M House Studios Debuts New Product at Summer NAMM

M House started in 2018 when I was in my third year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, studying electrical engineering. I'd been fascinated with mixing equipment since high school, when I was running a little studio in my basement for my band and friends. I was already using the name “M House” at that point, since the company namesake is my cat and our benevolent CEO, Morley.

One of my goals at the time was to learn about compressors at a very low level. I had an opportunity to investigate compression circuits for a class project, which quickly got out of hand. I was spending so much time working on my compressor design that it was starting to interfere with other schoolwork, so eventually it occurred to me that I should continue this as a personal project and start a business. Alex and I had always wanted to partner on some kind of audio business, so it was exciting to get something started. I just graduated this past May, and we headed down to 2019 Summer NAMM!

Alex was my roommate at school. When I first arrived at my dorm as a freshman, we had to attend this orientation meeting. As kids filed in, I overheard Alex asking everyone if they knew who had left their door open with a bass guitar in the room--which was me. As it happened, Alex was my neighbor down the hall. We moved into an apartment the next year and spent the following summer on campus hanging out and talking about music. Alex studied computer science, so we have a lot of interest in expanding into hybrid analog-digital designs.

The 5020 Stereo FET Limiter is an extremely aggressive, two-channel limiter with variable attack time, release time, character control, wet/dry blend, input level, and output level. The 5020 features multiple stereo modes, side-chain high pass filters, meter modes, and a true hardware bypass. It excels at smashing drum groups and imparts a unique, colorful sound.

It seems to us that there a lot of compressors today which don't have much of a particular sound. As a reaction, I designed a limiter which is neither transparent nor neutral. The 5020 is designed to be used as a compression ‘effect,’ like a guitar pedal but for your drums. In a world of pristine, and sometimes sterile recordings, the 5020 can be used to invigorate and resurrect lifeless tracks.

It was amazing! It was a dream come true for us to attend this event that we've always wanted to be a part of. Besides being able to run around like kids at a candy store and geek out over gear; we met some incredible people. I think that's really the most valuable thing we took away from our experience--the connections we made with other passionate people. It was definitely the highlight of our summer.

I think it's powerful to design things you would actually like to use. I didn't start designing equipment because of an opportunity in the market, but because I really wanted to create something that I could use in my own studio.

All of our products are passion projects, simple as that.

That's the plan! Everyone's told us it's incredible. We were struck by the size of Summer NAMM, but we've been informed that the NAMM Show is on another level. We'd like to meet even more people and develop deeper connections in the industry.