Peavey Electronics - Mississippi`s Creative Economy

Peavey Electronics
Taking Rock N’ Roll Global
Peavey Electronics, Meridian, MS
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mississippi’s creative economy
Few people have influenced the music industry like Hartley Peavey. His company, Peavey Electronics, is a leading
manufacturer of electronic instruments and amplifications
systems. The Peavey guitar client list reads like a major
record label, with top artists like Shania Twain and Duran
Duran. Peavey systems can be heard at the Sydney Opera
House, the Grand Ole Opry, and many other international
cultural institutions.
You might expect a music industry giant like Peavey to come
from a big music city like Los Angeles, Nashville, or New York. But for this global leader, home is Meridian, Mississippi, the
city that actually gave birth to Peavey’s rock and roll dreams.
It was a 1957 concert that altered his life. Only 15 years old
at the time, Hartley Peavey drove to the nearby town of Laurel to hear the great Bo Diddley. Then and there something
changed in young Peavey, and he believed he was destined
for rock and roll greatness.
The sound of Bo Diddley’s legendary guitar awoke this new
passion, and Peavey felt his calling was to play the electric
guitar as well as the man who inspired him. As it turns out,
the aspiring musician was partly right.
At the time Peavey’s father owned a small music store in
Meridian and was wary of his son’s rock and roll dreams. It
wasn’t so much that the elder Peavey disliked rock and roll
music as it was that he had seen too many electric guitars
returned to his store by parents whose children had quickly
abandoned their rock and roll dreams. The elder Peavey
Hartley Peavey, Founder of Peavey Electronics
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Red Hots & Deep Blues
tried to make a deal with his son. He could get an electric
guitar as soon as he actually learned how to play the guitar.
Hartley gave it his best, but his talents fell far short of his
father’s hopes.
Since his father would not be of assistance, Peavey knew the
only option was to make his own electric guitar, and he set
about crafting one with steel strings, a spare acoustic guitar,
and some electrical wiring. Once the guitar was assembled,
Peavey had to find a way to amplify the sound and get the
same volume and quality that Bo Diddley was able to get.
Using the same ingenuity that he used to make the guitar,
Peavey went about the task of designing and making an amplifier. After weeks of experimentation, Peavey’s homemade
amplifier became a reality.
Although he did not realize it at the time, this was the beginning of Peavey Electronics’ success in the music industry. In
spite of giving up his dream of performing, Peavey would
help revolutionize the guitar industry and the sound of amplified and electric music. Peavey Electronics began in 1965
as one man’s attempt to create the highest quality product
at an affordable price. In the basement of his family home,
Peavey focused most intensively on the amplifiers. He
“would build one amplifier a week, go out and sell it, come
back and start on another one.”
Peavey Electronics has continued to grow since its early days
through an ongoing commitment to innovation, to creating
new, cost effective systems that serve the needs of an evolving recording industry.
In addition to the music industry, Peavey identified new
industries where technology would be relevant. He realized
that despite strong competition for music amplifiers, there
were only a few high-priced products for public address
systems that were growing in popularity. Peavey decided
that his music amplifiers could be altered into a more affordable public address system. This decision marked a major
development in Peavey Electronics, and it built upon its
core competencies in making music amplifiers to meet the
growing need for audio services in entertainment and other
industries.
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mississippi’s creative economy
Peavey’s Impact
Today Peavey Electronics is an indisputable giant in the
industry. The company continues to produce some of the
most popular electric guitars, amplifiers, speakers, electronic
keyboards, and other electronic audio-enhancement equipment. The company’s product lines include several series of
bass guitars, a number of different electric guitars, as well as
microphones, mixers, public address systems, and amplifiers. It also produces accessories, such as cables, bags, straps,
tubers, and speaker stands.
The company’s impact and influence on the music and sound
system industry is extraordinary. Peavey Electronics was
the first to produce guitars using a Computer Numerically
Controlled (CNC) machine. Other people thought he was
crazy, that he couldn’t “machine” a guitar and get the right
precision and tolerances. At that time the main competitors,
Gibson and Fender, were making guitars strictly by hand.
Nonetheless, using CNC equipment cut down on the costs of
making the guitars while maintaining the precision needed
to make a good quality product. Now, electric guitars are essentially made this way. Peavey set the industry standard.
The company’s MediaMatrix system was the first computeraided designed and controlled audio system, and it has set
the world standard for audio sound. The system is in use
in more than 5,000 transportation facilities, theme parks,
sports stadiums, and casinos. Peavey sound systems have
been incorporated into the new Shanghai airport and were
the primary system used in the Beijing Olympics. Peavey
also has a new product line of software and others are in
the pipeline. One program allows the consumer to imitate a
range of different sounds that creates a virtual band.
More than 2000 Peavey products now are distributed in 136
countries. And, in order to more effectively compete in the
global market, Peavey Electronics has established an international production and distribution system in 33 facilities
across the United States, Canada, England, and Netherlands.
Throughout this period of explosive international growth,
Peavey Electronics continues to maintain its international
headquarters in Meridian. Peavey Electronics is the tenth
largest manufacturer in Mississippi, with more than a million
square feet of warehouse and manufacturing space. mCe
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Peavey’s Creative Approach
Peavey has more than 180 patents for the design of musical
instruments, audio systems and enabling technologies that
give these systems such a unique sound. This level of innovation is a result of the process he uses to conceive of and
design his products and the way the company approaches
the market.
As Peavey said, “We listen to our customers and what they
want and need, and then we find creative ways to meet
those needs in a timely fashion and at a price that they can
afford. In order to survive in this industry, this is what you
have to do. You have to build a solid foundation that gives
you flexibility and an ability to be creative. If you don’t have
that, nothing else matters.”
Hartley surrounds himself with the best people he can find. He provides the spark and serves as the inspiration. He then
brings in industrial engineers, product designers, software
people, programmers, as well as mechanical and electrical
engineers into the discussion. “They all argue about the designs, the electronics, the systems for building a product, and
at some point, it all becomes clear. Basically, we come up
with the products by talking it through, pushing the envelope
and by trying to be as creative as we can.”
An example of how this creative process comes together
involves the dobro. Most dobros are acoustic, but Hartley
thought that, like the guitar, the dobro could be an electronic
instrument. He initially started on the idea of designing an
electric dobro on his own, sketching out his design concepts
Hartley Peavey showcases his products
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mississippi’s creative economy
and principles and trying to figure out how the straps could
be configured so that the player could wear it over his neck
(the way dobros are played). At a certain juncture, the process was turned over to his designers and engineers. They
took the initial work and transformed it by adding a few key
designs and structural improvements. The result was yet another product line in the long list of Peavey musical products.
Another important business strategy for Peavey is vertical
integration. The company designs and makes all it needs to
manufacture and sell products in-house. Hartley said that
he could have outsourced the production of some of the
component parts of his amplifiers, but chose to develop the
skills within the company. As a result, “we had to learn how
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Given the origins of Peavey Electronics, Hartley Peavey
knows the power that an early love of art and music can
have in shaping a child’s future. And he believes in Mississippi. “People ask me why Mississippi and I say, where do
you think rock and roll was born?”
to design and make our own chassis, our own circuit boards,
and eventually everything else in-house. And, while we
thought it was a tremendous disadvantage… we discovered
that it was the best that could have happened.”
The Future
In recent years Peavey has talked of challenges he faces running a design and technology-driven business in the heart of
Mississippi.
While Peavey would like to keep the company headquarters
and manufacturing in Meridian, he is often forced to look
outside of Mississippi to find qualified and motivated engineers, product designers, and computer programmers. Just
as he demonstrated industriousness in the face of previous
business challenges, Peavey has applied his own creative
solutions to help build relevant skills among Meridian’s residents. In order to have enough skilled employees, Peavey
helped establish a job training program at Meridian
Community College.
Despite his unwavering commitment to improving economic
conditions in Mississippi and Meridian, Peavey feels that others in this industry will have to help the state create more of
a culture of educational investment. He points in particular
to state policy makers whom Peavey suggests must aggressively invest in high-level job training programs and skill
development.
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