Gearspace is a website and
forum
Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to:
Common uses
* Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States
*Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city
**Roman Forum, most famous example
*Internet ...
dedicated to
audio engineering
Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to:
Sound
* Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound
*Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum
* Digital audio, representation of sou ...
. Gearspace is one of the largest resources for pro audio information, with over 1.6 million monthly visitors from 218 countries.
Originally established in 2002 as Gearslutz, the site rebranded in March 2021.
History
In 2002, Julian Standen and
Meg Lee Chin
Meg Lee Chin is a Taiwanese-Irish singer, songwriter, audio and video producer, writer and art activist who lives in London, England.
She is known as an early pioneer of the home studio revolution and female-produced music. As an early adopter ...
, both musicians and
audio engineers
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...
, created the site, which is widely regarded as a top online resource for music production knowledge and discussion.
[ The site has been described as the "best place … for help with your interface, DAW, signal path, or just about anything else."]Alexa.com
Alexa Internet, Inc. was an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.
Alexa was founded as an independent company in 1996 and acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million in stock. ...
as the 7,360th most popular website in the world. In 2020, it had over 1.6 million monthly visitors from 218 countries.[
]
Behringer Lawsuit
In mid-2017, Music Tribe
Music Tribe, formerly Music Group, is a holding company based in the City of Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines. It is chaired by Uli Behringer, founder of Behringer. Music Tribe's portfolio includes Behringer, Cool Audio, Midas, Turbosound, TC ...
, the parent company of music equipment manufacturer Behringer
Behringer is an audio equipment company founded by the Swiss engineer Uli Behringer on 25 January 1989, in Willich, Germany. Behringer was the 14th largest manufacturer of music products in 2007. Behringer is a worldwide, multinational grou ...
, pursued legal action against synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
manufacturer Dave Smith Instruments
Sequential is an American synthesizer company founded in 1974 as Sequential Circuits by Dave Smith. In 1978, Sequential released the Prophet-5, the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer; it became a market leader and industry standard, used ...
(DSI) and a number of the website's forum participants, including a DSI employee, for defamation over various statements made in forum discussions that alleged that Behringer copies other companies' products and exhibits other questionable business practices.
Name change
On January 6, 2021, Cameran Davis started an online petition
An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. T ...
at Change.org
Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...
encouraging the website to change its name from Gearslutz. Site co-founder Standen announced later the same month that the site would be undergoing a name change, stating "the word-play pun in the name has gotten old and it is now time to move forward".
References
{{Reflist
British music websites
Audio engineering