Manaus, Brazil. JVC do Brasil, the recently established joint venture of JVC and Brazilian manufacturer Gradiente, will establish an audio manufacturing plant in Manaus, Amazonas state. The company used to import its audio product lines from Japan. But with local production, JVC expects to gain an 8% share of the domestic audio market. In the first year of operation, sales are projected to reach $50M (US).

Lake Mary, FL. Recoton Corp., the parent company of numerous North American audio accessory and consumer audio product brands, has settled its labor dispute with Local 184 (Orlando, FL) of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics & Allied Workers Union. The company and the union jointly announced that they reached agreement yesterday for a new three year contract. Details of the new agreement have not been disclosed.

Recoton Corp. brands include Advent®(R), AR®/Acoustic Research®, Calibron®, Discwasher®, Jensen®, Parsec®, Phase Linear®, Recoton®, Rembrandt®, SoundQuest® and STD®.

Woodinville, WA. Console and mixer manufacturer Mackie Designs Inc. has been one of the ten fastest growing technology companies in Washington state over the past five years. That’s according to a study conducted by NASDAQ, Tiper Jaffray, US West, and the Washington Software and Digital Media Alliance.

“The Washington Technology Fast 50 Award” recognizes the top 50 technology companies in Washington, with rankings based on percentage growth in revenues from 1991 to 1995. Mackie Designs has grown from revenues of 3.8 million in 1991 to almost 64 million in 1995, representing a sales growth increase of 1583%.

“The tremendous growth of our company emphasizes the opportunities we have always believed to exist in the professional audio products market,” said CEO and President Greg Mackie.

Earlier this year, INC. Magazine rated Mackie #78 on its “INC.100” list of fastest-growing companies. That study considered all publicly held companies across all industry sectors, not just technology. No other professional audio manufacturer made the INC. list.

Although Mackie Designs’ growth so far has been fuelled exclusively by its extensive line of low-cost high-quality mixing systems, the company recently announced plans to diversify into other professional audio products by the end of 1996. At the summer National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show in July, Mackie previewed speaker systems (the 8020 High Accuracy Active Studio Reference Monitor) and amplifiers (M1200 Fast Recovery Series™ power amp).

“We believe that we can leverage the Mackie brand name into other products, and the tremendous response we received at NAMM definitely supports that theory,” stated Mackie.

San Diego, CA. Brooktree Corp. announced today that it has licensed its WaveStream™ wavetable synthesis technology to Packard Bell NEC Inc. The deal will allow Packard Bell to bundle the software-only synthesis engine with its new Platinum Series computer systems.

WaveStream loads as a software module in Windows 95, and uses system memory to hold wavetable instrument descriptions. The instruments are read from disk as required from an 8MB sample library. WaveStream gives Packard Bell’s systems high-performance PC sound and the ability to play General MIDI compatible games and software, without the expense of additional sound hardware.

“We believe that WaveStream is the only software solution of its kind,” said Fred Kern, V-P of Product Marketing for Packard Bell NEC. “It gives full General MIDI compatibility, 32-voice polyphony, and the ability to customize a personal sound library depending on preferences and the requirements of the application.”

In addition to supporting games and educational titles, WaveStream can handle fullblown MIDI composition and sequencing. WaveStream’s inclusion of an MPU-401 emulation mode ensures compatibility with applications that function in a full or partial screen under Windows and support the GM standard.

Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Brazilian Ministry of Communications has announced that it will offer a large number of new radio and TV broadcasting licenses this month. A total of 610 franchises will be up for grabs, including 400 for FM radio and 150 for AM.

Ministry spokesman Francisco Mendonca says that the licenses will be awarded on the basis of technical merit rather than political influence. This would be a sharp break from the current practice. Of the 2,944 existing radio broadcast licenses in Brasil today, 40% are directly or indirectly held by politicians.

This is the first time new frequencies have been offered in Brasil since the late 1980’s. Decisions on who gets the new licenses will not be made until after municipal elections early in October.

“This is to avoid any suggestion or rumors that concessions are being awarded politically,” Mendonca said. “The government eliminated a provision allowing for personal criteria in awarding concessions and replaced it with competitive criteria to make it more democratic.”