The roots of RSD go way back to 1976 when a small group of sound engineers, frustrated by the lack of high power amplifiers available in the UK, decided to design and build their own.
At this time, if you were powering a large PA system you would have to use imported amps from the USA which were expensive, hard to get and difficult to service. So, after several months of design the 800B amplifier was produced and a small production line set up in a ‘chicken shed’ in Cheshunt, England.
Primitive surroundings they may have been but the amplifiers soon set standards in the audio business.
In 1980 a product meeting was held with the local dealers, who had all noticed the growing demand for 8 input, four output consoles for multi-track recording
in live and studio situations. Multiple keyboard setups
and drum machines were becoming more popular so
to make the product easy to move around it had to be
19inch rack mountable.
The Studiomaster 8-4 mixer was the answer and years ahead of anything else around. It could be used as a desk top mixer or rack mounted and with all the connectors at the rear many sound and Audio Visual companies made it their standard audio console.
Demand for larger format mixers to support the growing number of project and home studios resulted in the Series 2 consoles. 4, 8 and 16 bus configuration, expandability, and the first mixer with MIDI automation.
The promotional material around this time featured a number of new and established artists who were happy to be pictured with a Studiomaster product. Phil Collins, Phil Lynott, Martin Kemp were just a few that were using Studiomaster products.
It was nearly 8 years since the first Studiomaster power mixer hit the shops. Like the amplifier sector, a lot had changed. Market research produced a product brief - lots of power, on board effects good E.Q. and must be portable. This produced the first of a long line of Power House mixers. It’s true to say the Power House set a new standard in powered mixers not bettered until the Vision series years later.
While developing the Trilogy range the possibility of producing a parallel, low cost set of products existed. This became the Pro2 range and although the same dimensions as the Trilogy, had a reduced feature set.
This resulted in a 25% reduction in price which helped
sales in the USA especially the large church market. The range never grew past the 163 (12 channel) and 203 (16 channel).
