Mackie Designs Inc. Solidifies Educational Partnership Program with SAE Technology College

April 15, 1999 – Woodinville, WA – Professional audio systems manufacturer Mackie Designs Inc. and SAE Technology Group B. V. recently announced a partnership to bring Mackie technology to audio recording students and Mackie retailers world wide.

In 1998 Mackie's training director Keith Medley and SAE's owner Tom Misner began discussions to bring Mackie's acclaimed mixing consoles and related products into the learning environment of SAE facilities around the world. The result of the yearlong dialogue is the Mackie Educational Partnership Program (MEPP).

The two companies agreed to design and outfit special Mackie audio classrooms in each SAE facility. These specially designed classrooms feature Mackie mixers and reference monitors; specifically the award winning Mackie Digital 8•Bus, analog 8•Bus recording consoles, HUI DAW mixer and HR824 studio reference monitors. These special classrooms also feature a Mackie designed curriculum to teach SAE students and/or local Mackie retailers the finer points of recording and mixing on Mackie products.

"We see this as a perfect solution to our international, localized training needs," stated Keith Medley, Mackie's training director. "We can now extend our Mackie World Academy classroom beyond Woodinville to localized international locations and offer product training to our dealers in these locations in their native language. This also affords a steady stream of possible new students to SAE and gives Mackie retailers a state of the art facility to train their retail staff."

Tom Misner, owner of SAE commented, "When we introduced SAE's initial curriculum, we revolutionized the educational values of the recording industry in the world today. When Mackie began marketing their products, they did much the same thing. Both SAE and Mackie have made recording much more accessible to the world, and both are now considered world class organizations, setting standards that the rest of the world have yet to match. I am delighted, therefore, to launch the Mackie Educational Partnership Program at SAE and trust that our students will benefit hugely from this association."

Currently the MEPP partnership is under way in New York, Nashville, London, Paris, Cologne, Munich, Sydney, and Malaysia with plans for May 1999 that include Milan, Stockholm, Hamburg, Vienna and Zurich. Later 1999 plans include Melbourne, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Singapore and Berlin.

About Mackie
Mackie Designs Inc. is known worldwide as a leading manufacturer and marketer of high-quality, affordable professional audio systems. Mackie products can be found in professional and project recording studios, video and broadcast suites, post production facilities, sound reinforcement applications including churches and nightclubs, retail locations and on major musical tours. Mackie Designs Inc. products are marketed by 54 distributors to more than 100 countries around the world.

"Mackie." is a registered trademark of Mackie Designs Inc. in the United States and other countries.

For more information please contact: Mackie Designs Inc. – 16220 Wood-Red Road N.E. – Woodinville, WA 98072 – Phone: 425-487-4333 – Fax: 425-487-4337 – Internet: www.mackie.com