MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, WA — Founder Dane Butcher conceived Symetrix in the early 1970s, while he worked as a recording engineer, and this year the company celebrates its 30-year anniversary. Butcher worked with members of Return to Forever and helped engineer Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters. With a degree in music from the University of Washington, Butcher took a job working for Greg Mackie at Tapco and learned to design electronics. In 1976, six months after taking the job at Tapco, Butcher started Symetrix in an artist's loft and former garment factory in the Belltown area of Seattle, Wash., less-formally known as Skid Row. The price was right — $75 a month — and Butcher and his first employee, James Husted, found they could supplement their Symetrix income by doing repair work and studio maintenance around town.
A surplus electronic components company was located across the street, and with their parts Butcher manufactured the very first Symetrix product, the SG-1 Signal Gate, and the company's subsequent compressors, limiters and phasers. Again, the price was right. After about two years, the Symetrix team was able to cast off their odd jobs and devote themselves fully to the company.
According to Butcher, "By the early 1980s we'd had some success in the broadcast market making telephone interfaces for talk shows. We wanted to do more, and so we thought pretty deeply about what was already there and, more importantly, what wasn't. On-air processing was pretty well dominated by Orban, and they seemed to be doing a pretty good job with it. Similarly, mixers weren't our thing and the field seemed pretty well stocked. We thought, what about the very front end? Let's go to the mic and work our way in. It was simple logic."
Thus, what started out as a cocktail napkin sketch grew into the original 528 Voice Processor.
"For a small signal processing company we, perhaps more than anyone, go across a large number of markets," Butcher reflected. "However, we came to the conclusion that those markets were having trouble identifying with one company that could work in so many different areas. They were used to companies that vertically aligned themselves. We decided to communicate our dedication to each market by branding our products accordingly." With that decision, the Lucid, AirTools and SymNet brands were launched.
The Lucid brand serves the digital recording studio market. The AirTools brand serves the broadcast market with profanity delays and launched 10 months before Super Bowl XXXVIII. Normally that would be an irrelevant fact, but Super Bowl XXXVIII was special. Janet Jackson performed.
The SymNet brand serves the installed sound contractor market with general purpose DSP products. It was never meant to be its own brand, but as Butcher explained, "We created it as a series of Symetrix products in 2002, and the market was really taken with the name. The sales started rolling, and they just haven't quit."
Apart from markets and branding, the biggest change at Symetrix over the last 30 years has been the shift from analog to digital technology. The shift is hardly unique to Symetrix, and Butcher is fatalistic about its progression. "No single person or company is willing digital technology on the rest of the world. It's just a sea change, and everybody jumps on the raft."
Reflecting on his past and the course he has charted for the future, Butcher is modest. "Symetrix has been around for a long time, and people say we make good products. That's good enough for me. As long as our customers perceive us as a partner that will help them be successful, we can both be successful together."
For more information, visit www.symetrixaudio.com.
