July 15, 2021 marks the end of an era for Brainworx and their iconic studio & office building in Germany (see pics below). As documented by the international media, Germany got hit with the hardest rainfalls and flooding ever, that left hundreds of people dead and whole cities washed away by the rain and the resulting floods. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families and friends, of course.
While none of the Brainworx team was hurt or physically harmed, the company building will be unusable for months to come, as it is located in one of the areas that got hit the hardest. In fact, BX may have to move and find a new home asap to rebuild their offices and studios.
The iconic BX main studio was completely destroyed in this disaster, and only a few pieces of outboard gear have survived the flooding. The water was standing in the whole building about 2ft (60cm) deep for many hours. The iconic NEVE VXS 72 console (one of only 9 ever made) was damaged badly and had to be sold and removed from the location asap because of mold formation that started in the building after only 48 hours. The big PMC MB2-XBD main speakers were destroyed as well as a rare power amp by German legend Dieter Burmester (RIP). A lot of the racked 19” gear was damaged. Only equipment that was sitting on desks or in the higher slots of the 19” racks survived.
The same goes for some of the local development servers, used by a growing team of DSP developers. Luckily enough all the data was saved and mirrored, so as far as data is concerned… the show can go on.
The building itself is owned by Dirk Ulrich, who rents out the building to the Brainworx Audio GmbH company, which is run by CEO Winfried Schapitz.
(full disclosure: Dirk owns Brainworx & Plugin Alliance, but he is not the CEO for BX anymore)
Both, Dirk and Brainworx had only partial insurance for the building and/or the equipment, but a flooding disaster wasn’t part of the existing policies, as the BX office wasn’t in a known flooding risk area. This leaves Dirk with the financial damage of the renovation of the current BX building and/or the task to buy a new office building, and Brainworx Audio GmbH with the financial damage of the audio and computer equipment that needs to be replaced - plus the task to build new professional studios and workspaces in a new office/studio location asap.
Brainworx and Dirk stay positive during these challenging times, and the BX team did an amazing job of helping to save as much of the analog equipment and reduce the damage as best as they could, working around the clock and 7 days a week. The plan for BX is to use this unfortunate event as a chance to build the 2.0 bx_studio of the future, and lead the company into the next decade of evolution and continued success, after having spent almost exactly 10 years in the now-destroyed building.
Want to help?
Dirk has posted publicly on social media on July 18 and kindly rejected the spontaneous proposal made by some customers and BX fans to donate for him personally or for BX. That was before the full extent of the damage - and the lack of insurance coverage for the damage - was known to him or BX. While Dirk is still determined to cover his personal loss privately without accepting donations to him privately, BX has decided to run some short-term sales to help minimize the financial damage, and to help get the team back to work in a professional surrounding as soon as humanly possible.
Plugin Alliance will forward 100% of the proceeds of the “Support BX Sales” to Brainworx in Germany. Some of BX's partners have already reached out announced they would support this campaign as well, so stay tuned please.
How exactly can you help?
While the BX team doesn't want to ask for "donations", you can certainly support BX by buying some cool BX plugins, or some of their merchandise. Any financial support helps in times like these, and Dirk and the BX team would be relieved to see some strong sales in the near future to help with the rebuilding of the BX space in Germany, which currently leaves almost 60 employees without an actual work space.
Thank you for your attention and support!
