Since the age of 14, John McCombie, the owner and founder of Pinknoise, always wanted to be a BBC "sound engineer". Lack of academic achievement meant that the dream fell short of all the requirements for an apprenticeship. From the age of 16, he also had a career in electronics sales, building speakers, amplifiers and running a mobile sound system. After attending university on a dedicated film course for 2 years, he was ready for a freelance career.
Specialising in sound for documentary, he soon found his feet in the great city of Manchester, and later Bristol, working as a sound recordist. "I was lucky and just seemed to be in the right time and place for being offered jobs", he recalls. There was a lot of work around. Many years of exciting adventures, music and wildlife documentaries were prominent on his CV.
Around 1997, John decided to get interested in audio post production and set up, with the help of his parents backing, a small Bristol based audio post production studio, was set up. Located in the old Massive Attack studios (The Coach House), in the control room, it was a great space with a great vibe! There was a Genelec monitoring system and here the name Pinknoise Post Production was imagined. We used a Pinknoise generator to reference the speakers - "That's a cool thing" he remembers, and the name just seemed like a good one. (The original company name was called Reel Noise).
