Malcolm Toft

Malcolm Toft
Origin	Kinston upon Thames, England
Genres	Hard rock, Art rock, Alternative rock, Glam rock, Progressive rock, Folk rock, Pop rock
Occupations	Recording Engineer,
Instruments	Guitar
Years active	1964 – present
Associated acts	David Bowie T.Rex James Taylor The Nice The Beatles

Malcolm Toft is an audio engineer and businessman who worked at Trident Studios, first as an audio engineer, then as the studio's manager, and eventually as co-founder of recording console maker Trident Audio Developments. Toft went on to form another console company, Malcolm Toft Associates, which eventually led to the founding of Toft Audio Designs. Toft is also co-owner of The Music Mill Studio.

Trident Studios and Trident Audio Development

Toft started at Tony Pike music in 1964 as a trainee and two years later moved to CBS Studios. He joined Europe's first 8-track recording facility, Trident Studios in London, in 1967 as its first engineer after being offered the position while attending the studio's opening party.^[1] He worked with Tony Visconti during the recording of British band Tyrannosaurus Rex's first three albums and David Bowie's Space Oddity album. He later engineered James Taylor's debut album and was the mix engineer on The Beatles' song "Hey Jude."^[2][3]

In 1971, Toft became Trident Studios' manager. The next year, the studio decided to upgrade from 16-track to 24-tracks but wasn't able to source a console with the size, features, and configuration that they wanted, so they decided they would design and build their own. Working together with Barry Porter, Toft took on management and systems design of the project which became the Trident A Range console and led to Toft managing Trident Audio Developments, Ltd. (TAD), an offshoot of Trident Studios that built and sold professional recording consoles. In 1981 Toft, together with Jack Hartfield, bought TAD, but in 1988, unhappy with the direction of the company's new product designs, Toft sold his interest and left the company, although under the stipulation of a three-year non-compete agreement.^[4]

Malcolm Toft Associates and Toft Audio

In 1992, with encouragement from one of Trident's United States distributors, Toft designed a new console. Building on which he intended as something of an update to his Trident Series 80 designs, he released a range of consoles and related products under the Malcolm Toft Associates (MTA) brand. Toft later partnered with Ted Fletcher and Fletcher ElectroAcoustics to form Trident-MTA.^[5]

With PMI Audio Group's acquisition of Trident Audio Developments' assets in October 2008, Toft once again is developing products under the Trident name.^[6]

The Music Mill

Toft and Rick Edwards co-founded the Music Mill Studio in Newton Abbott (Devon), UK, a recording and broadcast studio and education facility for music technology and music composition where, in partnership with South Devon College, courses in recording, radio, music, and the performing arts are taught.^[7]

In January 2009, Toft was awarded a visiting professorship in music technology by Leeds College of Music.^[8] At the 2011 Music Producers Guild awards Toft had the honor of presenting longtime colleague Tony Visconti with the award for Innovation in Production.^[9]

Engineering credits

Selected engineering credits:^[10]

1967: David Bowie – David Bowie (album) 1968: Tyrannosaurus Rex – Prophets Seers & Sages: The Angels Of The Ages 1968: James Taylor – James Taylor (album) 1969: David Bowie – Space Oddity (album) 1969: Tyrannosaurus Rex – Unicorn (album) 1970: Brian Davison (drummer) – Every Which Way 1970: Aphrodite's Child – It's Five O'Clock 1970: The Nice – Five Bridges Suite 1971: The Nice – Elegy 1971: The Nice – Keith Emerson With The Nice 2004: Ace Kefford – Ace The Face 2008: The Move – Anthology 1966-1972 References ^ "Mixing Legends: Malcolm Toft", Sound On Sound, Jul 94 ^ "Toft Audio ATB24", Sound On Sound, Feb 2008 ^ Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, Recording The Beatles, Curvebender Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-9785200-0-9, pp. 488-9 ^ Walt Szalva et al,"Malcolm Toft", TapeOp, Issue #26 ^ Walt Szalva, "Trident-MTA A Range", Mix Magazine, Jul 2001 ^ "PMI Audio Announces Acquisition Of Trident Audio Dev Company", Pro Sound News, Oct 2008 ^ "Hard-Fi At The Music Mill", Sound On Sound, Dec 2006 ^ "South Devon music legend becomes a professor", People's Republic of South Devon, Jan 2009 ^ The Music Mill, Mar 2011 ^ Malcolm Toft: Album Credits on AlbumCredits.com External links Toft Audio Designs History Malcolm Toft on Recording The Beatles "Hey Jude" at Electronic Musician TV Malcolm Toft Q&A, Mix Magazine, Oct 2009 Universal Audio Webzine, "The Lowdown on the 'British Sound' from Legendary Trident A-Range Console Designer Malcolm Toft" Persondata Name Toft, Malcolm Alternative names Short description Date of birth Place of birth Date of death Place of death