Colin Pringle

Colin Pringle (Born 28 July 1955 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom) is a British businessman in the music industry. Although born in the north of England, Pringle lived and was educated in London and the South East from the age of six.

From an initial career as a journalist and editor with Michael Heseltine's Haymarket Publishing, which he joined at the age of 18, Pringle came to specialise in media development. After nine years with Haymarket and rising to become Associate Publisher to one of the shareholders, he moved to Link House Plc as Development Manager for their newly- formed Business and Professional magazine division. He worked on the acquisition, and was subsequently publisher, of 'Communicate', the UK's first tele/datascoms industry magazine. He later worked on the purchase and establishment of a New York-based media technology group that included 'Pro Sound News', 'Television Broadcast' and other industry publications.

While building his publishing career, Pringle also wrote freelance articles AbOUT pop music for a range of publications. This led him to make his first visit to the USA in 1975 at the suggestion of John Lennon's lover and PA May Pang. In consequence, Pringle was asked by Pang to meet with EMI's Bob Mercer and Apple Corp's Neil Aspinall on her behalf regarding missing credit on a photo of Lennon that was used on the cover of the single 'Imagine'.

In 1988 Pringle was invited to join the board of directors of Solid State logic (SSL)1, the Oxford-based designer and manufacturer of audio mixing consoles for music, film and broadcast, by the company's founder and CEO, Colin Sanders. He worked as Marketing Director and also took on product management. He introduced several innovations, such as the Ultimation moving fader automation system, and Scenaria, a post production console that combined both digital audio and pictures. A survey by 'Billboard' in the early 90s showed that an INCredible 80% of records in the Billboard Chart were produced using SSL consoles. In 1989 Pringle co-founded Audio Processing Technology 2, a division of SSL, which licensed its audio data compression technology to DTS for use as DTS cinema surround sound.

Following the acquisition of SSL by Carlton Communications, Pringle joined rival audio manufacturer AMS Neve 3 in a similar capacity . Here he focused on the film and post-production markets, and also digital television. He introduced the world's first digital film dubbing console to Hollywood with early installations at Todd-AO/Glen Glenn and Warner Bros. The company subsequently won a prestigious Technical Academy Award.

From 1999-2000 Pringle worked for United News & Media as Corporate Development Director of their international Music, Entertainment Technology and Electronics divisions. This group included the UK's 'Music Week' and 'Electronics Weekly', as well as the 'Guitar Player' group in San Mateo and PSN Publication in New York. In this period he worked on the development of Internet offerings for the group's traditional Print Media and exhibitions.

Following the purchase of SSL from Carlton Communications by venture capital group 3i Plc4, Pringle was invited to return to the group as CEO. There had been little innovation at SSL in the intervening years and the markets had also changed. Pringle was faced with making staff cuts and restructuring while simultaneously introducing new break-out products. The music market widely welcomed the introduction of the AWS900, a high quality analogue console that combined digital control of PC workstations like Digidesign's Pro Tools. A new digital processing platform and assignable broadcast consoles were also introduced. In 2003 SSL was awarded a special Grammy Awardhttp://mixonline.com/news/audio_ssl_wins_technical/index.html.

Pringle left SSL in 2005 following its sale to an investment group that includes musician Peter Gabriel. He now advises companies and investors on a range of media-related projects.

Publications include 'The Black Book' (ISBN 0-9516522-0-6), a collection of portraits and biographies of record producers.

In 2006 Pringle was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London.

External links

Lawrie Hallett MIBS, writing about the origins of Audio Processing Technology in the Institute of Broadcast Sound's journal 'Line Up'. Feb/Mar 2006. (http://www.ibs.org.uk/public/lineuparchive/index.php?dir=./2006/Feb-Mar)

Mix magazine. Pringle's comments on Grammy Award. (http://mixonline.com/news/audio_ssl_wins_technical/)