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Klark Teknik Standardises on Stardraw "No-one else can offer the power of drawing and design with the flexibility of system control in the same package. Stardraw is unique." -David Webster, marketing director, Klark Teknik Group If your business, be it audio, video, lighting, or indeed anything else in between, requires PC control for any of your systems or individual units, then Stardraw should be a familiar name to you. However, you could be forgiven if it is not. The company has been through a few metamorphoses to become what it is today. The essence is this: Stardraw is a software company, pure and simple. Their talent, passion and expertise is dedicated to one thing — software. So what does Stardraw do, and how can it be of use to you? The company's mission statement states its purpose as, "The design, development and implementation of Internet-enabled software components and sales-design tools for specific vertical markets." In other words, software tailored to your specific requirements yet fully customisable for any other product or system that chooses to run on the same platform. Perhaps the best way to illustrate Stardraw's true capabilities is to take a specific example in this case, the Klark Teknik Group. The Klark Teknik Group's marketing director, David Webster, takes up the tale: "Some years ago KT launched a loudspeaker processor, and initially we were doing what everyone else was doing, which was trying to write PC-control software for that one product. It was enough of a headache trying to get that right, let alone worrying about whether it would be compatible with other products. However, it didn't take us long to realise that our clients required remote control for their entire system, not just one product within it. Once this became part of the specification, we realised that we had possibly bitten off a little more than we could chew!" Stardraw MD and self-confessed software addict David Snipp affirms, "It's very easy to write software that looks good, but to actually make it work and communicate as it should is far more difficult than most people anticipate." David Webster agrees, "No kidding! And we found out the hard way! But the truth is that more and more products require a central automation system rather than separate control of individual units in order to function efficiently, and it makes sense to do it that way. We started off by trying to write software for just one, albeit complex, unit, but that was proving to be a nightmare. We then thought about trying to create an environment where all of our own products would talk to each other, which seemed an obvious step. But even then, the realisation was slowly dawning that what we - and everyone else - really needed was an environment that could handle not just different products from one manufacturer, but different products from ANY manufacturer. That way clients would be able to design, build and run complete systems on one single platform using just one piece of software. The solution we finally arrived at, Stardraw for Klark Teknik, does exactly that, but getting there was a painful process! However, we had realised by this stage that we were way out of our depth and professional help was needed, so we turned to David Snipp." David Snipp is a consummate software professional. He started his career developing the first 3D lighting control system that could run on Windows v1.0 for TASCO, a sound and lighting rental company that happened to be run by Bob Doyle, now MD for the Klark Teknik Group. From there he went on to hone his software skills in the US, first with IBM and then Microsoft. At Microsoft he became an architect on Windows NT leading a team of engineers writing the version that was subsequently used on all versions of Windows. David returned to the UK in 1994 having bought a lighting company, and thus nearly a decade later he ran into his former colleague, Bob Doyle, at a trade show. "I was having a problem at the time," recalled Bob. "Our very first two XL4s had been sold to the Far East, against my advice. I mean, the very last place you want to send your first two models of the largest and most complex mixing console you have ever manufactured is the other side of the world, right? These consoles were opening in a major city for a four-year run of Beauty and the Beast and guess what — they didn't work! The software had been developed by a third party engineer but it didn't provide the functionality required for this particular show which, naturally, wasn't discovered until they got there. Anyway, when I saw David at Live! '95, I pounced on him and wouldn't let him go until he'd agreed to get on a plane and go fix this problem!" Suffice it to say that within twenty-four hours, David Snipp found himself on the other side of the world clutching a Midas XL4 manual and the last viable EPROM in existence with just three days to fix all the bugs and get both consoles working. "I could only work at night as technical rehearsals were going on during the day, and what's more I couldn't let on to a soul what I was really up to, or we'd have had anarchy on our hands! But we did it - the show opened on time and ran like clockwork, and no-one suspected a thing!" Back in the UK, David decided to focus solely on the software side of his business, namely Stardraw, running it as a company under its own name. "The first big deal we did was with Shuttlesound who had developed their own drawing and design package called ShuttleCAD," reports David. "The problem was that it was DOS-based, and they needed it to run on a Windows platform. What I did in the end formed the basis of what Stardraw offers today: I customised our program, Stardraw, for Shuttlesound to incorporate their requirements, and it became ShuttleCAD 4 for Windows." Meanwhile, the Klark Teknik Group, having successfully launched the Midas XL4 to become the worlds most desirable live music production console, were now experiencing problems with a new loudspeaker processor from KT designed to run via PC control. Bob Doyle recalls, "We had this great new product due to go out on a major tour, and again we just couldn't get the software to work. The goalposts were shifting all the time and we couldn't keep up with the clients' requirements. So again we called in David Snipp at the eleventh hour to help us out, but the problems were too fundamental and eventually we had to admit defeat. The product simply wasn't good enough to release under the name of KT, and consequently we were not able to deliver what we'd promised. It was not our finest hour." Bob continued, "At that point we realised that our approach just wasn't working. We discussed it with Stardraw who felt they had a solution, and having been through the agony once, we sure as hell didn't want to go through it again, so we were all ears! But we were actually starting to come to the same conclusions ourselves, so it all made sense." David Webster agreed. "We were already familiar with Stardraw which is a highly sophisticated drawing and design package, now with over 20,000 symbols from 145 manufacturers, so we thought it must be a relatively small step to take all of this data and create the ultimate control environment for total system integration. The possibilities were enormous." And that is precisely how Stardraw for Klark Teknik came into being. David Snipp and his team of engineers were able to customise Stardraw to suit Klark Teknik's specific requirements. Clearly this was a much cheaper and quicker option than writing new software from scratch, which is what KT would have been forced to do if they had tackled the job themselves, but also the advantages to the end user are far greater because the software is not purely limited to KT product. "I have to say that KT were total pioneers in this respect," states David Snipp. "It was a very forward-thinking and brave move on their part to welcome other manufacturers on board and actively encourage them to let us have their drawings to include in our library. Not only did it reduce costs, but also increased the appeal and longevity of the Stardraw product. What they now have with Stardraw for Klark Teknik is the possibility to design and run a complete audio system using one PC and one piece of software. Basically it offers complete flexibility, and we can offer the same, tailor-made service to any manufacturer for any system." Indeed, the potential offered by complete integration is vast. Scene changes can be made globally via a PC rather than having to make them on the individual machine. You can cut and paste from one system into another and post system designs on the web. Changes may be made offline and saved onto disk to be uploaded as appropriate — ideal for multi-purpose fixed installations which may be hosting anything from a rock and roll show to a car launch or on the run as would be required for a theatre show. And of course it all happens from just one PC. Quite simply, no-one else can offer the power of the drawing and design element with the flexibility of system control in the same package. Stardraw is unique. David Snipp sums up: "It doesn't matter how well a company knows its own product and own market, when it comes to writing software, the difficulty is that most companies just aren't set up to do it if it's not their core business. It turns out to be a costly exercise in terms of time, money and grief, often with an unsatisfactory and cumbersome product at the end of it all. But this is where we can help. We offer a fixed cost for an absolute deliverable, because our starting point is a package that is almost infinitely customisable. We can guarantee that our solution will be far quicker, cheaper and more effective in the long-term given that the cost is not just for the finished product, but for long-term support and the benefit of our experience. It really is a unique service to manufacturers, far more than just a product." Bob Doyle agrees. "As far as we're concerned, David Snipp and the product he has created for us is like the equivalent of an American Express card — you should never leave home without it!" Notes to Editor Since 1995 Stardraw.com has been a leading provider of software solutions to the entertainment technology sector, offering a range of award-winning system design, documentation and control applications as well as providing OEM software solutions for corporate customers. With offices in London and New York, regional partners and an installed customer base of almost 30,000 users spanning 82 countries, Stardraw.com is focussed on serving the international marketplace, and delivers leading-edge solutions that exploit the very latest in software technologies.
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