Current state of Antares ATG

[TechFixer]

Just curious, Does Antares still own the ATG technology or fit they sell it off to another competitor?
Also does anyone know if there's any remaining stock of luthier packages, or boards available.
Judging from the bay and reverb the only thing I see are AT-200's
I hope some day they resurrect the system.

Techfixer

[admin]

Just curious, Does Antares still own the ATG technology or fit they sell it off to another competitor?
Also does anyone know if there's any remaining stock of luthier packages, or boards available.
Judging from the bay and reverb the only thing I see are AT-200's
I hope some day they resurrect the system.

Techfixer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune
The ATG system was developed by the CEO / Founder of Antares, (Dr Andy Hildebrand) who had spent many years developing the ATG Guitar system before it was ready for prime time, in 2012 he signed licensing deals with Parker Guitars  for the high end guitars with ATG DSP Guitar Luthier kit with all the bells and whistles for an Adrian Belew model, while Peavey got the low cost model for the affordable AT-200 version. He also licensed Peavey to make Mixing Boards with Antares Auto Tune for Vocals DSP built in.

Thanks to  Cher, The Antares brand became identified with their Antares AutoTune algorithms, so Antares thought they would strike it rich offering similar real time auto tune tech for guitarists - which became 90% of the marketing and all press releases.

But buried in the spec sheet was the fact that in order to perform the auto tune function, required 100% Guitar Modeling  - cant use the normal pickups at all , and simulating all the popular guitar types, and having glitch free tracking for alternate tunings with lowest latency - they added more simulated models in 2015 , and had hoped independent Luthiers would sign up and buy the ATG Internal Kit offered in either Piezo saddles or  two types of Magnetic hex pickups ( Gibson or Fender spacing) - for years details of the ATG Internal Kit were strictly behind a firewall for members only review.

The Parker Guitars were co designed by Ken Parker and Larry Fishman
But Ken Parker sold the company to U.S. Music Corporation in 2003, which was itself sold to Jam Industries in August 2009 - who closed the manufacturing plant in Illinois in 2015, intending to move all manufacturing to Asia - but dropped the Parker Guitar Line entirely by 2016     

Ultimately Antares ATG Guitar System failed due to Bad timing and bad product name, and ineffective marketing all added up to major financial loss, and in 2017 the CEO/Engineer Dr. Andy retired, sold the Antares company to new owners who have no desire to resurrect manufacture of the ATG Guitar system - which is very sad as IMHO having played every DSP Guitar system , the ATG Internal Luthier Kit ( and the ATG-1 large GK-13 Processor)  remains the best system , but easily the most misunderstood system due to lack of exposure, despite Metallica touring with an ATG Luthier kit inside his Line-6 Variax guitar

At several NAMM shows 2013-2016,  Antares had special invitation only Hotel Room suite for demonstrating the ATG System - but only a few die hard fans would show up, to a room away from the main trade show floor with several electric guitars all extremely out of tune , the big sales pitch was hitting button on the guitar and listen as the guitar would suddenly slide into perfect tuning in seconds.

I knew they had a lot of technology, so I was able to play around with their early iPad MIDI Designer with ATG Control template  - which had a Pitch bend Slider on the far right, and experienced flawless live pitch bending  - told the Antares CEO, they had the tech to create several products  - could sell just the Whammy Pedal portion alone - but that required the hex divided pickup and all the same hardware as the full system. I also experienced excellent emulations of Telecaster, Stratocaster, Les Paul, Acoustic Guitars,  12 strings, Alt Tunings  - lower flutter than competing Line-6 and Roland/Boss alternatives                 

There was a Prior "Antares" Guitar brand from 1982 built by Samick in Korea - so Antares of Scotts Valley, CA never wanted to go into the Guitar business - even though they could have possibly licensed World Music to make an exclusive model for them ( hindsight is 20/20)   
https://samick.fandom.com/wiki/Antares
 
The current Antares owners remain the owners of the tech. Many here have tried to persuade them to resume ATG Guitar kit manufacturing, but they look at the overhead expense and sales numbers and reject the idea

The reality is the best DSP Guitar systems are built by folks with a lot of passion, but they need an alternate cash cow to pay the bills.   
That holds true for Line-6 and Roland/Boss.
over the past decades Ernie Ball and Music Man  tried to offer a high tech guitar, the EB/MM Gamechanger guitar , which was CPU controlled pickups switching and active EQ. But that would have never been developed without the cash flow from profits of making Ernie Ball guitar strings.

The Fishman Tripleplay would not exist is it were not for the "cash cow" profit from their other products   

[whippinpost91850]

I still have a new ATG LUTHIERS KIT w/ I coders and Gibson space Shadow pickup.
I'll sell it for $375. Brand new in the box. thanks Paul

[mooncaine]

Been wanting it since they announced it, but they never made it available in any way that made sense to me. The $8K Parker guitar was a crazy idea, just nuckin' futs, and the Peavey one wasn't the full ATG experience. What a choice.

I feel I made the right decision, since they stopped making it available. I'd be angry if I had bought a luthier kit or a floor unit. They could probably make their money over a long term selling a cheap but well built guitar series. They'd need just one LP style and one Fender style, and the guitar would have to be OK with a reviewer like Philip McKnight. Players would buy the Fender-style one just to rip the parts. Cheap enough to sell at Christmas, good enough to be a Squier Affinity, and all manufacturing done where the best price could be had, they'd sell 'em. They wouldn't fly off the shelves, but what flies off the shelf? Now that the costly work is done, why not make some money from it with overseas builders?

Doesn't seem complicated to me. The brain work's already done. Why just walk away and leave money on the table? The margin can't be that bad.

[admin]

Been wanting it since they announced it, but they never made it available in any way that made sense to me. The $8K Parker guitar was a crazy idea, just nuckin' futs, and the Peavey one wasn't the full ATG experience. What a choice.

I feel I made the right decision, since they stopped making it available. I'd be angry if I had bought a luthier kit or a floor unit. They could probably make their money over a long term selling a cheap but well built guitar series. They'd need just one LP style and one Fender style, and the guitar would have to be OK with a reviewer like Philip McKnight. Players would buy the Fender-style one just to rip the parts. Cheap enough to sell at Christmas, good enough to be a Squier Affinity, and all manufacturing done where the best price could be had, they'd sell 'em. They wouldn't fly off the shelves, but what flies off the shelf? Now that the costly work is done, why not make some money from it with overseas builders?

Doesn't seem complicated to me. The brain work's already done. Why just walk away and leave money on the table? The margin can't be that bad.

You were on hiatus when we had the Antares ATG internal kit group buy 2015
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3207.msg115019;topicseen#msg115019

Then they blew out all ATG KIT inventory very cheap summer of 2017,
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/important-information-antares-atg-owners/

Antares has issued the following statement:

"As of August 31st, 2017, Antares will be discontinuing all Auto-Tune for Guitar products, including the ATG-1 Floor Processor, ATG Custom Luthier Installation Kit, and Software Feature Packs.

"ATG users will be able to update their Software Feature Packs/Pedal Core Pack until October 31st, 2017. After this date, it will no longer be possible to update any ATG device. It is necessary to download and install the ATG Utility Applications in order to perform a software update. The ATG Settings Manager will still continue to work after October 31st, however the ATG Software Manager will no longer be able to connect to the ATG website.

"Antares will continue to support the ATG products until August 31st, 2018. For Auto-Tune for Guitar support, please file a ticket and select 'Auto-Tune for Guitar Support' from the 'Type' menu.

"The ATG forum will still be active until October 31st, 2017, when posting and replying to posts will be turned off. The forum will be available for reference until August 31st, 2018."

What destroyed the ATG profit was the necessary after sales support for each customer ,  - They wanted Parker & Peavey to handle bulk of that , and only smart tech Antares approved ATG Luthiers to handle customer support and the arcane idea that only the ATG approved Luthier could access the ATG Manager app at the deep level to change the String Sensitivity. And they boasted any operating system would auto connect and recognize the ATG via USB MIDI adapter cable,  - which was never the case in practice ( they were a Mac based shop, and assumed Windows had more smarts regarding MIDI Drivers -  as they recommended the worst generic china USB MIDI Cable that ALL here at VGuitarforums already knew was a SYSEX disaster  - had to fight just have Antares add a user configurable MIDI  I/O panel to the ATG Manager app ( you are welcome)

and the official ATG Manager for iPad was never distributed by Antares, instead it was built into the old 32 bit version of MIDI Designer,  - and the developer of MIDI Designer was clueless about all the Antares capabilities, posting a Youtube Video with the wrong name   


Too many egos, too many mis-steps & mis communication, and assumptions  - which (sadly) is all too typical for most high tech Music Gear.   

 

[Den.]

I still have a new ATG LUTHIERS KIT w/ I coders and Gibson space Shadow pickup.
I'll sell it for $375. Brand new in the box. thanks Paul

Paul, I sent you a personal message.

[cags12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune
The ATG system was developed by the
The current Antares owners remain the owners of the tech. Many here have tried to persuade them to resume ATG Guitar kit manufacturing, but they look at the overhead expense and sales numbers and reject the idea

I wonder if they would be open to license or sell the IP for the ATG system.
Imagine a community driven development. I have thought many times to reach out and ask the question but then I wonder what if they say yes? How could we make this a reality? Indiegogo? Would people be interested in it if rebranded and revamped?

[gumtown]

I wonder if they would be open to license or sell the IP for the ATG system.
Imagine a community driven development. I have thought many times to reach out and ask the question but then I wonder what if they say yes? How could we make this a reality? Indiegogo? Would people be interested in it if rebranded and revamped?

I would doubt they would sell it, and if they did, I bet you couldn't afford it.
It would suit them better to squash the technology, but sit on the rights and patents ready to make money on law suits.

[vanceg]

Remeber - you are talking about one of the leading names in pitch shifting/correction licencing their core technology on an entire type/class of instrument.  I strongly suspect that they might consider licensinging the technology. But I also suspect that the cost woud be signficant and not someting that a small community of enthusisests would be likely to pick up.

[TechFixer]

Very interesting back story and thought options from all!!

Since the system is locked into whoever has an AT-200, luthier kit or floorboard I wonder if they would ever "open up" the ATG web site and allow those users/owners to purchase the model packs that they sold back in the day.
I don't think it would take much overhead. I mean the server is still up and running so we can move model packs between ATG's.
I've got 2 of the internals from AT-200's. One I did buy the max model pack and one I didn't because they had shut it down before I bought the guts on eBay. It would be great to have the other as a backup. Just in case.

Techfixer

[GuitarBuilder]

Remeber - you are talking about one of the leading names in pitch shifting/correction licencing their core technology on an entire type/class of instrument.  I strongly suspect that they might consider licensinging the technology. But I also suspect that the cost woud be signficant and not someting that a small community of enthusisests would be likely to pick up.

I asked about that in 2019 and they were absolutely not interested!  The key here is that (Dr.) Andy (Hildebrand) did all the programming himself on his computer.  Antares does not even have a copy of the ATG code since he left.

[cags12]

I asked about that in 2019 and they were absolutely not interested!  The key here is that (Dr.) Andy (Hildebrand) did all the programming himself on his computer.  Antares does not even have a copy of the ATG code since he left.

Has anyone tried to reach out to Dr. Andy Hildebrand? Not to task to work on ATG (he is obviously retired) but to facilitate handover and continuity of the technology. It would be a real shame if this piece of technologies just disappears in some folder in some HDD in some Computer.

[admin]

Has anyone tried to reach out to Dr. Andy Hildebrand? Not to task to work on ATG (he is obviously retired) but to facilitate handover and continuity of the technology. It would be a real shame if this piece of technologies just disappears in some folder in some HDD in some Computer.

.he's retired in Puerto Rico , and his wife handles all his email - zero interest in pursuing ATG again, and bulk of the algorithms for ATG autotuning are  same as vocal autotuning and  are now owned by the current owners of Antares who have zero interest in guitar.

Frankly the Auto tuning was not my main interest, instead  the warble free DSP Alternate Tunings and Guitar modeling were my focus (which were considered afterthoughts by Dr Andy)  but the core Antares AutoTune algorithms were the main program structure, and that is protected IP , owned by current owners of Antares