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Peter Watts | |
|---|---|
| Born | 2 February 1960 London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Professional audio engineer |
Peter Watts (born 2 February 1960) is a designer of pro audio equipment who is recognized as a leader in his field. [1]
Watts spent a total of 35 years designing analog and digital audio recording consoles. [2] Watts has worked at several major audio manufacturers including Mackie Designs, in Woodinville, Wash., where he was the executive vice president of engineering from 1995 to 2002, [3] and Trident Audio Developments in London, U.K. where he worked as head of Research and Development from 1976 to 1995. In 2003 Watts began his own company, Peter Watts Designs, Ltd., in Hong Kong, China, [4] which consulted to companies including Apogee Digital, Gibson Labs, Korg [5] and Yorkville Sound. In 2009, he formed M&W Pro Audio Ltd., in Swansea, U.K., in partnership with Greg Mackie, founder of noted pro audio products companies TAPCO and Mackie Designs.
At the age of 16, Watts began working at Trident on the mixer assembly line in their factory on the Shepperton Film Studios lot. In 1976, he showed company co-founder Malcolm Toft an idea he had for a computer-based mixer automation system, using a Sinclair Spectrum computer, which could change equalization settings automatically without using voltage-controlled amplifiers (VCA). Toft liked the idea and it became the basis for the automation of the Trident Di-An (digitally controlled analog) mixer. Watts worked on most of Trident's product line in various engineering roles, including as chief engineer on the VECTOR series large-format analog mixing console and the Di-An mixer.
In 1995 Watts moved to Seattle, Washington, as vice president of engineering for Mackie Designs. Company chairman Greg Clark Mackie had just taken the company public and Watts was tasked with the job to build a team to design Mackie's first digital mixer, which resulted in the Mackie D8B Digital 8-Bus mixing console, He also oversaw development of other products including the HDR-24 Hard Disk recorder, which targeted the fast-growing affordable nonlinear recording segment, [6] and Mackie Control (formerly Logic Control) computer-based mixing controls.
In 2010, M&W Pro Audio Ltd. announced a co-development partnership with QSC Audio Products, [7] LLC to develop, manufacture and market a new line of advanced, cost-effective digital mixing consoles. [8]
A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic instruments, or recorded sounds. Mixers may control analog or digital signals. The modified signals are summed to produce the combined output signals, which can then be broadcast, amplified through a sound reinforcement system or recorded.
Solid State Logic (SSL) is a British company based in Begbroke, Oxfordshire, England that designs and markets audio mixing consoles, signal processors, and other audio technologies for the post-production, video production, broadcast, sound reinforcement and music recording industries. SSL employs over 160 people worldwide and has regional offices in Los Angeles, Milan, New York, Paris, and Tokyo, with additional support provided by an international network of distributors. Solid State Logic is part of the Audiotonix Group.
Mackie is an American professional audio products brand. Founded in Seattle in 1988 by Greg Mackie as a manufacturer of affordable and versatile compact pro audio mixers, Mackie is the primary product line of LOUD Technologies.
AMS Neve Ltd is a privately owned audio engineering company who specialise in digital and analogue music consoles, outboard equipment and post production consoles. AMS Neve was the result of the amalgamation in 1992 of AMS with Neve Electronics.
Neve Electronics was a manufacturer of music recording and broadcast mixing consoles and hardware. It was founded in 1961 by Rupert Neve, the man credited with creating the modern mixing console.
Midas is a company that designs professional audio consoles. Founded in London in 1970 by Jeff Byers and Charles Brooke, today the company is part of the Music Tribe group of brands.
Alesis is an electronic music company that designs and markets electronic musical instruments, digital audio processors, audio mixers, drum amplifiers, amplifiers, digital audio interfaces, recording equipment, drum machines, professional audio, and electronic percussion products. Based in Cumberland, Rhode Island, Alesis is currently held by the inMusic Brands company, owned by businessman Jack O'Donnell. Alesis products are designed in the United States, and manufactured in China.
Harrison Audio Consoles is an international company based in Nashville, Tennessee that manufactures high-end mixing consoles, Digital Audio Workstations (DAW), audio plugins, and other audio technologies for the post-production, video production, broadcast, sound reinforcement and music recording industries. The company is renowned as an industry innovation for its "in-line" mixing console design that has subsequently become the standard for nearly every large-format music console. Over 1,500 Harrison consoles have been installed worldwide, presenting a significant percentage of the overall world market share for high-end audio consoles. The company founder, Dave Harrison, was inducted as a Fellow in the Audio Engineering Society for this technical contribution of the recording industry and in particular the first 32-bus "in-line" console.
LOUD Audio, LLC is a professional audio company based in the United States, operating in the U.S., Canada, and Shenzhen, China. Originally founded as Mackie Designs, Inc., the name was changed to Loud Technologies Inc in 2003 to differentiate its founding subsidiary, mixing console manufacturer Mackie from its eponymous brand name.
In professional audio, a digital mixing console (DMC) is a type of mixing console used to combine, route, and change the dynamics, equalization and other properties of multiple audio input signals, using digital signal processing rather than analog circuitry. The digital audio samples, which is the internal representation of the analog inputs, are summed to what is known as a master channel to produce a combined output. A professional digital mixing console is a dedicated desk or control surface produced exclusively for the task and is typically more robust in terms of user control, processing power and quality of audio effects. However, a computer can also perform the same function since it can mimic its interface, input and output.
Euphonix was a professional audio company located in Mountain View, California, United States. Euphonix produced the first successful line of large digitally controlled analog audio mixing consoles in the late 1980s and has since moved on to all-digital systems. In 2010, it was acquired by Avid.
QSC is an American manufacturer of audio products including power amplifiers, loudspeakers, digital mixers and digital signal processors including the Q-Sys networked audio, video and control platform. QSC products are used by professional installed, portable, production, corporate and cinema customers worldwide.
Yamaha Pro Audio, Inc. is a division of the Yamaha Corporation that offers a complete line of beginner professional audio products for the live sound and sound reinforcement markets. It has a long history of introducing significant products for the professional audio market such as the PM-1000 modular mixing console, the REV1 and SPX90 digital signal processors, and the 01, 02R, 03D, PM1D, PM5D, QL5, M7CL, CL5, and PM10/7 Rivage digital mixing consoles.
Soundscape Digital Technology developed Windows-based digital audio workstations for multi-channel studio recording, editing and mastering.
Graham Blyth is an English audio engineer who is known for designing mixing consoles. He is a co-founder of Soundcraft, a manufacturer which Blyth helped form into a world leader in sound reinforcement and recording mixers, establishing the "British sound". After succeeding in electrical engineering he became a professional organist, performing on pipe organs around the world. Blyth is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and the Audio Engineering Society (AES). In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in science from the University of Hertfordshire.
Malcolm Toft is an audio engineer and businessman who worked at Trident Studios, first as an audio engineer, then as the studio's manager, and eventually as co-founder of recording console maker Trident Audio Developments. Toft went on to form another console company, Malcolm Toft Associates, which eventually led to the founding of Toft Audio Designs and now to Ocean Audio. Toft is also co-owner of The Music Mill Studio. In 2009 he was awarded a visiting professorship by Leeds College of Music. He is also a member of the University of West London Student Advisory board which mentors students during the last year of their degree courses in music technology.
Greg Mackie is an American entrepreneur and inventor of professional audio products, best known as the founder of Mackie Designs. Together, Mackie and Peter Watts are the team behind M&W Pro Audio Ltd..
Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd. is an Australian digital cinema company and manufacturer based in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It designs and manufactures broadcast and cinema hardware, most notably high-end digital movie cameras, and also develops video editing software, such as the DaVinci Resolve and Blackmagic Fusion applications.
A matrix mixer is an audio electronics device that routes multiple input audio signals to multiple outputs. It usually employs level controls such as potentiometers to determine how much of each input is going to each output, and it can incorporate simple on/off assignment buttons. The number of individual controls is at least the number of inputs multiplied by the number of outputs.
