Sound Control + Turnkey go into administration...

[John Willett]

Another question...........

Music Live

Isn't this a Sound Control Show?

Will it happen?

[SMOKYB3]

Yago,

Nice pic. eh?

Thanks for your concern but I never say or write anything anonymously. You either agree or disagree.

saye

Sorry. missed out helped on that post...hope it makes sense now?

Oh well, if everyone on here is convinced it's a sad day for the music industry then I guess it must be!

[Parker Fly]

Put it this way, when a Sound Control director told me last year how much stuff went "missing" every month via staff I was staggered!

There was a shortfall of £1m, but that was based upon the ordering system and the fact that special orders were not correctly attributed to their relevant client accounts.

There will always be theft, in any business, but to attribute this to a company as a whole is both disrespectful and extremely unwise given the litigious nature of said comment.

[Studio Support Gnome]

As for the young kids of the last few years? Put it this way, when a Sound Control director told me last year how much stuff went "missing" every month via staff I was staggered! They will pick up jobs np problem!

This is just ignorant, untrue and possibly slanderous. These are decent hard working people who are now looking for work. Please show some respect for their situation.

that's a rather naive position....

ALL retail operations suffer some loss to internal theft.... and the bigger the operation, the harder it is to tie down ....

I've been there, done that..... as manager , and as owner of MI retail operations... it adds up very quickly....

My Wife is now a manager at a Wilkinson's store... (one of several hundred stores... they're rather larger than SC were ) they're currently spending MILLIONS on internal security across the company to try and reduce the problem... hidden cameras , randomised (by automated selection process) full searches on exit , and all sorts of other measures... they mentioned a budget of 5.5 million on these security measures... reckoning if they managed to cut the loss rate by just 20% they'll make it all back in under 6 months.

in an MI retail store of 10 people on staff... if each one pockets just a plectrum a day... accidentally or otherwise... over an operation of 25 stores that's £39,000 a year in lost revenue.

lest say 2 in ten are less than entirely scruple free, and have a set of strings every couple of weeks.... that's another 10 grand.... 50 grand a year for just those..... then there's the odd patch cord, maybe a mic lead, a couple of jack plugs , a few drum skins.... the odd pedal battery, bridge pin, and so on... just based on that model , it could easily be more than £100K per year...

..... now then, that's for 250 staff in total.... SC had rather more....

and by some standards, THAT model was actually rather light weight and an example of someone doing reasonably well in this respect... i've known cases where staff have been known to have (but not proven at the time) walked off with entire bloody instruments....

usually the "excuse" is that the pay is so piss poor they make it up by having "perks"

i'm not implying the majority of staff at SC were especially dishonest , but there will always be SOME who aren't angels... and only a very few would really go for the big stuff (they're usually the stupid ones and get caught very quickly) but internal losses happen everywhere... it's a reality and to deny it is simply sticking a head in a bucket of sand.

I do however feel for those who've just been dumped on their asses, and those likely to be in about 90 days....

i was rather fortunate , in that when a former (MI Retail) employer went under, with Bailiffs turning up at each store... I had already left and gone freelance.... and was just helping out part time, as required... (at my own hourly rate.,.. not theirs.... ) But I had some PA stuff in storage at one store.... and I had the devils own time getting it back... proving it was MINE and not the company's ... and many friends lost their jobs, and a lot more besides.....

Shortly afterwards we opened our own store... 5 doors down from the old one..... with the majority of the staff from the old place..... I sold up in about 2000 , to concentrate on live and studio engineering, and raising 5 kids as a single parent;... running the shop as well as the studio and pa hire stuff was too much to cope with after I became a single dad...

[Yago]

Well , go for it Smokey , pyromania ftw , not what I would choose .
It is a sad day , the staff at the Man city branch were always cool to me , especially Graig , who sourced my A7's at a very nice price .
As I said before , we seem to get stiffed on price with audio equipment in UK , and I can only see this making things worse .

[Parker Fly]

last I heard, the outstanding Yamaha balance was in excess of 5 million... and i've heard indications that the Roland one was of similar magnitude...

You're not far off, but I think the figure will probably rise further as there is still a considerable amount of Roland/Yamaha stock still in the 26 stores.

Without prejudice, there is approximately £250k of stock in the Birmingham store alone, all of which belongs to the relevant supplier, and I would expect the larger suppliers to attempt forced lien to recover that stock.

[Parker Fly]

i've known cases where staff have been known to have (but not proven at the time) walked off with entire bloody instruments....

usually the "excuse" is that the pay is so piss poor they make it up by having "perks"

i'm not implying the majority of staff at SC were especially dishonest , but there will always be SOME who aren't angels... and only a very few would really go for the big stuff (they're usually the stupid ones and get caught very quickly) but internal losses happen everywhere... it's a reality and to deny it is simply sticking a head in a bucket of sand.

Nobody would deny that this happens, however, I would not be so bold to openly state this to be the case unless I was in full receipt of the facts.

[Studio Support Gnome]

PF my understanding on the Yamaha figure is that approximately £5.5m was outstanding on the account, if they manage to recover some unsold stock then that balance will reduce..... but not by all that much in relative terms....

I may not work in the retail sector any more.... But i still have fingers in pies.

There's whole heaps of ramifications to the likely state of the UK MI retail market in the near future.. I'm supposed to be doing some work right now... so I'll hold off a 10 page epic for now.....

[SMOKYB3]

Max

Good post.

To quote the director "They never seem to buy guitar strings which sesms strange when we employ so many guitarists".
I'm sorry if the earlier post upset some but I know it was of great concern and was not a minor problem.

I always liked Pat & Ray, we had some good times together. But I have to say in very recent years Pat was, well I think the article quoted earlier from MI Pro say's it all. Ray in my humble opinion is still a top man!

[Studio Support Gnome]

[
Nobody would deny that this happens,

I think you'll find Saye did exactly that.....

I'm fully conversant with the reality ....

[Parker Fly]

PF my understanding on the Yamaha figure is that approximately £5.5m was outstanding on the account, if they manage to recover some unsold stock then that balance will reduce..... but not by all that much in relative terms....

Hence I said you weren't far off; even for Yamaha and Roland UK this will have a serious effect on their position.

[Parker Fly]

[
Nobody would deny that this happens,

I think you'll find Saye did exactly that.....

I'm fully conversant with the reality ....

My mistake, I thought you had post to the contrary.

[SMOKYB3]

Yago,

You may well feel that you are "getting stuffed" on UK prices, but it sure isn't from retailers. Margins are far, far lower than in the US for instance.

[SMOKYB3]

It's too early to speculate on suppliers losses. Most will have Retention of Title on all the unsold stock. Of course some may have supplied substantial loan stock which may have already been sold and of course some suppliers have put a small fortune shopfitting the stores for Sound Control. I really hope that not too many customers paid in advance or made cash deposits for unfullfilled orders.

[Guest]

At Digital Village we are saddened to hear that many of our music industry colleagues have been made redundant.

If you have been made redundant from Turnkey or Sound Control and either live or are prepared to move to the London area, please e-mail jobs@digitalvillage.co.uk as we are currently recruiting.

Jeremy Lumsden
Digital Village

http://www.dv247.com/

[MitchT]

I just found about about this and I'm quite shocked and saddened. Most of the gear I've bought during the last few years was from Turnkey (because of their competitive prices) and Sound Control (because of the very convenient location of their Leeds City store within walking distance of the station). While neither company was 'perfect' I was always pleased with the deals that TK had to offer and by the friendly and enthusiastic staff that I met at SC. I was looking forward to doing more business with both companies.

My feelings go out to those staff who are now without employment and those who will spend the next 12 weeks wondering what will happen to their jobs. The problem with some companies is that they get too big because they are run by people who are purely in it for business and money and have no passion for the thing that the business is about. Maybe a group of SC and TK staff could get together, acquire one of the former SC/TK sites, and create a music gear business which is directed by people who are passionate about what they are selling rather than merely what is going into the till. I'm sure between them they will have experience of running a store, dealing with manufacturers/suppliers, etc. If they stayed small and focused on the most important things - music, musicians and gear - they could make a real success of it. It's just a thought.

I really hope that not too many customers paid in advance or made cash deposits for unfullfilled orders.

Interesting point. I enquired a few months ago with my local Sound Control about the Arturia V Collection and was told there were none in stock and that I'd have to pay up front in full for them to order one as they didn't want to be left with a piece of superfluous stock if I changed my mind. I declined on the grounds that the last item I'd ordered from them had taken ages to arrive and, while I understood their point, I also felt that I should have the right to go elsewhere if they couldn't deliver within a reasonable timeframe. Once bitten, and all that! Obviously this would be a difficult right to exercise if I'd already paid them in full and had to extract my money from them in the event of the order not being filled within a reasonable time... so I hope there aren't too many 'unsecured creditors' out there.

[Steve Hill]

At no-one special...

It's really unhelpful to start speculating about how this minor ripple in a tiny teacup might "damage" the likes of Yamaha or Roland or whoever, possibly damaging forum members' confidence in those companies.

Sound Control was a small company which went under with debts of maybe £30 million (mostly owed to the bank), or the price of a decent house in Mayfair.

Yamaha is a Fortune 500 global company. They could probably swallow ALL of Sound Control's total liabilities to everyone out of a week's profits and not notice.

There may (or may not... I'm not willing to join in the speculation-fest) be a bit more pain at say the UK distributor level, but I'd be surprised if a company like Yamaha did not see a lot of upside in supporting their trading partners in a situation like this.

Roland posted record turnover (Y95 billion) and record profits in 2007. It has assets of US$789 million.

Let's try to stay grounded in reality, shall we?

[Studio Support Gnome]

Steve, many UK distribution operations, are independent of their relevant main corporation... and it's THEY that will bear any losses, NOT the "parent" corporation ....

in such a case, if there were uninsured losses . then it's the UK operation that suffers, because the global corp won't "let them off" the costs of the stock supplied....

Several UK MI distribution companies in the past have folded in similar circumstances... not necessarily instantly immediately after the collapse of a single large retailer, but the retail collapses definitely contributed to the end result... had they not happened, there would have been no real problem for the distributors...

[Steve Hill]

Max, I know that. And I'm saying ill-informed idle speculation founded on no facts whatsoever can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I saw a major UK PLC construction company forced into (unwarranted) insolvency because they were (wrongly) assumed to have lost a lot of money when Canary Wharf went bust. And many similar cases. Careless talk costs livelihoods.

[hollowsun]

I'm saying ill-informed idle speculation founded on no facts whatsoever can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Agreed. Unsubstantiated internet forum wibble, speculation, rumours and Chinese whispers can be EXTREMELY damaging to manufacturers and/or distributors in this small business of ours ... I can vouch for that.

It spreads like wildfire from forum to forum like a rash getting exaggerated almost exponentially such that it wouldn't surprise me if we don't soon see a forum thread headline somewhere soon of "Sell your Motifs - Yamaha bankrupt!!!" on the basis of what's been discussed here

My every sympathy to all who have been left so suddenly unemployed by this. I've been in the same situation myself and can totally empathise with the anguish and other emotions you must be feeling. Good luck and my very best wishes to you all and to your families who are also caught up in this.

Steve

[leeoversby]

i used to work in the man city store... feel shat on, i found out whilst lay in bed on my day off!!! Hope all the staff find bigger and better things! much love to all!

[Agamemnon]

I'm saying ill-informed idle speculation founded on no facts whatsoever can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Agreed. Unsubstantiated internet forum wibble, speculation, rumours and Chinese whispers can be EXTREMELY damaging to manufacturers and/or distributors in this small business of ours ... I can vouch for that.

It spreads like wildfire from forum to forum like a rash getting exaggerated almost exponentially such that it wouldn't surprise me if we don't soon see a forum thread headline somewhere soon of "Sell your Motifs - Yamaha bankrupt!!!" on the basis of what's been discussed here

Steve

Agreed, and therefore doesn't it also follow that the generally bad reputation that(e.g.)Turnkey had on this forum, and others, may have contributed to their downfall?

Whether the reputation is deserved or not, can retailers, manufacturers etc continue to largely ignore sustained criticism on this, and other forums? I cannot recall seeing an 'effective' response from Turnkey to any criticism. I, for one, have avoided purchasing from Turnkey in the past, probably based on what I have read on this and other forums, and despite personally having only one minor bad experience, .

Whereas, if I had a problem with a Sennheiser product, I feel confident that a criticism posted here would solicit a helpful, constuctive response.

[Steve Hill]

I'd say you can't ignore repeated requests for customer service. And maybe centralising all decision-making in Dunfermline when most of your customers are on the Charing Cross Road is also questionable.

But as long as customers insist on paying internet prices whilst "someone" funds a shop with knowledgeable helpful staff for them to try thing out in, something has to give, doesn't it?

[John Willett]

But as long as customers insist on paying internet prices whilst "someone" funds a shop with knowledgeable helpful staff for them to try thing out in, something has to give, doesn't it?

And that's the crux of the matter.

[Ian Stewart]

At no-one special...

It's really unhelpful to start speculating about how this minor ripple in a tiny teacup might "damage" the likes of Yamaha or Roland or whoever, possibly damaging forum members' confidence in those companies.

.................

Let's try to stay grounded in reality, shall we?

Exactly. As a fan of Seth Godin, and as referred to in another post, the web, particularly forums such as this one, means we are now all critics. One post by one of us can get more attention than an article in an obscure music or finance magazine. Particularly with Google, where throw away comments can come top of a search. With this freedom and open platform for our opinions, comes responsibility.
Rightly or wrongly I pay more attention to what SH, JW, HRJ and PW say because the use their reals names, so they are implicitly committed to their post. They are admittedly expressing opinions but the implication is they are committed to those opinions.