Who exactly came up with this idea anyway?
The idea of mixing signals in a resistive network is about as old as electronics itself. I have books going back to the '30s that make reference to it, and it was already old news by then. The requirement for mixing goes back at least as far as the 1920s and the advent of sound films.
As for who first thought to build a simple box o' resistors to mix outputs from a DAW, that's a good question. It may have been someone who had to take out a second mortgage to afford his SlowTools rig, and didn't have any money left over to buy a mixer once he realized that the in-the-DAW mixing was somehow lacking.
Although people were building these boxes for their own use for some time, I'm sure the first to
market such a box--that is, completely passive and targeted at SlowTools users--was Justin Morse (Folcrom). However, I think the general concept of the stripped-down mixer especially for DAW use might have originated with the Dangerous 2-Buss. Or at least theirs was the first product of that kind I remember seeing.
I know the idea is based off of large format analog boards
Huh? Well, they both mix signals through resistors. That's about as far as the resemblance goes...
I am surpised the chinese havent started mass producing these, exspecially since our patents mean dog crap to them and these are
the big thing right now.
Be surprised no longer:
http://www.smproaudio.com/PM8.htm
As for patents on the idea of passive mixing: see my first paragraph. There's nearly a century of "prior art" and I doubt anyone could get a patent on the concept (unless he hired whatever patent attorney works for Randall Smith or Aspen Pittman :wink
.
If the SM box was a copy of Folcrom's circuit, or Forssell's, or any of the schematics I posted, it would be annoying but very likely not actionable. The basic concept itself is just too fundamental to be considered novel; all that distinguishes the circuits are details of implementation.