Mackie is an American pro audio brand with a history that begins not in 1988 when Mackie Designs Inc. was officially founded, but further back in 1969 when Greg Mackie — a former Boeing engineer with a passion for audio — launched TAPCO, building affordable PA mixers for a generation of rock bands that had no good options at accessible price points. The TAPCO 6000 and 6100R became staples for working musicians precisely because they were built to last and priced for real budgets, establishing the "Built Like a Tank" philosophy that has carried through every piece of Mackie gear to this day.
When Greg returned with Mackie Designs in 1988, he applied the same thinking to the emerging home studio revolution. The CR-1604 compact analog mixer, released in 1991, was the product that changed the trajectory of independent music-making. For the first time, producers and engineers working outside major commercial facilities had access to a genuinely capable, feature-rich multitrack mixer at a price that didn't require a label deal to justify. The company grew more than 100 percent annually through the early 1990s and by 1995 had sold its 100,000th mixer — a trajectory that forced the brand to move manufacturing facilities nearly every year just to keep pace with demand.
Throughout the 1990s the product range expanded rapidly. The 8-Bus mixing consoles brought multitrack recording capability to mid-sized live venues and project studios simultaneously. The HR824 reference monitors became a fixture on studio meter bridges worldwide, earning a reputation for accuracy and value that made them a genuine industry standard for monitoring. The SRM450 powered loudspeaker, introduced in 1999, extended the brand's reach into portable live sound with equal conviction. In December 2023, Mackie was acquired by Røde Microphones, bringing the brand into a broader audio ecosystem while maintaining its identity and product direction.
Today Mackie's range covers mixers from compact analog ProFX units to the DL digital series, studio monitors across the CR, MR, and HR lineups, interfaces, headphones, in-ear monitors, loudspeakers, and tools aimed at content creators and podcasters — a comprehensive catalog that reflects five decades of building gear for everyone from bedroom producers to touring sound engineers.
At Wired Tunes, we carry Mackie gear for musicians, engineers, and content creators who want reliable, well-built equipment that works hard across a wide range of applications without demanding a premium budget to get started.
