Interview with Marco Alpert, Antares DesignBox Marco - who are you and what do you do at Antares? Marco Alpert I'm the Vice President of Marketing here at Antares. I'm primarily responsible for articulating Antares' corporate positioning as well as brand management and product planning. I'm also responsible for managing our hardware products' industrial design and the graphical and functional design of our software products' user interfaces. Design Box What does Antares do in general / what is the company's focus? Marco Alpert Antares is America's leading developer of audio DSP technology focusing on vocal processing tools. Our flagship product, Auto-Tune, is the world's single largest-selling audio plug-in and is a world-standard tool for vocal pitch correction in the professional recording industry. Design Box Auto-Tune - what is it and where can I experience it? Marco Alpert Auto-Tune corrects intonation problems in vocals or solo instruments, in real time, without distortion or artifacts, while preserving all of the expressive nuance of the original performance. Auto-Tune is used daily by thousands of audio professionals around the world to save studio and editing time, ease the frustration of endless retakes, to save an otherwise once-in-a-lifetime performance, or to create striking special effects. More detailed information about Auto-Tune, along with the opportunity to download a fully functional demo version, can be found at the Antares web site: www.antarestech.com. Design Box How come that you are using Design Box for the design of your products (rather then a graphic design company located close to you)? Marco Alpert When I first became aware of Design Box back in 1997, I was working at another company that did all its industrial design in-house. However, I was so impressed by Design Box's work that I really wanted the chance to work with them. When I joined Antares, I realized it would be the perfect opportunity. I was looking for a sophisticated but playful graphic language for the company along with a sensitivity to clarity and ease of use in our product interfaces. Knowing Design Box's work and their experience with electronic musical instrument interface design, I was confident that they could give us what we needed. Since then, Design Box has been responsible for all of our hardware and software interfaces, as well as being an integral part of our recent corporate graphic language redesign. Overall, Design Box has shown that they can consistently provide unique creative solutions to our interface challenges. They are a delight to work with (and it doesn't hurt that they are cost-effective to boot). Design Box Marco, we thank you for this interview - and look forward to future adventures.