Update April 2008 - PRISM SOUND AQUIRES SADiE -

SADiE History

SADiE was founded by Managing Director, Joe Bull in May 1991 with a number of colleagues who had worked together previously in other organisations. Their experience in audio and computing was derived from several years in music and audio-visual production followed by pioneering developments in computer graphics systems. This gave the company an excellent grounding in the techniques and quality issues affecting audio production generally, as well as a wealth of experience in the computer industry developing software based products.

The company's first product was the XS digital audio processing card which was shown at APRS '91 within a few weeks of incorporation. The product attracted a great deal of interest and many clients such as Lightworks adopted the XS card as the basis for their audio engine.

Development work on the Studio Audio Disk Editor (SADiE) began in January 1992. It initially offered "stereo editing" capabilities on the XS platform which later became known as the SADiE Classic. The first sale of this simple replacement for a two-track tape recorder was made in May 1992 and by the end of that year sales had been achieved into mastering, post-production and broadcasting facilities. In fact, Glenn Meadows, recognised as one of the top mastering engineers in Nashville, purchased the first unit to be imported into the USA. We are proud that all of our early adopters remain valued customers and friends to this day.

SADiE continued from strength to strength with major customers such as the BBC adopting it as their de facto standard for all radio feature productions. There are in excess of 1000 SADiE systems in daily use at the BBC in addition to a similar number at other major radio stations world-wide.

There are also thousands of SADiE systems in use across the world in wider applications ranging from the earliest "Classic" systems to the current advanced Series 5 series of workstations. SADiE's policy of offering software updates at no charge for the life of the product has proven to be particularly successful in keeping customers in touch with the latest advances in software development. Many users of the earliest SADiE systems have achieved a ten-fold increase in usable processing power merely through this software policy, which represents an amazingly low cost of ownership.

Group Organisation & Corporate Philosophy

SADiE's UK headquarters is based in the village of Stretham just north of the University City of Cambridge, UK. The company's main Production and R&D facilities are centred here, in addition to the UK, Far East & ROW sales and customer support operations. The former Victorian village school has been radically transformed into an award-winning building, specifically to meet the needs of a modern hi-tech organisation, whilst retaining much of the original character.

European & Middle East sales and distribution are co-ordinated from SADiE GmbH based in Esslingen near Stuttgart, Germany which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the UK organisation. A similarly experienced customer support team supplements the sales operation, providing service to the whole of the European zone.

Sales into the Americas are under the direction of SADiE America which is based in Nashville, TN and has since grown to become highly regarded amongst the Digital Audio Workstation community throughout the USA. This enviable reputation has been largely due to the outstanding customer support service that the company is justly proud of.

The SADiE philosophy is to provide the customer with the most relevant tools for the task whilst ensuring the absolute sonic integrity of the program material. To this end, the company has taken great pains within its hardware and software development to ensure that a user may work with SADiE in the way that he or she wants, rather than being forced to work within any specific paradigm.

SADiE is as flexible in operational terms as it is possible to design. All major tasks may be completed in a variety of methods depending upon the preference of the user.

At SADiE we are committed to staying at the forefront of technological developments. Keeping abreast of industry trends so that we can deliver the most effective solutions to the pro-audio community, is one of the key tenets of the organisation.