SADiE Company profile and history

In April 2008, the SADiE business was acquired by audio specialist Prism Sound, itself established in 1987 as an engineering design & consulting firm.

SADiE continues to be based at "The Old School" in the village of Stretham, just north of the University City of Cambridge, UK. The company's main production and R&D facilities are now shared with Prism Sound.

The former Victorian village school building was the subject of an award-winning development project, intended to meet the needs of a modern hi-tech organisation, whilst retaining much of the original character.

Formerly owned by Studio Audio and Video Limited, SADiE was founded by Managing Director Joe Bull in May 1991 with friends and colleagues who had previously worked together. Joe and some of the other members had been instrumental (sic) in setting up Spaceward Studios at the Old School in Stretham some years before.

Their experience in audio and computing resulted from several years in music and audio-visual production followed by pioneering developments in computer graphics systems. This gave the company an excellent grounding in the techniques and quality issues affecting audio recording and production generally, as well as a wealth of experience in the computer industry developing software based products.

The company's first product was the XS digital audio processing card which was shown at APRS '91 within a few weeks of incorporation. The product attracted a great deal of interest and many clients such as Lightworks adopted the XS card as the basis for their audio engine.

Development work on the Studio Audio Disk Editor (SADiE) began in January 1992. It initially offered "stereo editing" capabilities on the XS platform which later became known as the SADiE Classic. The first sale of this simple replacement for a two-track tape recorder was made in May 1992 and by the end of that year sales had been achieved into mastering, post-production and broadcasting facilities. Leading Nashville Mastering Engineer, Glenn Meadows, purchased the first unit to be imported into the USA. It is a matter of great pride for all concerned that early adopters remain valued customers and friends to this day.

SADiE continued from strength to strength with many major customers including the BBC adopting it as their de facto standard for radio feature productions. There are in excess of 1000 SADiE systems in daily use at the BBC in addition to significant installations in mainland Europe (Radio France, Deutsche Welle), Scandinavia, Australia (ABC) and New Zealand (Radio New Zealand). There are also thousands of SADiE systems in use across the world in wider applications ranging from the earliest "Classic" systems to the current advanced Series 5 series of workstations.

The SADiE philosophy is to provide the customer with the best tools for the task whilst ensuring the absolute sonic integrity of the program material. SADiE is highly flexible: A user may work with SADiE in the way that he or she wants, rather than being forced to work within any specific paradigm. All major tasks may be completed in a variety of methods depending upon the preference of the user.

SADiE's philosophy and values will be maintained under Prism Sound's ownership, complemented by Prism Sound's focus on performance, technical excellence and service. In addition, Prism Sound can offer a range of complementary products such as A/D & D/A converters, Maselec Master Series analogue processors and microphone preamplifiers.