Recording - Demo - 12

Mackie Celebrates 20 Years In Business Mackie is a name that’s known to virtually everyone in the world of pro audio, home recording, live sound, and computer audio—its products are everywhere, gracing studios large and small, home recording setups, touring rigs, and venues around the world. In 2009 Mackie will be celebrating its 20th year, and in this month’s Fast Forward we’re happy to give Mackie a historical shout-out for your enjoyment. Greg Mackie, designer of the famously rugged TAPCO mixers of the 1970s, launched Mackie (originally Mackie Design) in 1989 with his first product, the LM1602 Line Mixer, which was quickly followed by the CR-1604, a rackmountable full-featured 16-channel 4-bus console whose impact on the world of home recording at that time probably couldn’t be overstated. Mackie mixers were everywhere, used by everyone, and users quickly learned to deal with certain design quirks (faders with detents halfway up what’s up with that?!) in exchange for the 1604’s solid build and equally solid sound. Mackie still sells the great-grandkids of the original CR-1604, the 1604-VLZ3 and 1642-VLZ3, and pretty much every other affordable mixer out there can point to the original 1604 as an influence. (Check out our photo from the 2007 NAMM show depicting the evolution of the 1604!) The 1604 wasn’t the only device that Mackie introduced that essentially wrote its own chapter in the history books. Also in the world of mixers, Mackie’s 1202 has become a byword for portable desktop submixing, to the point where you hear people referring to any small mixer as a “twelve-oh-two.” The Human User Interface (HUI) not only was the first generically assignable control surface for a DAW—in this case, Pro Tools—but its control language is still used today as a standardized protocol for control surfaces to talk to Digidesign software. “It does HUI mode if you need it to.” The SRM450 pretty much defined the idea of a self-contained active PA loudspeaker, and it was only discontinued in favor of an upgraded version last year. Not all of Mackie’s products were successes at that level—the Digital 8•Bus and HDR Series of hard-disk recorders had a loyal following but didn’t rewrite the history books, for example. But any single company would be ecstatic to boast the 1604, the 1202, the HUI, or the SRM450 as part of its history, and Mackie can be proud that it’s brought us all of those genius ideas, plus many more. Here’s to the next 20 years! AES Nashville Offers Recording Workshop And Expo On February 20 and 21, 2009, the AES Nashville Section will present a 2-day Recording Workshop and Expo at the Musician’s Hall Of Fame and Museum in Nashville. Planned speakers include Jeff Balding, Russ Long, Pat McMakin, Gary Paczosa, Lynn Fuston, and keynote speaker Ricky Skaggs, and planned topics include miking, demo production, arrangement and recording for better mixes, virtual tracking, distance collaboration, beats and loops, acoustic and room treatment, a singer/songwriter round table, and more. Admissions costs: $79/$39 for AES members/student members, $99/$59 for non-members/students (early registration rates good until Jan. 23). More from: AES Nashville, www.nashvillerecordingworkshop.com. 12 RECORDING FEBRUARY 2009
http://www.nashvillerecordingworkshop.com
Recording - Demo

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