FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE
PDU STORY
PDU
PDU (Platten Durcharbeitung Unternehmungen, ultraphonic record production, in English) was founded in 1967, when Mina realized (first among all Italian artists) that to defend her artistic independence she should have had her own label and her own recording studio to achieve freedom in production. Since the beginning, Giacomo Mazzini wanted the PDU to be a Music publisher and a multimedia production company. A team of assistants grew around the new business. Two young associates, in their 20s, soon proved their value: Mauro Balletti, photographer, art director and album covers creator, and Gianni Ronco, graphic designer
THE TEAM
In the 90’s, Michele Di Lernia, the memorable promotion manager and vice-director at “EMI Italiana” during the golden age, left the corporation and joined PDU as communications manager. For the official website minamazzini.com and digital communication, Lele Cerri has been our manager for years, Loris Biazzetti and Marco Castiglioni consultants for the PDU back catalog, Franco Zanetti musical consultant for the catalogs After him, arrangers, musicians, sound technicians (such as Nuccio Rinaldis and Gianni Ferrio) and many fine experts in the field arrived at PDU. Mina’s ideas were developed and materialized in albums that were exclusively distributed by EMI at first (for 24 years) and then by Sony (for 16 years). Nowadays, PDU is independent and it works with distributors one project at the time. All Mina’s compositions, even if not entirely owned by PDU, are ruled by a direct contract between the two. You can find Mina discography here: https://www.minamazzini.it/it/discografia/
THE ARTISTS
Besides Mina, from 1967, PDU produced a number of great artists, publishing discs of all kind: classical music ( Marta Argerich, Maurizio Pollini and many important soloists, with a catalogue of over 60 titles), Bossa NovaChico Buarque de Hollanda, Vinicius de Moraes), Celtic music (Alan Stivell), Italian Jazz (Giorgio Gaslini, Martial Solal, Franco Ambrosetti, Danilo Rea, Massimo Moriconi, Alfredo Golino), Rock progressive ((Popol Vuh, film soundtracks for Werner Herzog “Nosferatu” and “Fitzcarraldo”, Tangerine Dream), Reggae (Peter Tosh), Audio 2 (the band that led to the success of “Alle 20”)… and many more big names.
THE SPONSORS
PDU directly handled all relations with Mina’s sponsors (Barilla, Fiat, Wind, TIM and so on…) as well as all the contracts with RAI , the record deals (Warner, EMI, Sony…) and the duo projects (Mina-Celentano, Mina-De André, Mina-Fossati and many more).
PDU edited and published original soundtracks of several TV dramas, for both Rai and Mediaset, and also movies, among others “La banda dei babbi Natale” by Aldo, Giovanni & Giacomo trio. Currently PDU is working as film producer for a TV series.
THE EVOLUTION
PDU was born in analogue recording era and today it’s back to use historical equipment for its “Tapes&Vinyls” department. The various machinery stored in PDU studio is now used to produce analogue tapes and vinyls of the highest quality.
Looking forward to the future of digital recording, the website e-shop has an NFT section that offers audio, video and photo products in blockchain.
