Katalog - MGM Audio AG

The “Stanhope Street” Years
The explosion of musical talent in 1960’s
Beatlemania Britain also gave rise to a nascent
electronic musical instrument industry and as
the swinging sixties gave way to the rather less
swinging but musically more progressive 1970’s, a
company called Midas Amplification was formed
in London by Jeff Byers and Charles Brooke,
manufacturing transistorised guitar amplifiers and
speaker cabinets.
A shift in the company’s business took place a
couple of years later as Jeff was inspired to look at
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how the primitive concert sound equipment of the
day could be improved upon and set out to create
a complete modular PA system including speakers,
amplifiers and mixers. This system included what
can be regarded as the very first MIDAS console,
a powered mixer manufactured in Jeff’s flat in
West Hampstead.
As the company grew, manufacturing moved out
of Jeff’s flat into a small building in Stanhope Street
near London’s Euston Station in 1972, which just
happened to be next to already-established speaker
manufacturer Martin Audio.
This location was extremely fortuitous as many PA
companies visiting Martin Audio would then go next
door to see what MIDAS was working on. The two colocated companies became synonymous in the minds
of many live sound customers and the calibrated
MIDAS / Martin modular PA systems became a regular
fixture on concert tours in the 1970’s, with Martin
Audio responsible for the loudspeaker cabinets, whilst
MIDAS manufactured the electronics.
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On Tour with the Supergroups
Queens’s Award 1986
These new industry connections resulted in
an association with Supertramp’s sound rental
company “Delicate Productions” and Jeff Byers
going on the road with Supertramp on their “Crime
of the Century” tour alongside engineer Russell
Pope in 1974. The experience gained on this tour
resulted in the first MIDAS console to have major
success, a small modular mixer called the PR System,
often referred to as PRO4. The console’s name
came from the name of the flagship PR 004 input
module, which offered an exceptional microphone
preamplifer and high-quality channel equalisation.
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1975 saw the first dedicated MIDAS monitor console,
with early customers including Clair Brothers Audio
for clients including Elvis Presley, Yes, Billy Joel and
The Beach Boys. Another innovation of early MIDAS
consoles was a built-in active crossover, which
became necessary for the new multi-way active
sound systems gaining popularity in the UK.
Whilst the streets of the UK may have been
reverberating to the new sound of anarchy in the
mid-seventies, elsewhere in the world British rock
supergroups reigned supreme. MIDAS supplied a
The Live Award 1993
giant three-section console for Pink Floyd’s “Animals”
1977 tour which had separate master quadraphonic
and stereo outputs. For the band’s legendary “The
Wall” tour in 1979, MIDAS provided a console with 105
channels of custom-built quadraphonic sound.
Another customer was Frank Zappa who had a
custom-made MIDAS PRO5 console for his 1980 World
Tour, plus a MIDAS-supplied dedicated recording
console to allow every concert to be simultaneously
recorded onto 24, 8 and 2 tracks.
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1994
MIDAS consoles also found their way into musical
theatre in the 1970’s. The hugely successful British duo
of Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber and Sir Tim Rice created
many major stage productions which went on to
play around the world, with live theatre designer Abe
Jacob specifying MIDAS consoles for shows such as
“Cats” and “Evita”.
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The PRO40 is Born
MIDAS continued into the 1980’s with the
PR 40 series; often referred to as PRO40. This range
of modules provided more facilities and could be
used to produce much larger mixing consoles.
The PRO40 was a very popular and successful
console series and became the main product line for
MIDAS in the early 1980’s.
The Live! Award 1994
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Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1995
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The Kidderminster Connection
Early Days in Australia
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1995
Jazz Legend Oscar Peterson
As a forerunner of MIDAS’ future success however,
the XL console, the first of the XL series, was
launched at the New York Audio Engineering
Society Convention in 1986. The cost of developing
the XL console proved too much for MIDAS and
in December 1987, Midas Audio Systems Ltd. was
wound up and the assets purchased by KLARK
TEKNIK. The last ever PRO40 to be manufactured, a
special 24 auxiliary bus monitor console built in two
parts for Concert Sound, was partly designed and
completed at KLARK TEKNIK’s Kidderminster factory.
In 1971, around the same time that Midas Amplification
were making their transistorised guitar amplifiers, up
in the English Midlands another company was formed
by brothers Philip and Terence Clarke, which produced
coin-operated car washing and vacuuming machines.
The two brothers had differing but complementary
talents. Phil was the business-savvy entrepreneur
whilst Terry brought the technical and problemsolving skills. Terry was also an experienced musician,
having played guitar for Clifford T Ward in the early half
of the 1960’s in the UK. The brothers then spent the
latter part of the decade in Australia.
It was during this time that Terry met Bruce Brown who
built recording studios. Terry worked with Bruce on a
number of these, including Albert Studios of AC/ DC
fame. There was no established Pro Audio industry at
the time, so literally everything – including the mixing
console – was purpose-built for each studio. So in
addition to being responsible for the day-to-day task
of keeping the band’s equipment working, this early
exposure to studio technology would put Terry in a
very strong position for his future ventures.
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An Unlikely Start
An Audio Legend is Born
The Live! Award 1995
On his return to the UK, Terry started work for Decca
at their cassette duplication plant in Bridgnorth,
Shropshire, where he designed and serviced the
huge cassette tape winding machines which were
made on-site. It was during this time that Terry
met Decca’s production manager Doug Smith,
who would later fulfill the same role as one of
KLARK TEKNIK’s early employees.
Phil Clarke had brought a business idea back with
him from Australia, where washing cars in the
street in towns had been banned, and people
were required to go to garages to wash their cars
using purpose-built machines that could collect
and recycle the used water. Similar legislation was
enacted in the UK, and so Phil asked his brother
to work on making coin-operated car washing
machines, for which there was a ready market.
The brothers ran in to a challenge when they tried to
create their first limited company, there was already
a company manufacturing garage equipment
under the name “Clark”. The solution? Just change
the spelling, and thus “Klark” was born. Strike-torn
British industry had a terrible global reputation
for quality in the 1970’s, and the brothers wanted
a name that would project an image of Germanic
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Terry’s car wash machine business took off.
However, mirroring his experience in Australia, he
continued with his interest in audio electronics
as a sideline making bespoke equipment for
recording studios.
quality and efficiency. “Klark-Teknik Limited” was
formed in 1971.
Premises were found for the new business in
an old military Nissen hut on the Summerfield
Ministry of Supplies site near Stourport-uponSevern, and as they found out later, home also to
a large underground store of dynamite that would
have obliterated the site had there ever been an
explosion! The business later expanded to a second
hut, with one housing the garage business and the
other the audio business.
Nissen Huts on the Summerfield Site
The company
started to develop
small inductorbased graphic
equalisers which
were produced
in very low
quantities and
sold mostly to
recording studios
to compliment
the relatively
simple mixing
console audio
processing of the day. The earliest
graphic equaliser was the seven-band mono
TEKNIK-7s in 1973, designed for Vic Keary at Chalk
Farm Studios in London where he had built a large
console with EMI valve input stages, and the 7s
was designed to fit the spaces Vic had left in the
console channels. A few additional TEKNIK- 7s
equalisers were made, however customers
wanted more frequency bands and the nine-band
mono TEKNIK-9s followed, along with the first
19 inch rack- mount graphic equaliser, the stereo
eleven- band TEKNIK-11+11s.
The Clarke brothers found that the efficiency that
could be had from manufacturing even small batches
of 50 or 100 standardised products meant that
they could easily be half the price of their bespoke
counterparts, and customers were only too willing to
pay much less for high quality audio signal processing.
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Reel-To-Reel
Their next venture led to a long-lasting relationship
with the BBC. Terry had used his experiences
from working on the Decca cassette tape winding
machines, which had very sophisticated motor
control, to build a small number of bespoke ¼ inch
reel-to-reel tape machines. A production version
called the Teknik SM2 followed which allowed
them to successfully compete against established
names such as Studer and Leevers-Rich due to
its advanced DC-controlled capstan motors,
selling thirty machines to the BBC and a further
ten to UK independent television broadcaster
Thames Television.
This success however proved to be a distraction
from the rapidly growing graphic equaliser business,
and the Clarke brothers decided to sell the design
and manufacturing rights for the SM2 to LeeversRich, who had lost out on the BBC order and were
only too keen to pick up the work of building
the thirty machines that that been ordered, with
Terry working at their factory in south London to
help them fulfill the order. Leevers-Rich went on
to sell their version of the SM2 under the name
Proline 2000.
In 1976 a further development in signal processing
was launched; the Teknik-27s, a 27-band graphic
equaliser. The very first batches were almost totally
handmade (like their predecessors) including a
chassis made from aluminium sheet and a rotary
level control which was milled and turned on a lathe
by hand. The internal wiring looms to the faders
were complex and testing involved an interactive
adjustment of every filter making the product very
expensive to produce.
This early success with the Teknik SM2 is
commemorated to this day in the brand’s logo as a
stylised tape reel.
In October 1975, a new company was formed,
acquiring the audio side of “Klark-Teknik Limited”,
and the garage forecourt business changed its
name to Kidderminster Garage Equipment Limited
and later in 1982 was sold to its then manager.
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The Inductor-Based TEKNIK-27s Graphic Equaliser
The Teknik SM2 Reel-to-Reel Tape Machine
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Creating The Brand
Soon after the design was revised to reduce these
costs by including more PCB mounted components,
including precision 1% tolerance resistors, and
subcontracting out the metalwork production using
a new folded steel design.
Another innovation was the double-anodised
aluminium front panels, which ensured the silk
screen ink would not rub off, and offered greater
manufacturing efficiencies compared with the
individually engraved and ink- filled front panels that
were the norm at the time. The ‘silver’ aluminium
front panel became the iconic look for the KLARK
TEKNIK brand and still features on products
manufactured today.
This revised product, the “Klark-Teknik” DN27,
opened a door to the live sound market and proved
so successful that to this day it remains one of the
most revered products in the brand’s history. It set a
benchmark for graphic equaliser performance due
to its innovative Proportional-Q response which
allowed for gentle contour EQ for small amounts
of boost and cut, but which could also produce
sharp narrow notches when fully cut – something
that conventional Constant-Q graphic equalisers
cannot deliver.
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1995
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Live! Gold Award 1996
Contrary to one of the many urban myths that has
grown up around the brand over the years, the
“DN” prefix that is used on KLARK TEKNIK products
has nothing to do with Phil Clarke’s supposed
infatuation with the Ferrari Dino sports car, in
fact he was still very much involved with the car
washing business at the time and had little to do
with brother Terry’s rapidly developing audio signal
processing activities.
Both Terry and John Austin were big fans of Formula
One motor sport and at the time there was a racing
car called the Shadow DN7, and it was no great leap
to go from “27s” to “DN27” – and thus a tradition
was started. Only later did Terry and John find
out that “DN” stood for Don Nichols, owner of the
Shadow Racing Cars team...
Around 6,500 DN27 units shipped between 1977
and 1985. Two other spin off products were also
produced using the DN27 chassis, the DN22 stereo
11-band graphic equaliser and the DN15, a similar
unit that also provided preamps with selectable
routing for multiple tape and phonograph inputs
and outputs, and was most notably sold in some
volume to the BBC who had commissioned the unit.
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1996
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KLARK TEKNIK Goes Transatlantic
A New Home
It was around this time that KLARK TEKNIK first
came to prominence in the USA, with its graphic
equalisers being shown for the first time at the 1976
Billboard Disco show. This lead to an important
relationship forming with Jack Kelly, who attended
the show and within a few years developed a
massive market for KT graphic equalisers in the USA.
Later he would open KLARK TEKNIK’s US office in
New York in 1980, by which time fully one-third of all
KT’s production was shipping to the USA.
In 1978 the company purchased a 99 year lease
on a 1.5 acre plot of land on Walter Nash Road,
Kidderminster and the 15-strong company moved
to new purpose-built premises on the site in 1980,
where it remains to this day. Throughout the
following decade, the number of employees would
continue to rise, to 45 in 1985 and 144 in 1989.
In 1977 “Klark-Teknik Research” launched the
DN36 Stereo Analogue Time Processor, a high
performance bucket-brigade delay line used
for generating special effects such as phasing
and flanging.
The following year it replaced this with the DN34,
a design re-spin that reduced the product’s
dependence on an external mixing console to
operate effectively, and also significantly reduced
assembly time and cost. One claim to fame for these
units is that they were used on the legendary “The
Muppet Show” TV programme.
This was followed in 1979 by the DN70 Digital Time
Processor that used a groundbreaking pre-scaling
technique to get an enhanced 15-bit dynamic range
performance out of 12-bit audio converters, which
were the state-of-the-art for analogue to digital
conversion at the time. It was used for multi-speaker
sound reinforcement and time alignment and for
echo effects, most notably by Mark Knopfler of Dire
Straits fame.
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The Birth of Industry Standards
KLARK TEKNIK Goes Public
More new products followed, including the DN60
Real Time Analyser in 1980 and the DN300 series
of graphic equalisers in 1982, which led to rapid
growth and required an extension of the building to
In 1984, KLARK TEKNIK became a public limited
company and was floated on the London Stock
Exchange. This allowed the Clarke brothers to
capitalise on their success to date, one of the benefits
of being a publicly traded company is that finance
was easy to obtain, and two years later the company
was able to acquire Dearden-Davies Associates who
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cope with the increased production demand. These
products became industry standards and many
remain in daily use.
were looking for investment for them to grow,
perhaps better known as recording studio console
brand DDA.
Under the auspices of Dave Dearden and Gareth
Davies, DDA remained at their Hounslow site
near Heathrow Airport and essentially ran as a
separate business.
Terry and Philip Clarke
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Royal Recognition
More Classics Are Born
Queen’s Award
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1996
The company’s success led to an invitation to
Downing Street. Phil Clarke, his wife Jenni and
Doug Smith represented one of five successful
Midlands businesses invited to a reception to meet
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in recognition
and celebration of their outstanding enterprise in
British industry. The following year it was Terry’s
turn to receive official recognition when he got to
meet Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace
to receive the Queen’s Award for Technological
Achievement for the company’s innovations in
digital audio technology.
DDA too received Royal recognition for their
achievements, twice winning the Queen’s Award for
Export Achievement in 1986 and 1987.
Marketing Director Gaston Goossens
proudly holds the Queen’s Award
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This period saw the launch of two iconic products,
the DN360 Graphic Equaliser and the DN780 Digital
Reverberator. The original DN700 series digital delay
lines were also launched during this time, replacing
the older analogue bucket-brigade delay units. These
new delay units were used at such notable locations as
London’s St Pauls’ Cathedral and the 1984 Los Angeles
Olympic Games.
The classic DN360 started out as the DN3030, an
attempt to supersede the inductor-based design of
the DN27 with an all-electronic gyrator-based design
(which simulated the contribution of the inductor to the
filter band circuits), with the potential for better audio
performance and reliability coupled with lower weight
and cost. The DN3030 however ended up using multiple
printed circuit boards and was difficult and expensive
to produce. Mike Woodward redesigned the unit to
use the then-new thick film ceramic hybrid circuits for
the filter band gyrators which significantly reduced the
complexity of the design and a legend was born.
The DN780 too had a difficult start with the
development of the original DN80 Reverb in 1980. The
resulting prototype was a huge stack of six inch square
boards that would have required a 4U high box to house
them. Terry Clarke took over the project resulting in the
successful DN780, released in August 1984. The DN780
sold well for two years and 200 were sold to the BBC,
for whom it became their standard reverb for radio and
TV production. The DN780 remains highly regarded in
the audio industry and still commands high prices on
the second-hand market. It lives on in emulated form in
MIDAS XL8 and PRO Series digital consoles.
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KLARK Acoustic
KLARK TEKNIK Acquires MIDAS
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1996
In 1986, in an attempt to diversify the company’s
activities, Keith Mercer was brought in from
a company called Clearwater Design at the
suggestion of Marketing Director Gaston Goossens
to set up the “Klark Acoustic” division, with the aim
of developing a range of active studio monitors.
This resulted in the JADE ONE which was noted
for its exceptional transparent and accurate
sound reproduction.
MIDAS had run into financial challenges with the
XL console, which it was unable to bring to market.
Terry Clarke knew Jeff Byers and had a high regard for
MIDAS, and whilst the purchase of DDA had cost £2
million, funded by the stock exchange floatation, the
MIDAS business was acquired for considerably less.
The DN735 Solid State Recorder was first introduced
in 1989. This innovative product was a solid state
recorder for stereo audio editing based on video
tape with a three minute memory which was huge
for the time. It sold well to the BBC and video post
production companies.
The plans for the successor XL2 console looked good
and Terry knew that they had the R&D staff and
financial resources to bring the project to a successful
conclusion. The MIDAS XL2 was launched in 1988 with
great success.
1989 also saw the launch of the DN500 series of
dynamics processors, based on designs purchased
from local Midlands company Rebis. The owners of
Rebis had decided to go their separate ways, and with
the front panels changed to the classic KT anodised
aluminium, four new products were added to the
range. That year MIDAS also launched the rackmount
XL88 Matrix Mixer, with eight inputs and eight outputs.
The Klark Acoustic JADE ONE
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The Brothers Move On
XL3 - The New MIDAS
Plasa Award for Product Excellence 1996
Towards the end of the decade, the company
was feeling the pressure of being a publicly listed
company and having to meet the expectations of
the stock market, and at the same time Terry (like all
good engineers) knew that what goes up also has to
come back down at some point, and had a feeling
that the rapidly inflating London stock market
bubble was reaching bursting point. He decided
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that the best course of action would be to sell up,
and although Phil wanted to continue, a vote of the
company directors sided with Terry.
The business was sold in December 1990 to the
US-based Mark IV Audio, who owned a portfolio of
audio brands including Electro-Voice.
Six months later the bottom fell out of the
stock market.
It was the next MIDAS console that re-established
the brand, the XL3 was essentially a monitor version
of the XL2, but with the innovative use of VCA
faders (fitted on to the front of the original chassis)
making the product suitable for Front of House mix
duties, too.
It came in 40, 32 and 24 channel versions and a
16 channel extender, or sidecar, was also made.
Its 16 mixes could be used as output mixes, sub groups
or auxiliary masters.
With all inputs also routable direct to masters,
grouping via eight VCA masters, along with a two-way
matrix and two ancillary record outputs, its combined
total of 22 outputs made it a supremely capable and
flexible console.
MIDAS XL3 - The Definitive Analogue Monitor Console
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The World’s First Auto-EQ
XL4 - The Ultimate
Analogue Console
Live Sound! Tin Ear Award 1997
KLARK TEKNIK automated its graphic equalisation
with the DN3600 Programmable Graphic Equaliser
in 1993, the latter being complemented by the
DN3601 Slave Equaliser and the DN3698 Remote
Controller with its DN3603 Remote Docking Bay.
The next project was the flagship XL4 which still
stands as the ultimate statement in analogue live
performance mixing consoles, and is still specified on
concert tour riders today. The console toured the world
with Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Metallica, The Rolling Stones,
Simply Red and many other high profile acts. The XL4
featured 48 mic/line input channels, with an all-new
preamplifier design and the channel equalisation
from the XL3 console, plus an additional line-level 16
auxiliary return inputs. The XL4’s total of 45 mix buses
was augmented by an 18 x 8 output matrix. It featured
ten VCAs with an additional two grand master VCAs, all
with motorised faders.
The XL4 set the benchmark for the next decade. Audio
engineers were amazed at the sheer depth and scope
of what they were able to achieve with the unbeatable
combination of the XL4’s audio performance and
comprehensive moving-fader automation. Many
elements of this legendary console are still available to
today’s engineers in the current range of MIDAS digital
mixing systems.
The XL4 project however consumed all available R&D
resources to bring it to reality, which impacted the
ability to also create new designs for KLARK TEKNIK.
A solution was found in the form of a collaboration
between Kidderminster and its counterpart R&D team
in Straubing, Germany which was responsible for the
electronics for Mark IV Audio brands Electro-Voice and
Dynacord. Straubing contributed the mechanical and
digital electronic designs, whilst the Kidderminster
team focussed on the analogue designs that were
critical to the products’ performance for them to meet
the brand’s high standards.
The DN3600 Programmable Graphic Equaliser System
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The German Connection
KLARK TEKNIK Re-established
In 1996 it was decided to split R&D into two
separate sections, one for KLARK TEKNIK and one
for MIDAS (DDA was already autonomous due to its
Hounslow location).
The KLARK TEKNK R&D team however suffered from
some growing pains and it was not until the end of
the decade that viable new home-grown designs
started to appear. The two key products that
helped put the company back on the map were the
DN9848 Loudspeaker Processor, notable for being
the industry’s first fully featured 4-input, 8-output
digital processor in a 1U rack, and the DN1248
Microphone Splitter, which featured MIDAS’ highly
regarded microphone preamplifiers.
The fledgling KLARK TEKNIK team were supported
by their German colleagues, resulting in the DN6000
Audio Analyser, the DN4000 Digital Equaliser and
the DN7103 and DN7204 Digital Delays.
Ironically, in a sense the Clarke brothers’ Germanic
aspirations for the brand came true!
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Both products were launched in 2000 and set the
course for KLARK TEKNIK in the coming decade.
Testing the DN9848 Loudspeaker Processor
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MIDAS’ HERITAGE Made Real
Into the New Millennium
It was however the next project that would
capitalise on the success of XL3 and XL4 and for
several years gave MIDAS near-total dominance of
the concert touring business – the HERITAGE series.
With the genesis of a new product
portfolio for KLARK TEKNIK, more new
products started to appear. Building
on the DN9848 hardware platform and
incorporating features from both the DN3600
and DN4000 equalisers, plus a novel approach
to dynamic equalisation, the DN9340 and DN9344
HELIX Digital Equalisers were launched in 2002.
The extremely capable HERITAGE 3000 was
suited to both Front of House and monitoring
applications, whilst the companion HERITAGE
2000 was specifically aimed at Front of House mix
duties. The H3000 and H2000 launched in 1998 and
1999 respectively.
The HERITAGE 3000 became the concert touring’s
industry standard and formed the focal point, along
with the XL4, for most major tours for the following
decade including acts such as Bon Jovi, Alanis
Morrisette, AC/DC, Coldplay, Kid Rock, Metallica,
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Alicia Keys, Foo Fighters, Christina Aguilera, Sir Paul
McCartney and Pearl Jam.
Two further HERITAGE consoles were launched, the
smaller theatre-oriented HERITAGE 1000 appeared
in 2000, followed a couple of years later by the
giant HERITAGE 4000 monitor console, essentially
an H3000 with an additional pod to increase
the number of auxiliary send buses to meet the
demands made by the rapidly increasing use of
in- ear monitors.
Further Straubing-designed products contributed
to the two brands’ portfolios, including the original
series of MIDAS VENICE consoles launched in 2001.
MIDAS VENICE
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LEGEND - The World’s First
“Tri-Purpose” Console
DN370 - The New DN27
MIDAS too had been busy in Kidderminster, with
the innovative LEGEND 3000 console, launched in
2002. As well as being suited to both Front of House
and monitor mix duties, the console featured two
sets of faders per channel to allow simultaneous
mixing for both from the same console – hence it
being advertised as the world’s first “Tri-Purpose”
mixing console.
For many years, R&D had pushed to do another
analogue graphic equaliser to build on the
reputation of the DN360, launched nearly twenty
years previously.
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It featured a new approach to printed circuit board
(PCB’s) layout where the previous individual vertical
channel strip PCB’s were replaced by modular flat
PCB’s, typically containing eight channels, which
greatly reduced the number of interconnects –
simplifying assembly and improving reliability.
This would become central to MIDAS’ approach to
console construction in the coming decade.
Live! Award 2002
That opportunity came in 2003, resulting in the
DN370 Dual Graphic Equaliser which appeared in
2004. Whilst digital technology had certainly moved
on over the interim period, so too had analogue
design techniques and new exotic types of capacitors
were available that were well suited to the challenges
of building a gyrator-based equaliser.
The new circuit topology of DN370 also recaptured the
classic DN27 Proportional-Q response, and the unit
also featured a highly flexible set of filters to address
the problems of live sound reinforcement.
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A Digital Dawn
A Tale of Two Cities
M.i.p.a. 2012
MIDAS recruited a small team of former Amek
R&D engineers to form the core of its new digital
console team. Working out of a tiny office in
Empress Buildings, a converted Victorian Brewery
in Manchester. This team, augmented by R&D staff
in Kidderminster, would be responsible for the
hardware and DSP design, analogue circuitry and
front-end user interface development.
The strategy behind MIDAS’ entry to the digital
realm was not to simply produce another mixing
console but to create a technology platform from
which the brand could address all segments of
the market.
MIDAS analogue console development was not
neglected during this time. The 8-Bus VERONA
console debuted in 2004, and its companion SIENA
monitor console with 16 dedicated auxiliary sends
arrived early the following year.
Both consoles featured the eight-channel modular
construction pioneered on the LEGEND 3000
console and came in frame sizes from 24 to
64 channels.
The Lego* console used to develop new user interface layouts
In-circuit testing of a SIENA board
The team went back to basics and spent a year
looking at the fundamentals of console design,
including why a MIDAS console sounded like it did,
and built many analogue prototype circuits that
would later be modelled in the digital domain to
ensure that the MIDAS sound was retained in its
new digital incarnation.
Initial console software testing
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The prototype XL8 chassis
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On with the Show
Digital Goes MIDAS
M.i.p.a. 2013
A year later, an the DN9848 was incorporated into
the HELIX range, and all units received digital audio
interfaces and Ethernet control as well as a cosmetic
upgrade and an “E” suffix.
A new addition to the range was the DN9331
RAPIDE motorised graphic equaliser remote
controller, which featured the MIDAS “Solo Tracking
System” to instantly recall the channel EQ settings
when the corresponding Solo button was pressed
on the console. This new system was branded
“Show Command” and featured the “Elgar” PC
remote software suite.
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The MIDAS XL8 Live Performance System digital
console was launched at the Frankfurt Pro Light +
Sound trade show in March 2006 to great acclaim. A
total of three consoles were at the show, two on the
booth and one in the giant outdoor Agora Tent, the
XL8 was quite literally the talk of the show.
The XL8 is a uniquely powerful system. The control
surface features five separate control bays, each
with a daylight viewable display and complete
redundancy is built in throughout the system to
ensure no single point of failure exists.
The XL8 has been used on many high profile tours
and events, one of the most notable took place in
December 2007 when Led Zeppelin reunited for
the “Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert” at the O2
Arena in London. This historic performance would
later be made available as a DVD release called
“Celebration Day”.
Other major events include the “Nobel Peace Prize
Ceremony”, the “Eurovision Song Contest”, The “Brit
Awards” and the “Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert”.
The KLARK TEKNIK “Show Command” System
MIDAS XL8 at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, Oslo
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PRO Series Reborn for the Digital Age
The MUSIC Group Connection
With the XL8 aimed squarely at the highest end of
the market, the digital console development team
spent the next two years concentrating on the next
phase, scaling down the XL8 technology into a
“workhorse” package.
In December 2009 saw the acquisition of the
MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK brands by MUSIC Group
from Bosch.
The PRO6 Live Audio System, which was launched at
PLASA in September 2008 was targeted to address
the mainstream concert touring market dominated
by the HERITAGE Series a decade before.
The name too recalled the MIDAS heritage, harking
back to the “PRO4” and “PRO40” consoles of a
previous generation.
It became readily apparent that this was an incredibly
potent relationship, as MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK
offered not only their brand heritage and experience
of operating at the very top level of the live sound
industry, but considerable intellectual property that all
could benefit from.
A dedicated team of UK engineers now forms the
nucleus of a MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK presence at
MUSIC Group City, the company’s manufacturing hub
in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, which its 3,000
staff call home.
MUSIC Group in return invested over US$ 20 million
in a dedicated manufacturing facility for MIDAS and
KLARK TEKNIK, with state-of-the-art surface mount
technology and optical inspection systems.
MUSIC Group City provides a scale of manufacturing
power that previously MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK could
only have dreamed of.
Automated optical PCB inspection system
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39
Ultra high-speed Surface Mount machine farm
The “Million Cycle”
MIDAS PRO FADER
The PRO Series Expands
NAMM TEC Nominee 2012
One of the first projects that MIDAS embarked upon
utilised the large scale manufacturing resources
of the MUSIC Group and created the millioncycle MIDAS PRO FADER, which greatly exceeds
the operational life of motorised faders fitted to
competitor consoles.
This decision yielded many other benefits, including
complete quality control. The design team went
deep into materials science, employing
semi- precious metals for the wiper
contacts that offered the desired
40
durability. Precision components were developed
that offered high linearity, robustness and
smooth operation.
With significant new investment in MIDAS and KLARK
TEKNIK, the Company expanded with more engineers
and another floor at the City Park site.
The MIDAS PRO FADER was born and the results
speak for themselves.
During this time, with the worldwide economic downturn
beginning to bite and touring sound becoming more and
more important as a profit-making enterprise due to the
decline in revenues from recorded music, the Pro Audio
market was undergoing a sea-change. Adoption of digital
technologies became accepted and more widespread
throughout the live arena, with customers demanding
more cost-effective solutions.
The PRO2 and PRO2C consoles, unveiled at the 2011
PLASA Show, feature a daylight viewable display
and a networking capacity of 160 inputs and 160
outputs. Both consoles became an instant success and
industry standard.
The smaller format PRO1 console, launched at the Las
Vegas Infocomm Show in 2012 also features a daylight
viewable display, but has a networking capacity of up
to 176 inputs and 168 outputs and can mix 48 input
channels onto 27 mix buses.
41
R&D Centre of Excellence
The Future Sound of
MIDAS & KLARK TEKNIK
NAMM TEC Nominee 2014
In 2012, MIDAS’ parent company MUSIC Group
expanded the Manchester site again, investing in
a state-of-the-art R&D Centre of Excellence with
24,000 sq. ft. of space and dramatically expanding
the engineering team.
For over 40 years MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK have
repeatedly shown award-winning innovation and
leadership in the world of high end professional
audio, producing landmark products that have
defined and shaped the live industry.
We dedicate this brochure to you, the employees.
You have made MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK global
brands that have become the Industry Standard.
Words can’t describe the amount of dedication,
heart and soul that you have contributed.
Today the site represents a state-of-the-art
research and development center with worldleading expertise in hardware and software, laying
the ground for unprecedented innovation and
product design.
Our achievements would not have been possible
without the unwavering support of all our amazing
employees throughout the years.
We also thank our partners, customers, sound
engineers, musicians and the many friends who
have supported us for over 40 years. This has been a
wonderful journey together and we can’t wait to see
where the next 40 years will take us.
Thank You.
Highly-complex 14-layer PCB with DSP and FPGA semiconductors
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MIDAS / KLARK TEKNIK Care
For service, support or additional information, please refer to midasconsoles.com / klarkteknik.com or contact the MIDAS / KLARK TEKNIK company nearest you.
Europe
MUSIC Group Services UK
Klark Industrial Park, Walter Nash Road
Kidderminster, Worcestershire DY11 7HJ
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 156 273 2290
Email: CARE@music-group.com
USA/Canada
MUSIC Group Services NV Inc.
5270 Procyon Street
Las Vegas, NV 89118
Tel: +1 702 800 8290
Email: CARE@music-group.com
Japan
MUSIC Group Services JP K.K.
ASSORTI Kodenmacho Liens 10F
Nihonbashi Kodenmacho 14-10
Chuo-ku Tokyo Japan 103-0001
Tel: +81 3 6231 0454
Email: CARE@music-group.com
Any names, likeness, or images featured or referred to herein are not affiliated with MUSIC Group. They do not sponsor or endorse MUSIC Group or any of its products.
MUSIC Group accepts no liability for any loss which may be suffered by any person who relies either wholly or in part upon any description, photograph, or statement contained herein.
Technical specifications, appearances and other information are subject to change without notice.
*All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. MIDAS, KLARK TEKNIK, TURBOSOUND, BEHRINGER and BUGERA are trademarks or registered trademarks of MUSIC Group IP Ltd.
© MUSIC Group IP Ltd. 2014 All rights reserved.
MUSIC Group IP Ltd. Trident Chambers, Wickhams Cay, P.O. Box 146, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands. 985-90000-00333 V1