(click thumbnail)Michael BartschQ. Yellowtec products seem to have a higher profile in the United States now thanks to some recent vendor relationships. How can U.S. buyers obtain Yellowtec products?
A. We have built relation ships with major US vendors like BGS, BSW and SCMS. We do direct business with these vendors to make products even more affordable to US customers.
Q. You introduced a new range of products for mounting and positioning microphones and monitors. What’s unusual about these?
A. m!ka is engineering at its finest: from its design with extruded and anodised aluminium profiles to the modularity of the system. m!ka integrates simple and elegant appearance with heavy duty performance. Combining microphone and monitor arms in one modular system, m!ka helps to restore order to the desktop area. Thus optimizing space and ergonomics! This is unlike any normal microphone or monitor mount.
Q. You have five product lines; what are the others besides m!ka?
A. Yellowtec products address broadcast professionals, mainly radio broadcasters. The product lines beside m!ka are:
- Intellimix: a 3-fader digital desktop mixer/router with 14 inputs and multiple outputs (mix, monitor, mix-minuses). It is acclaimed for use in journalist cubicles, news, sports or ingest.
- VIPdigital: a unique voice processor with SmartCard and compelling sound modules. You will hardly find any other voice processor on the market that is such complete.
- PUC: a professional USB sound card with simplest installation. You will just need to plug-in the USB cable — and the installation will be done at once. PUC supports analogue audio (+18dBu), SPDIF or AES/EBU.
- b-line: is a compact and powerful ISDN or POTS dual hybrid with analogue and digital (AES/EBU) studio interfaces. Accessories like Talkmaster software or the b-line Keypad give you the comfort known from bigger talk show systems.
Q. What else is new that you’ll show at the 2008 NAB Show that radio broadcasters should look for?
A. We will show our new ‘VESA 75 to Genelec 8020 adapter.’ When launching m!ka we had in mind to create a modular mounting system for microphones, flat panel screens and speakers. Consider of mounting two Genelec speakers above two TFT monitors mounted on a single Pole and look for it on NAB.
Q. Who owns the company? Where are you based, and how many employees do you have?
A. Yellowtec is a brand of Thum+Mahr GmbH, a leading system integrator for broadcast facilities in Europe, based in Germany. T+M has been in the pro audio business for more than thirty years. Clients include major broadcasters like the BBC, Germany’s ARD and Radio France who are served by a team of 50 people.
Q. Anything else we should know about your company’s business direction or new products?
A. Yellowtec’s general design principles address the major needs of Broadcast professionals making products simple and smart! We seek to reduce the complexity of broadcast studio tools making them intuitive and easy for a user to operate while allowing an engineer the greatest degree of studio design flexibility.
Our knowledge about work flows is the driving force for new products. If there is an opportunity for improving work flows, e.g. thanks to new technologies, there is good chance for a new Yellowtec product. We will launch two new products on IBC in Amsterdam and on NAB Radio Show in Austin this year.
