On solid sound

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, December 25, 2005

SNOHOMISH – Below First Street, a group of engineers hidden between some of the oldest basement walls in town are working on cutting-edge digital equipment for the professional audio industry.

In a room that once housed Snohomish’s jail, Bob Tudor plays with the long row of fader switches on the Digital X Bus, a digital mixing console SaneWave developed with Loud Technologies’ Mackie brand. With two touchscreens, motorized switches and a sleek look, the $13,000 device has gotten rave reviews in the industry.

“You can produce a soundtrack for a movie on this,” Tudor said, adding that his staff is now developing a recording machine to complement the mixer.

Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald SaneWave, a maker of audio engineering devices and other products, has designed a digital mixing console with a touch-sensitive control surface.

It’s a typical invention of SaneWave Inc., a design and engineering company focused on developing new products for other companies.

“Although our net sales are a few million dollars, which makes us a relatively small company, others are surprised by products developed here,” said Bob Tudor, SaneWave’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

That’s because there are more engineers at SaneWave than at many companies that do $100 million in sales, Tudor said.

“So we get to work with everyone,” Tudor said, noting that high-profile clients include Apple, Microsoft and Texas Instruments.

Just as big tech companies outsource some of their manufacturing work, SaneWave allows them to outsource engineering. It makes sense for many companies, Tudor said, as SaneWave can handle the highly technical work both faster and cheaper than most.

“We can build products in eight weeks that take other firms two years to do,” Tudor said.

He explained that’s because SaneWave can draw on its experience in building countless other products when it develops a new company. In other words, it doesn’t have to build each new thing from the ground up. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a prayer of developing so many products,” he said.

Tudor’s road to starting SaneWave was a winding one, though his interest in music and technology has always been there. The 39-year-old pointed out he was born when both the computer and electronic music were first being developed.

“Electronic music has made a big impact on society,” he said.

Tudor, a jazz pianist, went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and then started Metropolis Recording Studios there in the 1980s. It was a place that early hip-hop artists and acts such as Aerosmith, Bobby Brown, New Kids on the Block and Bel Biv Devoe recorded.

The experience taught Tudor how to use the gear, but its charm wore off.

“I got bored of how many different ways you can record a single and how many different ways to make a pop song,” Tudor said. “What really sucked me in was the technology.”

Which is how he ended up in California, starting up ResNova Software Inc. in 1989. That company helped define today’s Internet standards before Microsoft Corp. purchased it a few years later.

Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald SaneWave, a maker of audio engineering devices and other products, has designed a digital mixing console with a touch-sensitive control surface.

In the mid-1990s, Tudor teamed with Greg Mackie, founder of Mackie Designs Inc., the Woodinville-based maker of studio mixers and other audio equipment. With Mackie, Tudor developed the first digital mixing console and other innovative products before layoffs in 2001 left him without a job.

With funding from his co-development of a commercial stock trading program, Tudor launched SaneWave in 2001 to build on what he worked on at Mackie Designs.

Since then, SaneWave’s developed a quick reputation.

“Our industry’s so small,” Tudor said, estimating that of the 30 or so audio companies relevant to SaneWave’s work, about two-thirds have worked with the company.

Working with companies that compete directly with each other, of course, requires Tudor and his staff to be sensitive to closely guard clients’ secrets.

“We feel like Switzerland. We treat all our clients with equal weight and responsibility,” said Scott Garside, SaneWave’s project and operations manager.

He added that the company doesn’t usually need to work hard at soliciting business.

“If anything, we fend it off, in the pure interest of being responsible to our clients, who usually need things done yesterday,” Garside said.

Relaxing in his office’s unusually historic surroundings, Tudor said SaneWave has proved to be a good fit for his traditionally short attention span and craving to work on new things.

“As soon as you get bored here, you get something completely different,” he said.

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.