"SuperDuper" was started in 1987 in the back of Cascade Recording with 10 Nakamich MR- 2B cassette decks for dubbing out of the frustration by recording engineer Rick McMillen that the quality of the albums he was producing weren't being upheld in the duplication process.
Soon the word spread & he was innundated by orders for real-time chrome cassettes from all over. He was having to dub more cassettes than he could do himself. He wanted to mix, not make dubs. He still had studio clients as well as bands that wanted him to their live shows. Soon SuperDuper turned into a monster. His friend Van Browne offered him a spare room in RMS Sound, a 1980's (think Soundcraft JBL & Otari then.) pro audio dealer on 39th & Powell. DAT was big then. And analog tapes at 15 ips with dbx or Dolby SR.
Soon the Nakamichi's grew to over 50 decks. Rick bought a machine to load cassettes in the old house's kitchen area.
The old building was falling apart. But it was cool.
A short time went by when the old/new Spectrum Studios building became available. The Russ Berger designed facility needed tenants as Spectrum Studios had gone bankrupt & Rick moved in with a couple other fledgling business's like Dan Reed's production company. And White Horse, a jingle company. They ran the studios but, soon they found websites to be their calling.
SuperDuper ran a mastering studio out of one the rooms. Our main floor was a pro audio showroom.The basement was the production area & soon became filled with more & more machinery. The Nakamichis soon totalled 100, & there were loading robots, shell printing, & shrinkwrap machines. And a staff of 10 making cassettes.
In the meantime the pro audio store opened up & started selling cables, compressors, digital reverbs, mixers, & ADATs.
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