Mackie started with a small PA mixer before growing to become an industry standard for recording, pro audio, live sound, podcasting, and content creation. Greg Mackie started to tinker in Mukilteo, Washington in 1970. He was a self-professed audio nerd and closet rocker sick of the underpowered live mixers of the day, compelled to do better by building the TAPCO Model 6000, the first 6-channel mixer designed for rock bands.

The early TAPCO gear was described by Greg as being “Primitive” as the chassis were stamped out by a heating duct fabricator and the bottoms were painted with fake vinyl car-top spray. To improve the feel of the low-cost, mass-produced rotary potentiometers (which were the only kind available then), Greg took each of them apart and injected them with a special "pot-tightening goo." They may have been primitive but the TAPCO items were solid and dependable, with a look and feel that was shocking for the price point. TAPCO had made a real mark on the industry by the mid-1970s with mixers like the 6000 and 6100R becoming staples in working class musician circles, attracted to their low price and bulletproof construction. This general concept has been a fundamental building block of every piece of Mackie gear.