After retiring from Mackie Designs (now Loud Technologies) in 2003, Makie was enticed back into desk development by long-time friend and collaborator Peter Watts in 2008, with a view to developing concepts for a line of digital mixing consoles. Watts has spent 35 years designing analogue and digital recording consoles, including the first digitally controlled console, the Trident DiAn.

‘We needed a pro-audio partner with established sales, marketing and distribution. A partner with a solid reputation for quality and reliability – one that had the technical capabilities to develop advanced digital mixing consoles and the manufacturing know-how to produce the products.’ Greg Mackie says, ‘I had a long time personal friendship with John and Barry Andrews and knew I could trust QSC to be exactly the right partner.’

‘We are delighted to be working with Greg and Peter,’ Gerry Tschetter, QSC VP of Marketing responds. ‘Their passion for creating fine audio products mirrors our own. Our efforts to create value and performance on the B-Chain (processing, power and loudspeaker) side have yielded a number of highly successful product lines. It’s great fun to be working on the A-Chain (mixing) side as well.’

Design work on the products will be undertaken by both M&W and QSC, while manufacturing, distribution, sales, marketing and technical support will be handled entirely by QSC. The first products are expected to be announced during the first half of 2011.

More: www.qscaudio.com