Audio guru Paul Wolff has teamed with startup DCA (“digitally controlled analog”) to create a new professional audio company, Wolff Audio, with a mission to deliver new types of audio tools.

Wolff has been at the “forefront of audio innovation” for more than four decades as the force behind brands such as API, Tonelux and Fix Audio Designs. His designs have also contributed to technologies for Steven Slate, A-Designs, Sunset Sound and more. Wolff has a well-earned reputation for “sonic excellence” and has long been regarded as the “mad genius in residence” for the world’s top audio professionals.

Founded in 2019, DCA is the brainchild of Jared Vogt, creator of TL Labs, one of the pioneering Pro Tools plug-in manufacturers, acquired by Digidesign/Avid. DCA’s mission is to create “digitally controlled analog” hardware, and the company is “dedicated to advancing workflow and utility.” DCA says its flagship product, ProPatch, is the first truly passive, relay-based, software-controlled, high channel count, patching system. DCA claims it will enable new possibilities in signal flow design and management with zero audio compromise. The first ProPatch units are in the final stages of release at select studios.

Wolff Audio says it will introduce a wide range of products that combine Wolff’s inventive designs with DCA’s digital engineering, including large and medium format recording consoles, classic analog processors, mic pres, equalizers and compressors. Products will be characterized by enhanced workflow innovations such as digital control, intercommunication, integrated AD/DA conversion and AV-over-IP/Dante support.

“We share an obsessively crazy commitment to creating the best tools you never even imagined,” said Wolff. “My entire career has been based on supporting the creative process — designing and building new and better ways to capture and mix music. Our products are an intuitive and essential part of the inspirational flow, never a groovebuster. We will unabashedly meld the new with the old, the classic with the unexpected. I’m truly excited for the cool stuff we will create at Wolff Audio.”

“Paul is a legend in pro audio design, and we could not be more excited to join forces with him. We know the DCA team’s expertise in digital technologies and software will be instrumental in creating new products that are not just innovative but indispensable,” Vogt added.

Wolff Audio will operate from its new 13,000-square-foot development and production facility in Santa Barbara, California, and celebrates its official launch to the public on Oct. 25, 2023, at the AES Show in New York.