MCI

Music Center Incorporated was founded in 1955 by Grover 'Jeep' Harned and his wife Joyce, who opened a hi-fi shop in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with $8,500 in borrowed capital. Harned began building custom audio equipment — mixing consoles, preamps, electronics — at the request of local clients, most importantly Mack Emerman, owner of nearby Criteria Recording Studios. That partnership would shape both companies for the next two decades: as MCI grew into a full manufacturer of tape machines and consoles, Criteria became one of the most important studios in the United States, defining the "Sunshine Sound" of American soft rock.

Criteria became the studio of choice for the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and the Bee Gees during the peak years of the mid-1970s. The MCI JH-400 and JH-500 consoles that sat at the centre of those sessions contributed significantly to the warm, open sound that distinguished Miami recordings from their more clinical Los Angeles counterparts.

MCI is credited with a number of world firsts — commercialising the 24-track multi-track recorder, the tape Auto Locator, and (with Dave Harrison's design input) the in-line mixing console. Harned sold MCI to Sony in 1982 and retired; he died in 2003. Their tape machines outlived their consoles in industry memory, but the recordings made on MCI desks represent a sustained peak of American popular music that has rarely been equalled.