Calling renown musician Peter Gabriel and broadcast industry veteran David Engelke “the best buyers Solid State Logic could have hoped for,” Antony David, Solid State Logic’s new managing director, said the recently completed purchase of the company has infused it with a renewed sense of bustling activity. Intimately involved with the negotiations to buy the company, David introduced Gabriel to Engelke. He declined to provide financial details of the agreement.
Gabriel and Engelke, both now 50-50 owners of the company, will be very hands-on, deeply involved in product development and marketing. Gabriel will provide input from a musician's point of view while Engelke will bring his broadcast industry experience to the digital audio console product lines.
David said he recognizes the current industry trend toward buying smaller consoles, especially in broadcast, and pointed out that one of SSL’s products is the AWS-900 24-channel console with built-in digital audio workstation (DAW) control.
SSL has not seen the huge demand for large consoles that it saw in the 1980s and 90s. However, the company will continue to manufacture large-scale consoles, but will also continue to market its C100 and C200 broadcast audio consoles.
When the new owners bought the company, David said they saw the C100 and C200 as the platform that will provide the resources to fund development of other new products.
While maintaining its sales and support activities for its existing products, David said the new SSL would look beyond consoles and will show a new range of products at the AES convention in October.
