60 Years of Excellence
Six decades ago, Long & McQuade music store founder Jack Long and Pete Traynor (his then-staff repair person) Pete Traynor took a walk outside the first Long & McQuade location in Toronto, seeking inspiration for their new manufacturing venture. With the Yorkville Street sign in their line of sight, Yorkville Sound was born.
Bassist Traynor, dissatisfied with the popular amps of the ‘60s, created his own line of Dynabass amplifiers. Later renamed Bass Master, the amp earned a global reputation as a workhorse for decades to come.
Making Audio History
The first Yorkville Sound product was a first for the globe. In the early 1960s, lead vocalists showed up to gigs with a microphone and the hope that there was something to plug into. At the request of a local band, Traynor built two roadworthy column P.A. speakers to solve this problem once and for all. The resulting Yorkville YSC speakers comprised the first known portable column P.A. system, soon to be commonplace on stages around the world. Eventually, after seeing YSCs used on their sides (propped up by bricks) for stage monitoring, Traynor went about creating stage monitor wedges — another first.
By the end of 1963, Yorkville was making P.A. column speakers as well as bass amps and cabinets. After incorporating in 1965, Yorkville Sound expanded its sales into the USA and soon after added a guitar amplifier (the YGA-1) and a powered P.A. mixer (the YVM-1) to the line. Throughout the 1960’s, Yorkville continued expanding, and become a serious force in North America for its P.A. and instrument amplification products.
Entering the Modern Age
In 1969, a year when audio pioneer Bill Hanley was mixing the iconic Woodstock Festival on a hodgepodge of six-input Shure and Altec portable mixers, Pete Traynor unveiled his first “large format” mixer — the groundbreaking 24-channel MX-24, which featured dual onboard 7-band graphic equalizers. The console did not use linear faders, opting for all rotary pots, as these were deemed less susceptible to dirt, dust and grime encountered in live situations.
The Growth Era
Growth continued in various phases through the 1970’s and 1980’s. In 1986, Yorkville introduced its élite line of point-source speakers, featuring trapezoidal enclosures and premium components, these continue in production as do a line of powered and unpowered P.A. mixers. Designed for wide coverage and often used at medium-sized events, and a popular choice for club, concert and outdoor live sound, Yorkville’s Paraline compact array system is scalable on the vertical plane and can be flown or positioned on a stand.
More recently, stepping up is the flexible, scalable, expandable large-format Synergy Array Series — Yorkville Sound’s highest output speaker system. Known for exceptional bass, mids, and highs, Synergy is a serious choice for high-end clubs, touring productions and theater installs.
Today, Yorkville Sound manufactures a full line of professional P.A. products including mixers, amplifiers, active and passive loudspeaker cabinets and portable lighting rigs. Yorkville Sound also designs and manufactures a complete line of Canadian made tube and solid-state instrument amplifiers under the iconic Traynor brand for Canada, the U.S. and export markets.
To keep up with its stellar growth, Yorkville Sound has expanded from a few employees in the back of the original Long & McQuade store to more than 200 employees in its 150,000-square-foot facility in outside of Toronto, still in Pickering, Ontario, where all its North American products are manufactured.
Looking to the Future — and Beyond
Yet the company remains committed to both the audio/music — as well as general populace. In 2020, Yorkville Sound focused its engineering and manufacturing expertise to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
In conjunction with Starfish Medical, Yorkville’s design team engaged in an open-source ventilator design project, with a goal of increasing the availability of ventilators in Canada. Yorkville provided circuit-board design and layout, as well as the assembly of control panels for the ventilator project and with its flexible manufacturing capabilities, was able to produce finished results quickly and with accuracy, thus helping flatten the curve and providing much needed equipment for our healthcare professionals.
And in addition to the design, manufacturing and distribution of its own brands, Yorkville Sound also has a very active resale distribution division. With the success of its Yorkville and Traynor product lines, the company took advantage of its global connections, and now handles North American distribution for brands such as Apex, ART (Applied Research & Technology, which it acquired in 1999), HK Audio and Hughes & Kettner; as well as Canadian distribution for a wide range of manufacturers, including ADAM Audio, Cedar Audio, Coles, Epiphone/Gibson, Hosa, KRK, Lewitt, Manley Labs, Royer, Rupert Neve Designs, Samson, sE Electronics, Softube and Universal Audio — among many others.
Sixty years in, Yorkville Sound continues to innovate on a global level. Most recently, Yorkville unveiled the EXM Mobile series, high-performance, portable battery-powered P.A. systems, giving musicians the latitude to set up great-sounding gigs anywhere. The Pete Traynor ethic of leading the charge in product designs and building gear from musicians’ and pro audio users’ point of view remains a core part of Yorkville and Traynor’s identity.
Congrats, and here’s to another 60 years!
For more information, visit Yorkville Sound at www.yorkville.com
