About Us

Background

MI Audio Pty Ltd is an Australian owned boutique manufacturer of high end guitar effects pedals and valve amplification. At our Sydney workshop we design and build our pedals and amplifiers for musical instrument stores and guitarists around the world.

The mission of MI Audio is to manufacture high end, high quality and affordable musical equipment for musicians using globally sourced high end components where possible.

History

MI Audio was founded in 2002 by Michael Ibrahim. It came as the culmination of 15 years interest in music and electronics. However, the real impetus for the founding of the company was the creation of the Tube Zone Overdrive pedal, which Michael first started building in 1995. “I built these devices both for myself and for friends, and soon found that there was a serious demand for them.” So in 2002 Michael took the plunge and started doing this for real slowly adding new pedals like the Neo and GI Fuzz to the range.

In December 2005, Michael moved from his workshop at home into a purpose built industrial premises to focus on an ever expanding range and a growing demand for MI Audio Pedals. With a team of assemblers and administrative staff to assist Michael he was able to give more attention to R&D, building and testing new pedals as well as continuing the ongoing work on valve amplifier developments.
Within a year and a half of moving into the industrial premises the phenomenal growth and demand for MI Audio products meant we needed to move again.

In August 2006 we moved into out current facility, which was 4 times larger than the previous location. At the current MI Audio location in Sydney’s Inner West the facility is fully operational and subdivided between electronics assembly, machining, woodworking, painting, tolexing, prototyping, R&D, play testing, admin and warehousing.

2012 and 2013 has seen the release of a new wave of products from MI. The classic Crunch Box production and Blues Pro have been updated after several years for the new generation of drive – the Super Crunch Box and Super Blues Pro. MI also has a number of combo amplifiers under to be released early 2014.

If you want to be the first to find out about all the new developments make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

Future

Since 2012, MI Audio have been developing state-of-the-art technology to be implemented in a novel take on valve amplification. This amplifier is called the Flex SmartAmp. Flex SmartAmp encompasses a pure vacuum tube amplifier circuit which can be digitally controlled via iOS to build a virtually limitless number of amplifiers. Every point in the signal path is completely analog with a full complement of preamp and power tubes, from input to output. By using specifically designed iOS software, the user is able to configure, save and recall a near-infinite amount of amplifiers from their portable device.