According to a news announcement today, Arturia President Frédéric Brun bowled over an audience of invited industry insiders and VIP guests when making the astounding announcement during his captivating keynote speech at the Museum of Grenoble as part of the company’s 15th anniversary celebrations on October 3, 2014. Here he touched upon several problems pertaining to popular portable audio interfaces that modern-day musicians have been forced to live and work with for quite some time. Some related to workflow, some to compatibility, and even audio quality. This has prompted Arturia to take significant steps to solve these issues once and for all.

During the keynote speech at the Museum of Grenoble, Frédéric Brun admitted that a distributor had warned him not to go there, stating that there are already “…too many competitors — large companies with history in the field.” His reasoned response? “Yes, that’s true. But at Arturia we are stubborn, and we think we can do something different. We think we can bring something new to market.”

Clearly, creating something that is both genuinely different and new to an already existing and hotly- contended market sector is no easy task. Take the mind-boggling number of audio formats out there. Think microphone, line, phono, and instrument inputs, each with different levels requiring different impedance. How about effortlessly connecting to Mac and PC computers, an Apple iPad or an Android device? Then there are all the digital audio formats (ADAT, S/PDIF, et al) as well as word clock to cater for those wishing to synchronise with the professional audio world. USB and MIDI might be useful, too! You get the picture. One visionary presidential person present at Arturia’s 15th anniversary celebrations sees the bigger picture perfectly clearly. Asked an incredulous Frédéric Brun: “Do you know how many audio interfaces on the market offer that? Zero!”