If Greg Mackie had just stopped at his 1970s company, TAPCO, his contributions to pro audio would have been worthy of a lifetime achievement award. But then, in 1988, he founded Mackie Designs, introducing the groundbreaking CR-1604 audio mixer three years later. In 1996, the company expanded beyond analog audio mixers, creating digital mixers and powered speakers. And now he’s again involved in innovation, this time with M&W Audio, partnering with former Trident Audio designer Peter Watts. “We wanted to create better products at affordable prices that fit the evolving music scene with wide dynamic ranges that fit the music of rock ‘n’ roll,” Mackie says. And that’s exactly what he did.
“Greg Mackie is a miracle worker,” states FRONT of HOUSE editor George Petersen. “About a quarter-century ago, this musician and ex-Boeing worker, who had successfully launched well-known audio brands such as TAPCO and Audio Control, founded the company the bears his name.
The Mackie CR-1604, a small, compact mixer that was affordable, sounded great and, in his own words, was “built like a tank.” It was an instant hit — everyone had to have one or more! It remains in production in its latest generation, having sold hundreds of thousands of units over the years. But there was a lot more to come, including the near-million selling Mackie SRM-450 P.A. speakers, along with 8-bus analog and digital consoles, studio monitors and more. The gear was solid, but what made the company special was the team of genius marketing crazies he assembled who added a sense of fun and humor in the otherwise dull areas of advertising and user manuals, connecting with the users in a way that no company has since even come close to approaching.”
“He’s a crazy, crazy guy,” laughs Chuck Surack, founder of Sweetwater. “Most of the time he builds stuff because he wants it. And that puts him in a position that makes it hard for other manufacturers to even compete.”
“The way I’ve always described Greg’s success is that he only designs what he has a need for — there’s nothing frivolous or gratuitous in his work,” says Scott Garside of Tectonic Audio Labs, who worked for Mackie in the 1990s. “Greg is the most normal, average guy, so if the solutions works for him, it’s going to work for a lot of people.”
The Mackie story is one of “a great team of people that believed,” says David Firestone (also of Tectonic Audio Labs) who worked at Mackie in the 1990s. “We all rallied around Greg and his brilliant obsessions with product and manufacturing. Mackie was about innovative, high quality products, offbeat marketing targeted at ‘folks’ and incredibly fortunate timing as in the case of building inexpensive digital recorders. The quality of the team that did this is prove by the huge presence of [Greg’s work] in all facets of the pro audio and M.I. world today.”
“Basically, I’m a wannabe musician, playing a little guitar, piano, and percussion well enough to understand what the market needs, so I always start from that perspective,” Mackie says. “Otherwise, it’s always a matter of looking at the competition. It’s a blast to analyze the competition and think, ‘how can I blow them out of the water?’ That’s always fun.”
Early Hooliganism
Mackie grew up in Mukilteo, WA, a small town straight north of Seattle. His mother Tally stayed home to raise him and his two older sisters, while his dad Clair worked at Sears Roebuck. Dad was also a ham radio operator, so there were plenty of extra electronic parts lying around. Mackie played drums in a very early rock ‘n’ roll cover band even before the Beatles hit the airwaves. “We didn’t have any amps back then, as they were very expensive. A double 15-inch amp back then cost over $1,000. So we had to rent amps to perform, and I was always thinking, ‘Why are they so damn expensive?’” To answer that question, he took it upon himself to disassemble those rented amps. With his dad’s electronic parts catalog in hands, he looked up the parts and their prices, doing a cost analyses (not the typical teen boy hobby). The young man then brashly determined that he could make a better product, cheaper. Meanwhile, though, the teen briefly turned to crime, but luckily for all of us, it didn’t stick. “I robbed a junior high of microphones and speakers for the band, and sure, it was not one of my finest moments,” he laughs. “Luckily,” he was caught a few days later and was put on work detail at the school. As punishment, his parents made him quit the band he was in. So he hit the workbench, taking apart Fender and Sunn amps. (Much later, as a final atonement for his brief moment of hooliganism, he donated a large P.A. system to that school.)
When he graduated from high school in 1968, he went to work for Boeing while continuing to experiment on that bench. There was a brief stint in the army, then in 1971 founded TAPCO with Martin Schneider. The name “TAPCO” is the stuff of industry legend: Originally called “Technical Audio Products” because, in his words, they wanted to sound more prestigious than they really were, they were “a couple of hippies in an old run-down house.” One day they received a box labeled Ted Nichols Auto Parts Company, and they were inspired to just use the initials, as saying “TAPCO” was easier to enunciate. Thus, “TAPCO was born, even though we never liked the name.” The company started making guitar amps, but Mackie noticed that P.A. components were still a problem for bands.
Mackie connected with Bob Carver of Phase Linear, who became his first business mentor. There, he met one Roger Rosenbaum, an electronic engineer who was helping Carver at the time. Together, they first tackled the problem of mic preamp overload distortion. “We invented the first single-knob variable gain and channel volume control for the first TAPCO mixers,” Mackie recalls. The circuit was a variable gain mic preamp that was able to accept higher input signals without overloading. “It was called ‘AutoPad’ because, as you turned the input channel volume control down, it reduced the circuit gain, enabling the mixer to handle much larger signal levels without distorting. Nobody had ever designed a circuit like this, and the final design was a real weird, three-transistor, variable gain design that was almost impossible to overload when used properly, as it accepted low-Z and high-Z microphones, although it loaded the heck out of the output of any high-Z mic.” The innovative design feature took “only” seven months, and then they were “rolling in the money!” Mackie adds, with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Buoyed by the initial modest success, he was able to attract some investor money, and then he and his team really went to work.
A Mixer for the Rest of Us
What really put TAPCO on the map was the Model 6000 Audio Mixer, which they released in 1972. It was the first designed to be cost-accessible to rock bands as well as handle the volume levels necessary. That they were well-built and able to withstand being hustled in and out of clubs was another selling point — and sell they did: Within a couple of years, TAPCO mixers were sold worldwide, and annual sales volume was in the millions. “They took off like a rocket, and everybody had to have a TAPCO mixer that didn’t distort and sounded good.” They built spring reverbs (such as the Model 4400 stereo spring tank) and EQs (such as the dual 10-band Model 2200) to go along with it. Soon they had 200 employees, but all was not well. As Mackie continued designing and innovating new products, there were disagreements on what products to make, business costs climbed, and the company was eventually sold to Gulton Industries (Electro-Voice).
One who bought TAPCO gear and used it was a young Surack, long before he built his Sweetwater empire. “I go all the way back to being a user of TAPCO’s 6000, 6100 and 6200, and when he came out with the first spectrum analyzer, I bought one of those!” When he started Sweetwater, the two forged a strong professional relationship, as Surack’s company sold a lot of his gear through the years. “He was absolutely innovative, from those early TAPCO days on, and his brain does not ever turn off.”
Next, Mackie founded Audio Control in his garage, and put his mind to creating stereo equalizers and analyzers for the consumer market. “At the time, I wanted to make anything but a mixer,” he explains. “We built that up to about 40 employees. We sold mostly audio equalizers and audio spectrum analyzers. Eventually, we developed the first trunk mount audio equalizers/crossovers for the exploding auto hi-fi craze of the time.” In 1985, his interest changed again, and he sold the company. Mackie then went to work for Carver’s amplifier company for a year, but it became painfully obvious to Mackie that he really needed to get back to being an entrepreneur.
Mackie noticed how radically the music industry had changed in the mid-1980s. But while technical advances led to polyphonic keyboards, MIDI, drum machines and outboard processors (among many others), he couldn’t help notice that audio mixers had changed little. The gap between expensive high-end consoles and cheap-looking (and sounding) mixers was too large for Mackie to stand idly by, so in 1988, he formed Mackie Designs. Of his new name-bearing company, he says the philosophy was to pretty much ignore what’s happened in the past and develop quality products at a reasonable price. He led a team that left preconceived notions at the door and developed a line of high quality, affordable audio mixers. He set out to create a brand that was known for good ergonomics, were easy to use, and had flexible designs. And while he never really aimed at the high-end of the market, he became known for creating reasonably priced, high quality products that could be manufactured and sold for profit. “A live console has to be easy and fast to use. It’s got to be easy to understand, and that’s the thinking behind all of our mixers.”
Legendary Boards
Working from his condo in Edmonds, WA, Mackie created the LM-1602, a line mixer designed for keyboard players. Originally made from spare parts carried over from his days building EQs at Audio Control, the unit sold for $399. Next came the CR-1604. “The mixer market was pretty limited at that point in time and save for some Soundcraft products and a few others, there was a serious hole in the market,” Mackie explains. “So I wanted to create a mixing board for that market at a price point that was affordable, but was also as professional as possible.” This included features normally associated with higher-end mixers. But Mackie was determined to also create something that looked good, felt good to work on, and was easy to use. It was a huge success. He gives a lot of credit to Ron Koliha, who joined the team and is credited for creating the marketing and branding that was well suited to the tastes and interests of the gear’s users. Koliha understood that people read trade magazines as much for the ads as for the articles, and so he never shied away from having dense, information-packed copy in advertisements — something their competitors eventually copied.
“On the business side, many of the people I hired to manage the company were people who worked with me previously, and we all knew we had to understand how to process, cost and control everything,” Mackie continues. As for the iconic Running Man logo… “I didn’t want one at all, because it takes up panel space, but Ron came across this stick man figure and drew it out, which was a modified image from a Japanese font book. When I saw how cool it was, I agreed to it.”
Another positive development was his ability to coax Firestone — formerly with Audio Control and JBL, and currently chief marketing officer of Tectonic Audio Labs — to come back to work with him in 1992. “I had worked with Greg at Audio Control, and when we discussed me joining him again at Mackie in 1992, I was frank with him,” Firestone says. “My litmus test for him was, ‘Do you have any more products in you?’ By the time he got to about his fifth or sixth napkin sketch, I was all in.”
In 1993, Mackie released versions of an 8-bus analog mixer console, designed for live and multi-track recording. Another influential mega-hit, the 32.8, 24.8, and 16.8 pushed Mackie through the stratosphere, and now Mackie Design’s annual growth rate was over 100 percent each year. These consoles hit the market at the same time the ADAT digital recorders hit the market, helping to spark the home recording explosion. In 1995, the company also sold its 100,000th mixer and moved into a new 89,000-square-foot facility in Woodinville, WA. Manufacturing was still done in Washington, but this was also the year he took the company public. “I wanted to make sure we didn’t run out of money, because I had painfully learned that a lack of funds leads to bad business decisions,” Mackie notes.
Power to the Speakers
Nothing slowed down innovation. At the 1996 NAMM show, Mackie unveiled the M-1200 power amp, designed for studios, theaters and other applications. It was developed as a platform for future powered mixers. People were also impressed with Mackie’s HR824 high accuracy active studio reference monitor speakers. Pursuing other market segments didn’t mean mixers were ignored — quite the opposite, as the large-format SR40.8 and 56.8 consoles were created for the higher-end audio mixer market. Priced at $9,000, it was by far the highest priced product in Mackie’s catalog. “It actually contained our best circuitry, materials, and technologies,” Mackie explains. “But, unfortunately, it suffered from a series of faulty parts, which caused a high return rate.” Despite that, it still sold well. Then there was the company’s first digital product, the UltraMix Universal Automation System, the first software-based mixer that allowed musicians to automate, store, and replicate more than 136 channels.
In 1998, Mackie showed its groundbreaking D8B digital recording console. After going public, the public market wanted to see that Mackie Designs could successfully sell a wider line of products to ensure future market growth. “Yamaha was having huge success with their 01V digital mixer, and we thought the little Mackie company could do them one better. It took a couple years longer than we planned, but eventually a very innovative digital mixer with an external full screen display was put into production and was hugely successful. It is still used in recording studios today,” Mackie says.
Also that year, Mackie Designs acquired RCF and Fussion Audio, a large speaker company located in Italy. They manufactured everything from high-end raw drivers to complete systems, which enabled Mackie to delve more deeply into the live sound speaker market. Next came powered live sound speakers, and those did extremely well —in fact, doubling the size of the company. “Cal Perkins, a former JBL engineer, had become our chief engineer, and he had a deep knowledge of both electronic and acoustic design,” Mackie says. “He was the main engineer on the successful HR824 studio monitors as well as the SRM450 powered live sound speakers. Meanwhile, the engineering and manufacturing talent at RCF in Italy designed the successful line of larger powered SR line of speakers, and Mackie had become a real speaker company.”
Two years later, the company purchased Eastern Acoustic Works. The company had more resources than ever, but Mackie couldn’t help notice a change in the company’s culture after it went public and kept acquiring other companies. “It was a fun company in the beginning, and then it got less fun,” he says with a shrug. “Frankly, I hired some people I shouldn’t have hired, and we started acquiring high debt and losing money. We did a lot of things that were good, but we just didn’t have the management depth to run all those divisions.” In 2002, he sold his stock, and shortly after, “it was time to chill out, and enjoy life separate from business.”
“After selling his share of Mackie, Greg could have retired on an island somewhere, but that isn’t his style,” says Petersen. He had gone back to his roots developing a new super lightweight, flexible line of guitar amplifiers. About a year into it, LOUD Technologies, which had purchased the majority of Mackie’s stock, approached him and offered to buy the design. He then worked with the engineers at LOUD and, after a couple years, Mackie’s “Hotwire” amplifiers appeared on the market.
Audio Innovator Honor
When retirement didn’t stick, Mackie turned to other design efforts. In 2009, he formed M&W Audio, a new partnership with former Mackie engineering manager and Trident Audio designer Peter Watts. Soon after, the pair were developing a line of analog mixers, but later turned to digital mixers, working with QSC Audio. The TouchMix line of compact digital mixers was co developed by M&W and QSC, as far as Mackie sees it, there’s a lot more to come and “we should all be ready to be surprised — again!”
Collectively, sales for Mackie products have exceeded $1 billion at wholesale so far, and Mackie credits the talented people he has had the opportunity to work with over the years for that achievement. As for the Parnelli Audio Innovator Award, “I’m surprised and honored,” Mackie says, also adding that he’s not really “an award kinda guy.”
Rare is the technical genius who can also build good companies. “Being successful in this business is not just about the technology. It’s also about building a successful company. You learn more from failure than from success. But in everything, I want everybody involved to feel part of the success, to feel how I feel about the company and the process.”
“Greg is certainly deserving of this recognition; he is a very unique human in many ways, which adds up to being a true innovator,” says Firestone. “I was a lucky man to have, by chance, met Greg, and it changed my career path unexpectedly to something I’m proud and possessed by today. I’ve worked with Greg in several capacities, and the one thing I have marveled about is his uncanny ability to know what the market wants, combined with his drive for perfection balanced with low costs. From knobs to paint color/texture, silkscreen, control panel, GUI layout, faders and rotary pots, audio performance, packaging, marketing materials, manuals, etc.”
Surack added, “I really love the man — he’s a great guy who brings so much passion to everything he does. One of the biggest tributes that can be said about him is that he made all the other manufacturers better at what they did, and that might be Greg’s greatest contribution.”
Mackie will receive the Parnelli Visionary Award during the ceremony on Oct. 22 at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. For more information on the Parnelli Awards, and to reserve your seat or table, go to www.parnelliawards.com.
