Type Private Headquarters Beijing, China | Founded 1993 Key people unknown | |
Industry Specialty Manufacturing and Distribution: Musical Instruments Products Musical instruments, Recording equipment and accessories | ||
CME is the registered trademark of Central Music Company, a musical high-tech company founded in Beijing, China in 1993. Its main focus is consumer and professional digital music production equipment.
Contents
History
Central Music Company imports and distributes into the Chinese music production market many of the world’s most well known music production brands including Apogee, E-Mu, Event, Kurzweil, Moog, MOTU, Novation, PreSonus, RME, and Røde (among others). CME was also the distributor for Yamaha music production products in China, until April 1, 2005 when Yamaha founded its own Chinese subsidiary. After this, CME began researching both the Chinese and overseas markets and started developing its own products. These products are now sold worldwide under the CME brand name.
Products
CME is known primarily for its MIDI keyboard controllers. Their UF series MIDI keyboards were particularly ubiquitous in professional music creation circles in the early-to-mid 2000's, seen in demo videos of virtual instruments such as Propellerheads Reason and Arturia. It appealed to professionals and amateur musicians alike for its unique design, rugged solid-metal chassis, keyboard action, and MIDI control capabilities. The hammer-action of the keys on the 88-key UF8 keyboard were particularly popular. CME has branched out from only making MIDI keyboard controllers and also has made: