Colin Sanders

British audio engineer and inventor (23 February 1947 — 28 January 1998). Colin Sanders founded Acorn Studios and Acorn Records Limited and, most notably, Solid State Logic (SSL), one of the world's leading manufacturers of studio mixing consoles and other professional equipment. In February 2004, SSL received the Technical Grammy Award for "contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field." Sanders founded his record label Acorn (2) around 1969 as a hobbyist project while still attending university. He soon realized that a small, independent record company requires a specific, narrow "niche" to prosper; thus, Colin focused primarily on folk and organ music. At the time, he was employed at Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory. Sanders did a freelance project for a British subsidiary of Hammond Organ Company, designing a compact valve amplifier. During the tour of Hammond's facilities, the engineer was surprised that organ builders spent so much time on mechanical, monotonous tasks of wiring relays and multi-position switches, taking away from their actual oeuvre and craftsmanship in woodwork and pipes. Colin Sanders suggested using diodes and transistors to optimize the process, and Hammond gave him the first commission to design FET-based electronics for Glasgow Cathedral organ. Soon afterward, he launched a new company, "Solid State Logic," to further market and promote transistor-based organ sound systems.