analog delay and modulation. Their modeling is some of the best out there though.
I just saw the East Coat Line 6 rep and he made no mention of anything changing. We’ll have to wait and see.
/
Chris Alfano / December 26, 2013 1:04 pm
Yeah, there’s no one effect that I think Line6 is best in class in. Their strength is in useful all-in-one products at a good price point. I think the M9 is pretty good for the money if you want a lot of pretty good effects instead of a couple great ones.
/
funeraldoombuggy / December 24, 2013 2:47 pm
Yamaha had some cool guitars in the 70s and 80s – yamaha SG and SBGs are awesome guitars.
/