Andy Bereza - Creator Of The Portastudio

Recording & Mixing

Pro Audio Design Engineer Andy Bereza summarises his impressive career in a chat with Paul Gilby. Andy founded Allen & Heath Mixers before working for TEAC/Tascam, where he conceived the TEAC Portastudio the portable multitrack cassette tape recorder that revolutionised the home recording market in the 1980s. He then co-founded Bandive-Turnkey where he developed a range of budget signal processors and the famous Great British Spring reverb to sell to the rapidly expanding Home Studio Recording market. At the same time, he was a consultant for the Fostex X15 multitrack cassette as well as helping to steer further product designs.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:34 - Getting Into Electronics
01:45 - Building Custom Desks
04:09 - Allen & Heath Mixers
06:07 - The Minimixer
08:54 - The Pink Floyd Desks
12:24 - Allen & Heath Mod II Mixer
13:20 - Expanding The Company
15:23 - Moving To Tascam
16:58 - Constructing The Portastudio
21:57 - Setting Up Bandive / Turnkey
24:55 - Creating Products For The Home Studio
29:03 - Fostex Releases in the 80s
30:48 - Bandive Seck Mixers
32:08 - Expanding Turnkey
35:14 - Selling To Harman
38:38 - Launching Digital Postcards
41:07 - A Brief Career Summary
42:13 - Proudest Career Moment

Andy Bereza Biog
Andy Bereza started his career as a Audio Design Engineer after moving to London in 1967 to study Electronics at Chelsea University. A chance encounter with Siggy Jackson in Tin Pan Alley gave him his first custom commission and many more soon followed, with Andy building mixers for Bill Shepherd (producer of the Bee Gees), Alan Price, Maurice Gibb and also a location recording mixer for the Clockwork Orange movie.

In 1970 Andy became the Founder of Allen & Heath, where he initially developed the black range of mixers, then their first mass market product the Minimix. At the same time he creating custom quadraphonic live desks for The Who along with Pink Floyd's Pompeii and Dark Side Of The Moon touring desks.

In 1975, Andy joined TEAC America and was employed to introduce Tascam into Europe. Then in 1976 he was contracted directly with TEAC Japan where he developed the iconic Portastudio that changed the face of the home recording industry. In 1977 he became one of the founders of Bandive Ltd and helped to develop further products for the home recording market and created the popular Turnkey By Mail catalogue during the late 1970s to mid 80s. Bandive then opened the Turnkey retail store in central London.

Following the sale of Bandive / Turnkey to Harman UK in 1987, he briefly became their Marketing Director, before signing up to become Managing Director of Fostex in 1991. Later in the 90s Andy left the Pro Audio industry and turned his attention to multimedia where he developed interactive product catalogues on CD-ROM.

Paul Gilby Biog
Paul Gilby is the co-founder, along with his brother Ian, of Sound On Sound magazine in 1985. Having written many product reviews and interviews over the years he now heads up the Digital Media side of the business managing the team that looks after the SOS website as well as the video and podcast productions.

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