Burgess Macneal

[1][4] During the building of the console, around 1966, Macneal and Massenburg conceptualized an idea for a sweep-tunable EQ that would avoid inductors and switches.

[2] In approximately 1967, an engineer attending Princeton University named Bob Meushaw, a friend of Massenburg, built a three-band, frequency adjustable, fixed-Q, IC op-amp-based EQ based on passive 2 resistor/2 capacitor or 3 resistor/3 capacitor “T” filters (a design that was primarily from a 1940s Bell Labs filter handbook).

While working on the design of the circuit, Massenburg had a marked breakthrough and together with an input amplifier built by ITI’s chief engineer, the concept was functional around 1969.

[1][2] Macneal and Massenberg attended the 1971 AES convention in New York and debuted the new equalizer, generating industry-wide interest and demand.

[4] The original stand-alone unit was called the ITI ME-230 (Mastering Equalizer 230) and was the first commercially available parametric EQ.

[1] Burgess Macneal and, software programmer, Gerry Block created the impressively precise Sontec Compudisk pitch and depth automation controller for disc cutting lathes, which they debuted at the 1980 AES Convention.

The most famous studio to adopt the Compudisk was The Mastering Lab, which added one to their highly modified vintage Neumann lathes.

The Compudisk cost about 3 times as much as the Zuma, but both greatly improved on the space-saving capabilities of previous designs.