30 Years of History serving Film and TV

Martyn's history in serving the film and TV industry in Wales, England and indeed the world started a whopping 30 years ago in Filmtech Electronics who we will fondly remember as being based in St Mellons, Cardiff...

He recounts fondly how in those heady days an order enquiry would often arrive as an air mail letter from romantic far away places like Canada or Sweden... replies were typed and sent back via air mail, and negotiations would frequently take months to secure an order.

In today's world of instant global communications via email it is almost impossible to comprehend how long it took in those humble beginnings to negotiate and secure a deal.

Filmtech were well known for producing all sorts of location electronics mostly for the sound department. There were add-ons for the Nagra reel to reel recorders, simple mono mixers that were piggy backed with Nagras to expand their capabilities, and then with the dawn of ENG simple 3 channel then 4 channel mono mixers were produced. With the advent of greater demands on location and for stereo recordings they first produced the PAM4.2 then the cream of the lot, the LSP4, still favoured by location mixers today.

The LSP4 was a mixer that simply burst at the seams with features and functionality, there isn't a single manufacturer today that has produced a mixer since that rivalled its performance and functionality.

For years Martyn saw that there was a demand for more, recordists were asking him if he could supply other bits and bobs, so in 2002 he hung up his soldering iron, and decided to return to some of the initial values and beliefs he held whilst running Filmtech Electronics. Soundkit Ltd was born!