THIS IS A LARGE WORK IN PROGRESS... MORE WILL BE ADDED AS I HAVE TIME.
the greatest audio engineers and innovators the world has known - most of them forgotten by the very industry they helped build.
The Engineers (Most of them gone) - Not forgotten:
A.J. Avis
akio morita
On May 7, 1946, Morita and Ibuka founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, the forerunner of Sony Corporation) with about 20 employees and initial capital of ¥190,000. Ibuka was 38 years old, Morita, 25. Morita's family invested in Sony during the early period and was the largest shareholder.
In 1949, the company developed magnetic recording tape and in 1950, sold the first tape recorder in Japan. In 1957, it produced a pocket-sized radio (the first to be fully transistorized), and in 1958, Morita and Ibuka decided to rename their company Sony (derived from "sonus"--Latin for "sound"—and Sonny-boys the most common American expression). Morita was an advocate for all the products made by Sony. However, since the radio was slightly too big to fit in a shirt pocket, Morita made his employees wear shirts with slightly larger pockets to give the radio a "pocket sized" appearance. In 1960, it produced the first transistor television in the world. In 1973, Sony received an Emmy Award for its Trinitron television-set technology. In 1975, it released the first Betamax home video recorder, a year before VHS format came out. In 1979, the Walkman was introduced, making it on of the world's first portable music player. In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series which extended their Walkman brand to portable CD products.
In 1960, the Sony Corporation of America (SONAM, currently abbreviated as SCA) was established in the United States. In 1961, Sony Corporation was the first Japanese company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in the form of American depositary receipts (ADRs), which are traded over-the-counter. Sony bought CBS Records Group[3] which consisted of Columbia Records, Epic Records and other CBS labels in 1988 and Columbia Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures and others) in 1989.
On November 25, 1994, Morita stepped down as Sony chairman after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while playing tennis. He was succeeded by Norio Ohga, who had joined the company in the 1950s after sending Morita a letter denouncing the poor quality of the company's tape recorders.
Morita was vice chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations), and was a member of the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Group, also known as the "Wise Men's Group". He was also the third Japanese chairman of theTrilateral Commission. His amateur radio call sign is JP1DPJ.
Morita was awarded the Albert Medal by the United Kingdom's Royal Society of Arts in 1982, the first Japanese to receive the honor. Two years later, he received the prestigious Legion of Honour, and in 1991, was awarded the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Japan. In 1993, he was awarded an honorary British knighthood (KBE). Morita received the International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from the University of Manitoba in 1987. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 1999.
In 1949, the company developed magnetic recording tape and in 1950, sold the first tape recorder in Japan. In 1957, it produced a pocket-sized radio (the first to be fully transistorized), and in 1958, Morita and Ibuka decided to rename their company Sony (derived from "sonus"--Latin for "sound"—and Sonny-boys the most common American expression). Morita was an advocate for all the products made by Sony. However, since the radio was slightly too big to fit in a shirt pocket, Morita made his employees wear shirts with slightly larger pockets to give the radio a "pocket sized" appearance. In 1960, it produced the first transistor television in the world. In 1973, Sony received an Emmy Award for its Trinitron television-set technology. In 1975, it released the first Betamax home video recorder, a year before VHS format came out. In 1979, the Walkman was introduced, making it on of the world's first portable music player. In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series which extended their Walkman brand to portable CD products.
In 1960, the Sony Corporation of America (SONAM, currently abbreviated as SCA) was established in the United States. In 1961, Sony Corporation was the first Japanese company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in the form of American depositary receipts (ADRs), which are traded over-the-counter. Sony bought CBS Records Group[3] which consisted of Columbia Records, Epic Records and other CBS labels in 1988 and Columbia Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures and others) in 1989.
On November 25, 1994, Morita stepped down as Sony chairman after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while playing tennis. He was succeeded by Norio Ohga, who had joined the company in the 1950s after sending Morita a letter denouncing the poor quality of the company's tape recorders.
Morita was vice chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations), and was a member of the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Group, also known as the "Wise Men's Group". He was also the third Japanese chairman of theTrilateral Commission. His amateur radio call sign is JP1DPJ.
Morita was awarded the Albert Medal by the United Kingdom's Royal Society of Arts in 1982, the first Japanese to receive the honor. Two years later, he received the prestigious Legion of Honour, and in 1991, was awarded the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Japan. In 1993, he was awarded an honorary British knighthood (KBE). Morita received the International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from the University of Manitoba in 1987. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 1999.
Abraham B. Cohen
Abraham Cohen - best known for his book, "Hi-Fi Loudspeakers and Enclosures." Cohen contributed to numerous recording and audio publications and was a member of AES.
al kahn
Al Kahn, the founder of Electro Voice and the inventor of several important microphone models told a great story on how his company got its name. Mr. Kahn was an industry pioneer and an early supporter of AMC and a NAMM member since the year after the company was formed in 1932! When Mr. Kahn was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program he recalled his early love of electronics and the story of when football coach Knute Rockne named his company after Al had created a PA system to assist Rochne in coaching. In 1942 he released the first differential microphone and hired Al Wiggins who invented the Cardyne Cardioid Dynamic mic in 1946. The company has enjoyed great success as a leader in innovation for decades including the first Acoustalloy Non-Metallic Diaphragm and the company's greatest commercial success, the 664-model microphone, known as the Buchanan Hammer.
From 1927, when company founders Al Kahn and Lou Burroughs began servicing radio receivers in the basement of Century Tire and Rubber in South Bend, Indiana, EV has held its own as an audio innovator. Though were always looking—and listening—forward to our next achievement, this year were proud to look back over eight decades in which we consistently set new industry standards for sonic excellence and reliability in loudspeaker, microphone and audio electronics design and manufacturing. EV raised the bar with breakthrough technologies, designs and products like Variable-D® microphones, the hum-bucking coil, home high-fidelity loudspeaker components, constant-directivity horns, noise-canceling microphones, pro-sound loudspeakers with Ring-Mode Decoupling (RMD™) and Manifold Technology® for concert-sound loudspeaker systems with very high output ability yet relatively compact size. From day one, EV has been all about helping our customers be heard with the best audio quality possible.
From 1927, when company founders Al Kahn and Lou Burroughs began servicing radio receivers in the basement of Century Tire and Rubber in South Bend, Indiana, EV has held its own as an audio innovator. Though were always looking—and listening—forward to our next achievement, this year were proud to look back over eight decades in which we consistently set new industry standards for sonic excellence and reliability in loudspeaker, microphone and audio electronics design and manufacturing. EV raised the bar with breakthrough technologies, designs and products like Variable-D® microphones, the hum-bucking coil, home high-fidelity loudspeaker components, constant-directivity horns, noise-canceling microphones, pro-sound loudspeakers with Ring-Mode Decoupling (RMD™) and Manifold Technology® for concert-sound loudspeaker systems with very high output ability yet relatively compact size. From day one, EV has been all about helping our customers be heard with the best audio quality possible.
alan parsons
In October 1967, at the age of 18, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios, where he earned his first credit on the LP Abbey Road. He became a regular there, engineering such projects as Paul McCartney's Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, five albums by the Hollies, and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, for which he received his first Grammy Award nomination. He was known for doing more than what would normally be considered the scope of a recording engineer's duties.[citation needed] He considered himself to be a recording director, likening his contribution to recordings to what Stanley Kubrick contributed to film.[citation needed] This is apparent in his work with Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat", where Parsons added the saxophone part and transformed the original folk concept into the jazz-influenced ballad that put Al Stewart onto the charts.[citation needed] It is also heard in Parsons' influence on the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "The Air That I Breathe", sharp departures from their popular 1960s hits "Stay", "Just One Look", "Stop! Stop! Stop!" or "Bus Stop".[citation needed] Parsons was also known to have swapped shifts during the engineering of Dark Side of the Moon so he could work entirely on the project.[citation needed]
Parsons also produced three albums by Pilot, a Scottish pop rock band consisting of Ian Bairnson on guitar, Stuart Tosh on drums, and David Paton on lead vocals, guitars, bass and William (Billy) Lyall, on piano and keys. Their hits included "January" and "Magic".
He also mixed the debut album by the American band Ambrosia and produced their second album Somewhere I've Never Travelled. Parsons was nominated for a Grammy Award for both of these albums.
In 1975, he declined Pink Floyd's invitation to come back and work on the follow-up for "Dark Side," Wish You Were Here, and instead initiated the Alan Parsons Project with producer and songwriter (and occasional singer) Eric Woolfson, whom he had met at Abbey Road. The Project consisted of a revolving group of studio musicians and vocalists, most notably the members of Pilot and (on the first album) the members of Ambrosia. Unlike most rock groups, the Alan Parsons Project never performed live during its heyday, although it did release several music videos. Its only live performance during its original incarnation was in 1990, with Woolfson present but behind the scenes. After releasing ten albums, the last in 1987, the Project terminated in 1990 after Parsons and Woolfson split, with the Project's intended 11th album released that year as a Woolfson solo album. Parsons continued to release work in his own name and in collaboration with other musicians. Parsons and his band now regularly tour many parts of the world.
Although an accomplished vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, guitarist and flautist, Parsons only sang infrequent and incidental parts on his albums. While his keyboard playing was very audible on the Alan Parsons Project albums, very few recordings feature his flute. During the late 1990s, Parsons' career travelled an interesting full circle. Having started out in the music industry at the Abbey Road Studios in London as an assistant engineer in the late 1960s, he briefly returned to run the studio in its entirety. He reportedly managed to combine this role with the demands of a hectic performing and recording schedule. Parsons also continued with his selective production work for other bands.
Of all his collaborators, guitarist Ian Bairnson worked with Parsons the longest, including Parsons' post-Woolfson albums, Try Anything Once, On Air, and The Time Machine.
In 1998, Parsons became Vice-President of EMI Studios Group including the Abbey Road Studios. He soon left the post, deciding to return to more creative endeavours. Parsons remained as a creative consultant and associate producer for the group.
As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from many nations, Parsons has received ten Grammy Award nominations for engineering and production. In 2007 he received a nomination for Best Surround Sound Album for A Valid Path.
Beginning in 2001 and extending for four years, Parsons conceived and led a Beatles tribute show called A Walk Down Abbey Road featuring a group of headlining performers such as Todd Rundgren, Ann Wilson of Heart, John Entwistle of the Who, and Jack Bruce of Cream. The show structure included a first set where all musicians assembled to perform each other's hits, and a second set featuring all Beatles songs.
Since 1999 he has toured under a revised name, the Alan Parsons Live Project (with Woolfson's permission). The band currently features lead singer P.J. Olsson, guitarist Alastair Greene, drummer Danny Thompson, keyboardist Manny Focarazzo, keyboardist Tom Brooks, bass guitarist Guy Erez, vocalist and saxophonist Todd Cooper, and guitarist and vocalist Dan Tracey.[citation needed] This band performed live in Medellín, Colombia in 2013 as Alan Parsons Symphonic Project in a performance recorded for Colombian television and also released on CD (live 2-CD) and DVD (May 2016).
In May 2005, Parsons appeared at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California, to mix front-of-house sound for Southern California-based Pink Floyd tribute band Which One's Pink? and their performance of The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety.
In 2010, Parsons released his single "All Our Yesterdays" through Authentik Artists.[4] Parsons also launched a DVD educational series in 2010 titled The Art and Science of Sound Recording ("ASSR") on music production and the complete audio recording process. The single "All Our Yesterdays" was written and recorded during the making of ASSR. The series, narrated by Billy Bob Thornton, gives detailed tutorials on virtually every aspect of the sound recording process.
During 2010, several media reports, one of which included a quote from a representative of Parsons,[8] alleged that the song "Need You Now" by country music group Lady Antebellum used the melody and arrangement of "Eye in the Sky."
Parsons produced Jake Shimabukuro's album, Grand Ukulele, which was released on 2 October 2012. Also in 2012, he contributed lead vocals and performed keyboards and guitar on the track "Precious Life" by German electronic music duo Lichtmond, and appeared with many other noted progressive-rock musicians on The Prog Collective album by Billy Sherwood, singing lead on "The Technical Divide."
Parsons engineered the third solo album by Steven Wilson, The Raven that Refused to Sing (And Other Stories), released on 25 February 2013.
In late 2013, a live album recorded on tour in Germany and Austria with the title LiveSpan was released, accompanied by a single called "Fragile" with Simon Philips on drums.
Parsons also produced three albums by Pilot, a Scottish pop rock band consisting of Ian Bairnson on guitar, Stuart Tosh on drums, and David Paton on lead vocals, guitars, bass and William (Billy) Lyall, on piano and keys. Their hits included "January" and "Magic".
He also mixed the debut album by the American band Ambrosia and produced their second album Somewhere I've Never Travelled. Parsons was nominated for a Grammy Award for both of these albums.
In 1975, he declined Pink Floyd's invitation to come back and work on the follow-up for "Dark Side," Wish You Were Here, and instead initiated the Alan Parsons Project with producer and songwriter (and occasional singer) Eric Woolfson, whom he had met at Abbey Road. The Project consisted of a revolving group of studio musicians and vocalists, most notably the members of Pilot and (on the first album) the members of Ambrosia. Unlike most rock groups, the Alan Parsons Project never performed live during its heyday, although it did release several music videos. Its only live performance during its original incarnation was in 1990, with Woolfson present but behind the scenes. After releasing ten albums, the last in 1987, the Project terminated in 1990 after Parsons and Woolfson split, with the Project's intended 11th album released that year as a Woolfson solo album. Parsons continued to release work in his own name and in collaboration with other musicians. Parsons and his band now regularly tour many parts of the world.
Although an accomplished vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, guitarist and flautist, Parsons only sang infrequent and incidental parts on his albums. While his keyboard playing was very audible on the Alan Parsons Project albums, very few recordings feature his flute. During the late 1990s, Parsons' career travelled an interesting full circle. Having started out in the music industry at the Abbey Road Studios in London as an assistant engineer in the late 1960s, he briefly returned to run the studio in its entirety. He reportedly managed to combine this role with the demands of a hectic performing and recording schedule. Parsons also continued with his selective production work for other bands.
Of all his collaborators, guitarist Ian Bairnson worked with Parsons the longest, including Parsons' post-Woolfson albums, Try Anything Once, On Air, and The Time Machine.
In 1998, Parsons became Vice-President of EMI Studios Group including the Abbey Road Studios. He soon left the post, deciding to return to more creative endeavours. Parsons remained as a creative consultant and associate producer for the group.
As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from many nations, Parsons has received ten Grammy Award nominations for engineering and production. In 2007 he received a nomination for Best Surround Sound Album for A Valid Path.
Beginning in 2001 and extending for four years, Parsons conceived and led a Beatles tribute show called A Walk Down Abbey Road featuring a group of headlining performers such as Todd Rundgren, Ann Wilson of Heart, John Entwistle of the Who, and Jack Bruce of Cream. The show structure included a first set where all musicians assembled to perform each other's hits, and a second set featuring all Beatles songs.
Since 1999 he has toured under a revised name, the Alan Parsons Live Project (with Woolfson's permission). The band currently features lead singer P.J. Olsson, guitarist Alastair Greene, drummer Danny Thompson, keyboardist Manny Focarazzo, keyboardist Tom Brooks, bass guitarist Guy Erez, vocalist and saxophonist Todd Cooper, and guitarist and vocalist Dan Tracey.[citation needed] This band performed live in Medellín, Colombia in 2013 as Alan Parsons Symphonic Project in a performance recorded for Colombian television and also released on CD (live 2-CD) and DVD (May 2016).
In May 2005, Parsons appeared at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California, to mix front-of-house sound for Southern California-based Pink Floyd tribute band Which One's Pink? and their performance of The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety.
In 2010, Parsons released his single "All Our Yesterdays" through Authentik Artists.[4] Parsons also launched a DVD educational series in 2010 titled The Art and Science of Sound Recording ("ASSR") on music production and the complete audio recording process. The single "All Our Yesterdays" was written and recorded during the making of ASSR. The series, narrated by Billy Bob Thornton, gives detailed tutorials on virtually every aspect of the sound recording process.
During 2010, several media reports, one of which included a quote from a representative of Parsons,[8] alleged that the song "Need You Now" by country music group Lady Antebellum used the melody and arrangement of "Eye in the Sky."
Parsons produced Jake Shimabukuro's album, Grand Ukulele, which was released on 2 October 2012. Also in 2012, he contributed lead vocals and performed keyboards and guitar on the track "Precious Life" by German electronic music duo Lichtmond, and appeared with many other noted progressive-rock musicians on The Prog Collective album by Billy Sherwood, singing lead on "The Technical Divide."
Parsons engineered the third solo album by Steven Wilson, The Raven that Refused to Sing (And Other Stories), released on 25 February 2013.
In late 2013, a live album recorded on tour in Germany and Austria with the title LiveSpan was released, accompanied by a single called "Fragile" with Simon Philips on drums.
Alan Sobel
Audio/Electrical Engineer, Alan Sobel attended The Audio Fair, circa October 26th, 1950.
Here is a piece about constant current audio amplifiers that Alan Sobel co-wrote starting on Page 129:
Albert e. hayes, jr.
Electrical Engineer that wrote several articles for recording magazines and tech magazines... All I have to say, is that this dude was probably the coolest of them all. This is a snippet from the MIT newspaper, Circa March of 1939.
“Some of my friends challenged me to do it. I thought it was a good joke, but after the first goldfish I decided it wasn’t…. The only immediate discomfort is a terrific strain on the throat muscles, which seems to be the limiting factor. Afterwards, though, there is a terrifically slimy taste, like a hangover, only different. All that I wanted to do was to prove that a Tech man can beat anybody at their own game. If a Harvard man can down four goldfish, surely a Tech man can do him ten times better.” Albert E. Hayes, Jr.
albert preisman
"Albert Preisman, 95, an electrical engineer who taught at Catholic University and retired in 1974 from the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, died April 15 at his home in Silver Spring. He had Parkinson's disease.
Mr. Preisman, a native of New York, graduated with honors from Columbia University. He did graduate work in electrical engineering at Columbia and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Before moving to Silver Spring in 1942, he worked for firms in New York that included RCA and the Federal Telephone and Radio Laboratories.
Mr. Preisman was vice president in charge of engineering at Capitol Radio Engineering Institute, where he wrote all the home study texts, and a member of the school's board of directors before joining Catholic University and NOL in 1960. He was an associate professor of engineering until 1969.
Mr. Preisman was author of a book, "Graphical Construction for Vacuum Tube Circuits," wrote for technical publications and held seven patents for electrical engineering equipment. He was an expert witness on electrical engineering matters and a consultant.
He was a fellow of the Institute of Radio Engineers and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the Acoustical Society of America, Sigma Xi scientific honorary society and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington." - The Washington Post
Mr. Preisman, a native of New York, graduated with honors from Columbia University. He did graduate work in electrical engineering at Columbia and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Before moving to Silver Spring in 1942, he worked for firms in New York that included RCA and the Federal Telephone and Radio Laboratories.
Mr. Preisman was vice president in charge of engineering at Capitol Radio Engineering Institute, where he wrote all the home study texts, and a member of the school's board of directors before joining Catholic University and NOL in 1960. He was an associate professor of engineering until 1969.
Mr. Preisman was author of a book, "Graphical Construction for Vacuum Tube Circuits," wrote for technical publications and held seven patents for electrical engineering equipment. He was an expert witness on electrical engineering matters and a consultant.
He was a fellow of the Institute of Radio Engineers and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the Acoustical Society of America, Sigma Xi scientific honorary society and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington." - The Washington Post
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alexander m. poniatoff
Poniatoff was born in 1892 in Aysha, Zelenodolsky District, Tatarstan, Russian Empire. He emigrated from Russia to China, where he worked for the Shanghai Power Company, until he emigrated to the United States in 1927. In 1944 he founded Ampex, using his initials A.M.P. plus "ex" for "excellence" to create the name. The high-frequency bias technique, which made quality recording possible, was invented by Telefunken engineers and put into practical use by Poniatoff. Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen's original magnetic recorder was previously only usable for telephony recording. In 1956, Ampex engineers created the world's first rotary head recorder, the VR-1000 videotape recorder. Poniatoff served as president of Ampex until 1955, when he was elected chairman of the board. He died in 1980.
From an AES tribute:
Alexander M. Poniatoff, whose boyhood fascination with a locomotive eventually led to two major technological breakthroughs, died 1980 October 24 at the age of 88. In 1944 he founded Ampex Corporation and served as president until 1955, when he was elected chairman of the board. He resigned as board chairman in 1970 when he was named chairman emeritus. Although Poniatoff was not active in recent years in the management or administration of Ampex, he maintained an office at corporate headquarters in Redwood City, California, participating in several foundations undertaking research in health and preventive medicine. Poniatoff secured his place in the history of magnetic recording twice during his long life. The first breakthrough occurred in 1947 when Ampex-down to eight employees in a post-World War I1 recession-introduced the first practical magnetic audio recorder in the United States. The technical milestone helped launch a multi-billion dollar industry and set Ampex's future course of development. That was followed by introduction of the first practical videotape recorder in 1956, an invention that revolutionized the television broadcast industry and gave Ampex a worldwide reputation for technical innovation. Ampex has since grown into close to a half-billion dollar corporation with worldwide operations and over 12 000 employees. The company's name comes from Poniatoff s initials, together with EX for excellence. ~brin~ his lifetime Poniatoff received many awards for his pioneering A. M. Poniatoff work in magnetic recording, including the 1968 "Medal of Achievement" from the American Electronics Association, the National Association of Manufaturer's award citing him as "Modern Pioneer in Creative Industry." and an honorary membership from the Audio Engineering Society. Poniatoff was born in Kazan, Russia, in 1892. At the age of 84, during an interview, he recalled that he saw his first horseless vehicle, a locomotive, when he was seven. "I decided right then that I would build these locomotives," he said. Ht. attended the University of Kazan, the Imperial College in Moscow, and the Technical College in Karlsruhe, West Germany, obtaining degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. He was a pilot in the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I, and then in the White Russian Forces that were defeated during the revolution. He escaped to Shanghai, China, in 1920 and worked as an assistant engineer for the Shanghai Power Company until 1927, when he immigrated to the U.S. He became an American citizen in 1932. In the U.S. his first job was in the research and development department of General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY. Until 1944, he held research and development positions with several companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He lived in Atherton, California, with his wife Hazel. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a niece, Mrs. Peter (Anna) Kashkadanmoff, of San Francisco. John R. Saul, president and founder of MICMIX Audio Products, Inc. passed away 1981 January 2, at the age of 49. He is survived by his wife, Babs, and daughter, Teresa. Mr. Saul, a mechanical engineering graduate of the University of Notre Dame, was a member of the Audio Engineering Society, National Association of Broadcasters, Society of Broadcast Engineers, and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Mr. Saul worked as a senior project engineer for LTV Corporation and resigned in 1972 after 20 years of service. In 1972, after MICMIX Audio Products was incorporated, he assumed the position of president. He was a pioneer in reverberation technology, having recently applied for several reverberation-related patents. The XL Series of Master-Room reverberation systems is the result of an intense research program led by Mr. Saul. This established MICMIX as a leader in spring reverberation technology. John Saul was widely known for his outstanding business ethics, warm personality, and inventive mind.
From an AES tribute:
Alexander M. Poniatoff, whose boyhood fascination with a locomotive eventually led to two major technological breakthroughs, died 1980 October 24 at the age of 88. In 1944 he founded Ampex Corporation and served as president until 1955, when he was elected chairman of the board. He resigned as board chairman in 1970 when he was named chairman emeritus. Although Poniatoff was not active in recent years in the management or administration of Ampex, he maintained an office at corporate headquarters in Redwood City, California, participating in several foundations undertaking research in health and preventive medicine. Poniatoff secured his place in the history of magnetic recording twice during his long life. The first breakthrough occurred in 1947 when Ampex-down to eight employees in a post-World War I1 recession-introduced the first practical magnetic audio recorder in the United States. The technical milestone helped launch a multi-billion dollar industry and set Ampex's future course of development. That was followed by introduction of the first practical videotape recorder in 1956, an invention that revolutionized the television broadcast industry and gave Ampex a worldwide reputation for technical innovation. Ampex has since grown into close to a half-billion dollar corporation with worldwide operations and over 12 000 employees. The company's name comes from Poniatoff s initials, together with EX for excellence. ~brin~ his lifetime Poniatoff received many awards for his pioneering A. M. Poniatoff work in magnetic recording, including the 1968 "Medal of Achievement" from the American Electronics Association, the National Association of Manufaturer's award citing him as "Modern Pioneer in Creative Industry." and an honorary membership from the Audio Engineering Society. Poniatoff was born in Kazan, Russia, in 1892. At the age of 84, during an interview, he recalled that he saw his first horseless vehicle, a locomotive, when he was seven. "I decided right then that I would build these locomotives," he said. Ht. attended the University of Kazan, the Imperial College in Moscow, and the Technical College in Karlsruhe, West Germany, obtaining degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. He was a pilot in the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I, and then in the White Russian Forces that were defeated during the revolution. He escaped to Shanghai, China, in 1920 and worked as an assistant engineer for the Shanghai Power Company until 1927, when he immigrated to the U.S. He became an American citizen in 1932. In the U.S. his first job was in the research and development department of General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY. Until 1944, he held research and development positions with several companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He lived in Atherton, California, with his wife Hazel. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a niece, Mrs. Peter (Anna) Kashkadanmoff, of San Francisco. John R. Saul, president and founder of MICMIX Audio Products, Inc. passed away 1981 January 2, at the age of 49. He is survived by his wife, Babs, and daughter, Teresa. Mr. Saul, a mechanical engineering graduate of the University of Notre Dame, was a member of the Audio Engineering Society, National Association of Broadcasters, Society of Broadcast Engineers, and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Mr. Saul worked as a senior project engineer for LTV Corporation and resigned in 1972 after 20 years of service. In 1972, after MICMIX Audio Products was incorporated, he assumed the position of president. He was a pioneer in reverberation technology, having recently applied for several reverberation-related patents. The XL Series of Master-Room reverberation systems is the result of an intense research program led by Mr. Saul. This established MICMIX as a leader in spring reverberation technology. John Saul was widely known for his outstanding business ethics, warm personality, and inventive mind.
alexis badmaieff
alfred L. Dimattia
andy jackson
Andrew Brook "Andy" Jackson is a British recording engineer best known for his work with the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd. He is also the owner and operator of Tube Mastering, a private studio specializing in recorded music mastering.[1]
Originally trained in the profession by producer/engineer James Guthrie at Utopia Studios and serving as his assistant for several years, Jackson began work as an engineer for Pink Floyd in 1980, assisting in the recording of the performances of The Wall at Earls Court.[2] As Guthrie's assistant, once more he then worked on the film soundtrack recordings for Pink Floyd The Wall and the studio album The Final Cut. Once Guthrie relocated to Los Angeles, Jackson became the band's primary engineer beginning with A Momentary Lapse of Reason and then The Division Bell plus the material recorded for the soundtrack to the band's 1992 auto racing documentary film La Carrera Panamericana. He was also the Front of House engineer on the band's 1994 world tour. His current primary responsibility is as the Senior Engineer for David Gilmour's studios, Astoria and Medina, and has worked on all of Gilmour's recordings/multimedia projects as an engineer and/or co-producer since 1984. He was also the engineer on Roger Waters' first solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and worked Front of House on Waters' 1984 tour.[3]
Jackson (in collaboration with engineer Damon Iddins) has remastered the majority of the bonus features material on the Immersion editions of The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here for the Why Pink Floyd...? reissue campaign.
In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Jackson has also worked with artists such as Heatwave, Strawbs, The Boomtown Rats (most notably mixed their hit "I Don't Like Mondays"), and goth rock group Fields of the Nephilim and recorded a solo album, Obvious, which was released in 2001. He is also a guitar player in the live band version of The Eden House.
He currently combines his continuing work through his own company, Tube Mastering.[4] In late 2014 he released another solo album, Signal To Noise.
Originally trained in the profession by producer/engineer James Guthrie at Utopia Studios and serving as his assistant for several years, Jackson began work as an engineer for Pink Floyd in 1980, assisting in the recording of the performances of The Wall at Earls Court.[2] As Guthrie's assistant, once more he then worked on the film soundtrack recordings for Pink Floyd The Wall and the studio album The Final Cut. Once Guthrie relocated to Los Angeles, Jackson became the band's primary engineer beginning with A Momentary Lapse of Reason and then The Division Bell plus the material recorded for the soundtrack to the band's 1992 auto racing documentary film La Carrera Panamericana. He was also the Front of House engineer on the band's 1994 world tour. His current primary responsibility is as the Senior Engineer for David Gilmour's studios, Astoria and Medina, and has worked on all of Gilmour's recordings/multimedia projects as an engineer and/or co-producer since 1984. He was also the engineer on Roger Waters' first solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and worked Front of House on Waters' 1984 tour.[3]
Jackson (in collaboration with engineer Damon Iddins) has remastered the majority of the bonus features material on the Immersion editions of The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here for the Why Pink Floyd...? reissue campaign.
In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Jackson has also worked with artists such as Heatwave, Strawbs, The Boomtown Rats (most notably mixed their hit "I Don't Like Mondays"), and goth rock group Fields of the Nephilim and recorded a solo album, Obvious, which was released in 2001. He is also a guitar player in the live band version of The Eden House.
He currently combines his continuing work through his own company, Tube Mastering.[4] In late 2014 he released another solo album, Signal To Noise.
andy johns
Jeremy Andrew "Andy" Johns (20 May 1950 – 7 April 2013) was a British sound engineer and record producer, who worked on several well-known rock albums, including the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (1972), Television's Marquee Moon (1977), and a series of albums by Led Zeppelin during the 1970s. His sound is exemplified by Free's album Highway, which he engineered and produced.
Johns was the father of Hurt's former drummer, Evan Johns, and of rock singer/guitarist Will Johns, and uncle of producer Ethan Johns (son of Glyn Johns).
Johns died on 7 April 2013, after a short stay in a Los Angeles hospital being treated for complications from a stomach ulcer. He was 62. Johns is survived by his wife Anet; sons Evan, Jesse and William; grandchildren Lennon, Everly, Charlie and Luca; sister Susan Johns; and brother Glyn Johns.
Johns was the father of Hurt's former drummer, Evan Johns, and of rock singer/guitarist Will Johns, and uncle of producer Ethan Johns (son of Glyn Johns).
Johns died on 7 April 2013, after a short stay in a Los Angeles hospital being treated for complications from a stomach ulcer. He was 62. Johns is survived by his wife Anet; sons Evan, Jesse and William; grandchildren Lennon, Everly, Charlie and Luca; sister Susan Johns; and brother Glyn Johns.
arnold schwartz
art davis
arthur w. schneider
"Mr. Schneider, a sound consultant for Disneyland now under construction in Orlando, Fla., retired as executive vice president of Commercial Radio Sound Corporation here in 1965. He joined that concern in 1943 after serving in the engineering department of RCA Photo Phone.
A designer of sound systems for Radio City Music Hall, the Jones Beach Marine Theater and the New York World Fairs of 1939–40 and 1964–65, Mr. Schneider had also been a sound consultant to the Stromberg‐Carlson division of General Dynamics. He was a graduate of New York University and a charter member of the Audio Engineering Society." - New York Times, 1971
A designer of sound systems for Radio City Music Hall, the Jones Beach Marine Theater and the New York World Fairs of 1939–40 and 1964–65, Mr. Schneider had also been a sound consultant to the Stromberg‐Carlson division of General Dynamics. He was a graduate of New York University and a charter member of the Audio Engineering Society." - New York Times, 1971
b.f. murphy
berthold sheffield
Berthold Sheffield was born in 1910 in Heilbronn, Germany. He, his brother and his parents immigrated to the United States in 1923, where, influenced by the works of German physicist Heinrich Hertz and Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi, Bert's interest in technology grew. At the age of 19 Sheffield won a 5 1/2 month scholarship at the Radio Institute of America, presented in person by David Sarnoff, Vice President of RCA. The award was granted because of Sheffield's proficiency as a telegrapher. In 1937 Sheffield received a diploma from the RCA Institute in Communications Engineering and went to work for RCA at Rocky Point, New York. From 1937 through 1941 he worked as an engineer for RCA Communications and supervised operations of high powered radio transmissions, including those used for international communications. He received a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1950. While assigned to the RCA International Division, he developed the first centralized traffic control system for a railroad using radio to operate the railroad's signals and switches in Venezuela.
Sheffield closed out his career at the RCA Astro-Electronics Division, working on engineering and development of earth environmental satellite systems. He retired in 1973 after 36 years at RCA. Sheffield subsequently consulted for several companies in computer electronics and telecommunications, including MCI, RCA, and Western Union. Because of his knowledge of computer engineering and telecommunications, Sheffield was elected a Fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He passed away in 2005.
Sheffield closed out his career at the RCA Astro-Electronics Division, working on engineering and development of earth environmental satellite systems. He retired in 1973 after 36 years at RCA. Sheffield subsequently consulted for several companies in computer electronics and telecommunications, including MCI, RCA, and Western Union. Because of his knowledge of computer engineering and telecommunications, Sheffield was elected a Fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He passed away in 2005.
bill arhos
Armed with a pilot featuring Willie Nelson that he produced for $7,000, Mr. Arhos (pronounced AR-hoes) convinced public broadcasting stations in 1975 that the rest of the nation was ready for the emerging home-brewed regional mix of rock and counterculture lyrics by country singer-songwriters, a marked contrast to mainstream Nashville music.
By 2010, “Austin City Limits” had become the longest-running live musical concert show on television, surpassing the Boston Pops’s 34-year record on WGBH. “Bill got it launched as a series, Bill kept it going as a series for 25 or more years,” said Terry Lickona, the show’s current producer and Mr. Arhos’s former colleague. “That was an important part of Bill’s legacy.”
The genesis was collaborative. Inspired by Jan Reid’s 1974 book, “The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock,” Paul Bosner, a producer for the Austin station (originally called KLRN), and a colleague, Bruce Scafe, suggested that they start a music series. Mr. Arhos submitted a proposal to PBS, which awarded a grant and featured his pilot in one of its first national on-air fund-raising drives.
Introduced with Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues,” “Austin City Limits” went on to feature performances by country stars like Chet Atkins, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash, the Dixie Chicks, Emmylou Harris and Reba McEntire, as well as rock and blues acts including Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen, Sheryl Crow, Fats Domino, Foo Fighters, B. B. King, Roy Orbison, Pearl Jam, Robert Plant, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 2002 the show spawned the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
“What was the most visible cultural product of Austin? Music,” Mr. Arhos was quoted as saying in the 2010 book “Weird City,” by Joshua Long. “It was obvious. It would be like ignoring a rhinoceros in your bathtub.”
In 1995, Mr. Arhos told Texas Alcalde, the University of Texas alumni magazine: “There were probably more blues and jazz musicians here than country musicians, but the only moneymaking gigs were in country. So they played jazz and blues inside the country music, and that developed a new art form.”
Mr. Arhos joined public television shortly after it began broadcasting from the communications building at the University of Texas in Austin, and through “Austin City Limits,” his former colleague Mr. Lickona said, “he was able vicariously to live a lot of his musical fantasies.”
He was president and general manager of the station from 1986 until his retirement in 1999. He also served on the boards of PBS and the Country Music Association. As executive producer of “Austin City Limits” from 1975 until his retirement, he was credited with setting the program’s cutting-edge tone.
By 2010, “Austin City Limits” had become the longest-running live musical concert show on television, surpassing the Boston Pops’s 34-year record on WGBH. “Bill got it launched as a series, Bill kept it going as a series for 25 or more years,” said Terry Lickona, the show’s current producer and Mr. Arhos’s former colleague. “That was an important part of Bill’s legacy.”
The genesis was collaborative. Inspired by Jan Reid’s 1974 book, “The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock,” Paul Bosner, a producer for the Austin station (originally called KLRN), and a colleague, Bruce Scafe, suggested that they start a music series. Mr. Arhos submitted a proposal to PBS, which awarded a grant and featured his pilot in one of its first national on-air fund-raising drives.
Introduced with Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues,” “Austin City Limits” went on to feature performances by country stars like Chet Atkins, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash, the Dixie Chicks, Emmylou Harris and Reba McEntire, as well as rock and blues acts including Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen, Sheryl Crow, Fats Domino, Foo Fighters, B. B. King, Roy Orbison, Pearl Jam, Robert Plant, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 2002 the show spawned the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
“What was the most visible cultural product of Austin? Music,” Mr. Arhos was quoted as saying in the 2010 book “Weird City,” by Joshua Long. “It was obvious. It would be like ignoring a rhinoceros in your bathtub.”
In 1995, Mr. Arhos told Texas Alcalde, the University of Texas alumni magazine: “There were probably more blues and jazz musicians here than country musicians, but the only moneymaking gigs were in country. So they played jazz and blues inside the country music, and that developed a new art form.”
Mr. Arhos joined public television shortly after it began broadcasting from the communications building at the University of Texas in Austin, and through “Austin City Limits,” his former colleague Mr. Lickona said, “he was able vicariously to live a lot of his musical fantasies.”
He was president and general manager of the station from 1986 until his retirement in 1999. He also served on the boards of PBS and the Country Music Association. As executive producer of “Austin City Limits” from 1975 until his retirement, he was credited with setting the program’s cutting-edge tone.
bill porter
Bill Porter (June 15, 1931 – July 7, 2010) was an American audio engineer who helped shape the Nashville sound and recorded such stars as Chet Atkins, The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison from the late 1950s through the 1970s. In one week of 1960, his recordings accounted for 15 of Billboard Magazine's "Top 100," a feat none have matched.
Porter mixed concert sound for Presley from 1970 until the singer's death in 1977. At the University of Miami, he helped create the first college program in audio engineering, and he taught similar courses at the University of Colorado Denver, and at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. Porter, said to have a golden ear, was inducted into the TEC Awards Hall of Fame in 1992.
Porter began his engineering career in 1954 at WLAC-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, where he wished to be a cameraman—nobody wanted to mix sound, though, and that job was assigned to him, the guy with the least seniority. He mixed up to four microphones for television broadcast for $92 per week, equivalent to $747 today. At nearby RCA Records in 1959, the chief engineer was transferred after angering Chet Atkins, and Porter applied for the position. He was told by an RCA executive from New York that the job would ruin his marriage, but Porter said "I can handle that"—he was hired at $148 per week, and given two weeks to learn all the equipment and how to mix up to 12 microphones for music recordings. Shortly after starting with RCA on March 31, 1959, Porter mixed the single "Lonesome Old House" for Don Gibson; it was a crossover success in both the country music and the pop music charts, and Porter began to be requested by name. In June 1959, he mixed "The Three Bells" for The Browns, with Atkins producing and Anita Kerr arranging. While editing the master to be sent to New York for pressing, Porter accidentally hit the wrong controls on the tape recorder and stretched the tape at the beginning of the song, distorting the pitch. Without telling anyone, he spliced a different take with a good intro onto the beginning, and sent that version instead. Four decades later, Porter recalled his quick fix: "this was a need-to-know situation and I figured nobody needed to know. I had been in the business three months or something like that. You're not a good engineer until you destroy a master and hopefully live to talk about it." In July, the song went to number one on the U.S. country and pop charts, and Porter's reputation rose.
Porter served for four years as the chief engineer under guitarist and producer Atkins. Porter became the engineer big-name artists wanted to work with, and he was influential in creating the Nashville sound. Record producer Owen Bradley once asked Atkins how he got his sound, and Atkins said, "it was Bill Porter." He recorded more than 579 records that charted—49 were top 10, 11 were number one, and 37 were certified gold records. Most were recorded at what is now RCA's Studio B in Nashville, where Porter was responsible for the sound.[8] (At the time, there was only one studio, with no letter designation. In 1964, a more modern studio was added to the building, and the earlier one became known as "Studio B".) The studio's acoustics were problematic, with resonant room modes creating an uneven frequency response. To lessen the problem, Porter took $60 from the studio's petty cash and bought 2-by-4-foot (0.6 by 1.2 m) fiberglass acoustic ceiling panels which he and Tommy Strong, his assistant engineer, cut into triangles and hung from the ceiling at varying heights; these were called "Porter Pyramids".
Adjacent to Studio B was a Studio A containing a plate reverb device made by EMT, German makers of similar effects units installed in other recording studios around the world. The EMT reverb was an electro-mechanical echo chamber used to add artificial reverberation effects to recordings. Porter arranged to have the dedicated echo room cooled down as much as possible with an air conditioner, and he adjusted the ten springs on the EMT plate to be tighter than usual, in order to feed the plate more audio signal and get a cleaner sound returning from the device. So much signal was being sent to the plate that Porter disconnected the associated VU meter so that he would not be bothered with its needle slamming against its peg. Porter related that the EMT's springs frequently broke under the increased tension, and he would have to replace them, but that the trouble was worth achieving a "brighter and fuller" echo effect.
Porter recorded nearly all of Presley's number one hits upon the singer's return from Army duty in 1960.[10] Porter had not studied Presley's earlier recordings—he started fresh, "doing what I thought it should be."[11] Instead of the usual microphones used by RCA, Porter chose to use a Telefunken U-47 on Presley's voice,[8] recording several songs through the night of March 20–21, 1960, including "Stuck On You" and the ballad "Fame and Fortune". After Porter edited the two songs from the session tape, an RCA executive took the tapes from his hands to fly them to New York, where record presses were standing by and labels were pre-printed and waiting. The single "Stuck On You" with "Fame and Fortune" on the B-side was released three days later and immediately returned Presley to the number one chart position. Porter engineered "Are You Lonesome Tonight", "It's Now or Never", and other early 1960s Elvis hits.
Much of RCA's business was what they called "custom" clients—independent labels not affiliated with RCA, but willing to pay for recording sessions at the proven hit-maker studio. One outstanding client was Monument Records under producer Fred Foster, bringing his client Roy Orbison. Porter was able to create for Orbison his trademark sound, with background vocals brought nearer the foreground, beginning with "Only the Lonely". For that session, Porter discarded his standard mix style of building up from a foundation of percussion, and instead used the vocal countermelody as the foreground sound, and built the other sounds below and around it, leaving the percussion almost inaudible. The song's success cemented this mix style as Orbison's sound. Other Orbison hits recorded for Monument at RCA Nashville were "It's Over", "Running Scared" and "Oh, Pretty Woman". Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" and Al Hirt's "Java" are other Monument recordings that Porter engineered at RCA.
By October 1960, Porter was pulling in so many non-RCA clients that RCA decided to emphasize that side of the business. RCA Records placed a full-page advertisement in Billboard's Country & Western section declaring that he and his assistant, Tommy Strong, were "a couple of big dialers", ready to help RCA Custom Record Sales engage more independent labels.
The atmosphere in the studio was important to Porter. He felt that the "music has to show the emotion of the artist", and he took pains to enhance the mood in the room. For the album Christmas with Chet Atkins, recorded in July 1961, Porter knew that getting a Christmas mood in the heat of summer would be difficult—he came to the studio that morning carrying all his Christmas decorations, and made the studio look the part. Years later he recalled, "when everybody came in for the session, they were in the mood."
Friction rose between Porter and RCA's personnel department regarding Porter's small publishing company which he co-founded with Anita Kerr—they said it constituted a conflict of interest. Porter argued that Atkins had his own publishing, as did others in the business, but RCA personnel told him to stop, so he decided to leave the company. RCA's legal department said they found nothing wrong with the practice, and RCA executive Steve Sholes called Porter to ask him to stay, but he determined not to be "dictated to" by personnel.
Bill left RCA in November 1964, to engineer for Columbia Records in Nashville, where he stayed for six months, bringing some of his custom clients with him.[13] He left Columbia for Monument to manage a new studio set up by Foster at 315 Seventh Street North in Nashville. Porter found the studio's acoustic space to be superior to RCA's Studio B—it was a high-ceilinged room built to house a Masonic Lodge—but the audio equipment owned by Foster was inferior. The EMT plate was not as good for reverb effects.[13] No top ten hits were engineered by Porter at Foster's studio.
On the advice of his agent, Wesley Rose, Orbison left Monument in mid-1965 for a more lucrative contract with MGM Records, with Rose taking over as producer. Orbison did not ask for Porter on his recording sessions, and he did not have any hit songs with MGM. Years later, Porter said that, though he really liked Orbison, the singer "never understood the engineer's contribution." It was Rose's advice to leave Monument, and he was "doing his job as a manager" to get more money, but, said Porter, "he didn't know that much about the music."[13] Porter felt that only with himself as engineer, Fred Foster as producer and Anita Kerr as arranger was Orbison going to find the right combination.
In August 1966, Porter and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, to purchase United Recording of Nevada from Bill Putnam of United Western Recorders in Los Angeles. Putnam was slimming down his business and wished to unload the studio now that Wally Heider had left it, so he sold it to Porter for a low price. Porter's first day at the studio was September 1. At that time, United Recording of Nevada had been operating for four years and was the most prominent of the six recording studios in Las Vegas, but it had problems with its equipment, radio frequency interference from nearby broadcast transmitters, and rumbling noises from a railway carrying freight past the building. Porter made recordings at his studio for artists such as Paul Anka who would arrive at 2:00 am after his show and record until dawn. Other projects involved recording live shows at Las Vegas hotels, including Buddy Rich's Mercy, Mercy live album at Caesars Palace in 1968.
In 1969, Porter and his maintenance technician modified the 12-input, 4-output mixing console to give it 8 outputs, and made their own 8-track tape recorder from Ampex parts. In August, Presley's producer Felton Jarvis brought the master tape for "Suspicious Minds" into United Recording so that Porter could help him with the song's unusual fade out and back in three-quarters of the way through. A bigger concern was that Jarvis wanted a horn section but there were no empty tracks left on the tape. Porter solved the dilemma by mixing the horns live in the studio as the original session tape played back, the total blend being recorded onto a stereo master. The song became a number one hit; the final one both for Porter and for Presley. Also in 1969, Porter founded Porter Industries, as a basis for engineering and electronics sales outside of his studio.
In December 1969, Presley called Porter to ask him to fix the sound for him in the main showroom at the International Hotel (renamed the Las Vegas Hilton two years later); he said he could not hear himself the last time he sang there, and a new run was scheduled for January. Porter went to see Presley's first rehearsal there, and found three stage monitors hanging 18 feet (5.5 m) high above the stage, with only one working. The hotel's engineers did not get the other two to work, so Porter had some of his own Shure Vocal Master loudspeakers brought over from the recording studio. He laid the column loudspeakers on their sides at the front lip of the stage and propped them up to aim at Presley, who was very happy with the result. Presley insisted upon having Porter mix his live show in January even though he was a recording engineer with no experience in live sound. Porter quickly learned about acoustic feedback during the first song, but backstage after the show, film stars and musical artists kept complimenting Presley, telling him that the concert sounded "just like the album". Porter ended up mixing Presley's live concerts from then on. Presley paid Porter well for a touring sound engineer; a 1974 contract for nearly two weeks of touring during September–October netted Porter $2,600, an amount equivalent to $12,500 in current value. Porter recorded several of these shows in the mid-1970s, released as albums, and witnessed firsthand Presley's physical decline from drug abuse. In 1975, Presley's doctors advised him to exercise more, so he had a racquetball court built at his mansion Graceland. Porter designed and supervised the installation of a powerful high-fidelity Electro-Voice loudspeaker sound system for the racquetball court and an adjoining lounge. On tour, Porter specified the best-sounding, most roadworthy equipment that existed: he used a Midas PRO4 mixing console and UREI equalizers. The tour was supported by Clair Brothers, who supplied all the audio gear and a monitor engineer, Bruce Jackson, who designed a powerful stage monitor system for Presley's show. In August 1977, Porter was changing planes in Boston to fly to Portland, Maine, to mix a Presley concert when he heard that the singer had died.[9] He attended Presley's heavily guarded funeral ceremony at Graceland. Between Presley appearances, Porter also handled sound duties for Ann-Margret in Las Vegas and on the road, under the business name Captain Audio Productions. He consulted on television specials for Ann-Margret and for Bob Hope in 1972–1973.
Porter was the first president of Vegas Music International (VMI), a record company formed in 1971 as a partnership between himself, artist manager Vic Beri, music publisher Frank Hooper, and Bob Reid of Vancouver, B.C. VMI was housed in Porter's United Recording building. The first VMI release was in December 1971—the album was To Be Free and 18 by Sandi Scott, which did not take off. Better results came soon; in the first year of business, VMI songwriter Ronnie Gaylord wrote "I Will Never Pass This Way Again", a modest success for Glen Campbell, the song covered by others including Brenda Lee, Vikki Carr and Wayne Newton, who closed his show with it at each performance. Las Vegas singer Benny Hester's first album Benny and a related single were announced by VMI in late 1972. Other artists recording with VMI included Sammy Davis Jr., Andy Williams, Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '77, Ike & Tina Turner, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Danny Thomas, Harry Belafonte, Bobby Darin and Louis Prima.
Porter was named director-at-large of the Country Music Association (CMA) in October 1972. He prepared a booklet for the organization in December, an instructional primer on sound techniques, describing microphones and their usage, loudspeaker types, audio mixers, and giving operating tips.
VMI's publishing business never scored a major hit, and Porter was frustrated by what he saw as bad business decisions forced on him by the partnership. In January 1973, he resigned. On October 14, a "mysterious fire" burned out United Recording of Nevada, including all VMI's papers, stored master tapes and cases of pressed records, and Porter lost all of the recording equipment stored inside, a total he estimated at $250,000—about $1.33 million in today's dollars. He still had his outside electronics company and he concentrated on that.
As a freelance engineer, he continued to work recording dates with famous artists including Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Sammy Davis Jr. By 1980, he had served as engineer on more than 7,000 recordings.
In 1975, Porter took a call from Jerry Milam of Milam Audio and Golden Voice Recording in South Pekin, Illinois, informing him that there was an audio engineering teaching position forming at the University of Miami School of Music.[15] Never having graduated from college himself, Porter went to Florida to create and co-author the first college level curriculum for the discipline. Porter was their second director of recording services, heading the teaching staff and audio facilities, for the Music Engineering Technology program at the University of Miami beginning in September 1975. He continued to accept tour dates with Presley, and returned to describe the experience for his 100 students.
In May 1981, Porter was granted tenure but in June he left because he was not happy in Florida's tropical climate. He accepted the marketing director position at a mixing console company called Auditronics, then left that to work with televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, assisting with live sound and recordings. He ended the arrangement with Jimmy Swaggart Ministries after differences arose.
Porter taught audio engineering and music history at the University of Colorado Denver in the late 1980s, living outside of Denver with his wife Charmaine, "Boots". At the Webster University School of Communications in St. Louis, Missouri, and for the university's Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts, Porter taught nine classes from 1999 to 2005. Porter's pioneering techniques, methodology and curriculum are still taught in many colleges and universities across the United States.
In 1992, the TEC Foundation inducted Porter into their TEC Awards Hall of Fame, along with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog and record producer Phil Ramone. Porter asked Chet Atkins to accompany him to the ceremony, but Atkins could not attend because of a prior engagement at Carnegie Hall. However, before the honor was conferred at the ceremony, a video was played of Atkins congratulating Porter, saying "you improved the echo sound tremendously and made things sound so big and so full."
Author John McClellan, biographer of Atkins, writes of Porter's golden ear:
"He is considered by many to be the greatest recording engineer of all time ... Bill Porter deserves as much credit as anyone in creating the "Nashville Sound." He achieved this through his creativeness, his ability to hear sound as colors, and his skill in capturing on tape the full bloom or three dimensions of sound—width, height and depth."
In 2003, Porter won the William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching, and he was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.
Late in life, Porter said that among his favorites of his career recordings were Atkins's The Most Popular Guitar, an album recorded with lush string orchestration, and Jerry Byrd's Byrd of Paradise, recorded during Porter's stint with Monument Records. Regarding the Nashville Sound, Porter believed that it was in the people who were involved: Hank Garland, Ray Edenton, Buddy Harman, Harold Bradley, Bob Moore, Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer, Velma Smith, Charlie McCoy, the Anita Kerr Singers, and the Jordanaires. He said, "They play perfectly together because they were like family. They did it without thinking! ... They played methodical yet simple rhythm patterns or fills. It was almost a jazz concept from the standpoint that a lot of it is in their head. If you listen to Hank Garland, you won't hear the same lick twice."
Porter's fourth wife, Mary, died while he was teaching in St. Louis. In 2004 he met Carole Smith, a native of Ogden, Utah, and he moved his belongings, including thousands of records, to Ogden in 2006 to be with her. The two married in 2006. Porter's health declined from Alzheimer's disease, and he died in a hospice near Ogden on July 7, 2010, at the age of 79. He was survived by his wife Carole, a brother and a sister, his children Nancy and Gene, and his grandchildren Sam, Marcie, Chandelle, and Weston.
Porter mixed concert sound for Presley from 1970 until the singer's death in 1977. At the University of Miami, he helped create the first college program in audio engineering, and he taught similar courses at the University of Colorado Denver, and at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. Porter, said to have a golden ear, was inducted into the TEC Awards Hall of Fame in 1992.
Porter began his engineering career in 1954 at WLAC-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, where he wished to be a cameraman—nobody wanted to mix sound, though, and that job was assigned to him, the guy with the least seniority. He mixed up to four microphones for television broadcast for $92 per week, equivalent to $747 today. At nearby RCA Records in 1959, the chief engineer was transferred after angering Chet Atkins, and Porter applied for the position. He was told by an RCA executive from New York that the job would ruin his marriage, but Porter said "I can handle that"—he was hired at $148 per week, and given two weeks to learn all the equipment and how to mix up to 12 microphones for music recordings. Shortly after starting with RCA on March 31, 1959, Porter mixed the single "Lonesome Old House" for Don Gibson; it was a crossover success in both the country music and the pop music charts, and Porter began to be requested by name. In June 1959, he mixed "The Three Bells" for The Browns, with Atkins producing and Anita Kerr arranging. While editing the master to be sent to New York for pressing, Porter accidentally hit the wrong controls on the tape recorder and stretched the tape at the beginning of the song, distorting the pitch. Without telling anyone, he spliced a different take with a good intro onto the beginning, and sent that version instead. Four decades later, Porter recalled his quick fix: "this was a need-to-know situation and I figured nobody needed to know. I had been in the business three months or something like that. You're not a good engineer until you destroy a master and hopefully live to talk about it." In July, the song went to number one on the U.S. country and pop charts, and Porter's reputation rose.
Porter served for four years as the chief engineer under guitarist and producer Atkins. Porter became the engineer big-name artists wanted to work with, and he was influential in creating the Nashville sound. Record producer Owen Bradley once asked Atkins how he got his sound, and Atkins said, "it was Bill Porter." He recorded more than 579 records that charted—49 were top 10, 11 were number one, and 37 were certified gold records. Most were recorded at what is now RCA's Studio B in Nashville, where Porter was responsible for the sound.[8] (At the time, there was only one studio, with no letter designation. In 1964, a more modern studio was added to the building, and the earlier one became known as "Studio B".) The studio's acoustics were problematic, with resonant room modes creating an uneven frequency response. To lessen the problem, Porter took $60 from the studio's petty cash and bought 2-by-4-foot (0.6 by 1.2 m) fiberglass acoustic ceiling panels which he and Tommy Strong, his assistant engineer, cut into triangles and hung from the ceiling at varying heights; these were called "Porter Pyramids".
Adjacent to Studio B was a Studio A containing a plate reverb device made by EMT, German makers of similar effects units installed in other recording studios around the world. The EMT reverb was an electro-mechanical echo chamber used to add artificial reverberation effects to recordings. Porter arranged to have the dedicated echo room cooled down as much as possible with an air conditioner, and he adjusted the ten springs on the EMT plate to be tighter than usual, in order to feed the plate more audio signal and get a cleaner sound returning from the device. So much signal was being sent to the plate that Porter disconnected the associated VU meter so that he would not be bothered with its needle slamming against its peg. Porter related that the EMT's springs frequently broke under the increased tension, and he would have to replace them, but that the trouble was worth achieving a "brighter and fuller" echo effect.
Porter recorded nearly all of Presley's number one hits upon the singer's return from Army duty in 1960.[10] Porter had not studied Presley's earlier recordings—he started fresh, "doing what I thought it should be."[11] Instead of the usual microphones used by RCA, Porter chose to use a Telefunken U-47 on Presley's voice,[8] recording several songs through the night of March 20–21, 1960, including "Stuck On You" and the ballad "Fame and Fortune". After Porter edited the two songs from the session tape, an RCA executive took the tapes from his hands to fly them to New York, where record presses were standing by and labels were pre-printed and waiting. The single "Stuck On You" with "Fame and Fortune" on the B-side was released three days later and immediately returned Presley to the number one chart position. Porter engineered "Are You Lonesome Tonight", "It's Now or Never", and other early 1960s Elvis hits.
Much of RCA's business was what they called "custom" clients—independent labels not affiliated with RCA, but willing to pay for recording sessions at the proven hit-maker studio. One outstanding client was Monument Records under producer Fred Foster, bringing his client Roy Orbison. Porter was able to create for Orbison his trademark sound, with background vocals brought nearer the foreground, beginning with "Only the Lonely". For that session, Porter discarded his standard mix style of building up from a foundation of percussion, and instead used the vocal countermelody as the foreground sound, and built the other sounds below and around it, leaving the percussion almost inaudible. The song's success cemented this mix style as Orbison's sound. Other Orbison hits recorded for Monument at RCA Nashville were "It's Over", "Running Scared" and "Oh, Pretty Woman". Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" and Al Hirt's "Java" are other Monument recordings that Porter engineered at RCA.
By October 1960, Porter was pulling in so many non-RCA clients that RCA decided to emphasize that side of the business. RCA Records placed a full-page advertisement in Billboard's Country & Western section declaring that he and his assistant, Tommy Strong, were "a couple of big dialers", ready to help RCA Custom Record Sales engage more independent labels.
The atmosphere in the studio was important to Porter. He felt that the "music has to show the emotion of the artist", and he took pains to enhance the mood in the room. For the album Christmas with Chet Atkins, recorded in July 1961, Porter knew that getting a Christmas mood in the heat of summer would be difficult—he came to the studio that morning carrying all his Christmas decorations, and made the studio look the part. Years later he recalled, "when everybody came in for the session, they were in the mood."
Friction rose between Porter and RCA's personnel department regarding Porter's small publishing company which he co-founded with Anita Kerr—they said it constituted a conflict of interest. Porter argued that Atkins had his own publishing, as did others in the business, but RCA personnel told him to stop, so he decided to leave the company. RCA's legal department said they found nothing wrong with the practice, and RCA executive Steve Sholes called Porter to ask him to stay, but he determined not to be "dictated to" by personnel.
Bill left RCA in November 1964, to engineer for Columbia Records in Nashville, where he stayed for six months, bringing some of his custom clients with him.[13] He left Columbia for Monument to manage a new studio set up by Foster at 315 Seventh Street North in Nashville. Porter found the studio's acoustic space to be superior to RCA's Studio B—it was a high-ceilinged room built to house a Masonic Lodge—but the audio equipment owned by Foster was inferior. The EMT plate was not as good for reverb effects.[13] No top ten hits were engineered by Porter at Foster's studio.
On the advice of his agent, Wesley Rose, Orbison left Monument in mid-1965 for a more lucrative contract with MGM Records, with Rose taking over as producer. Orbison did not ask for Porter on his recording sessions, and he did not have any hit songs with MGM. Years later, Porter said that, though he really liked Orbison, the singer "never understood the engineer's contribution." It was Rose's advice to leave Monument, and he was "doing his job as a manager" to get more money, but, said Porter, "he didn't know that much about the music."[13] Porter felt that only with himself as engineer, Fred Foster as producer and Anita Kerr as arranger was Orbison going to find the right combination.
In August 1966, Porter and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, to purchase United Recording of Nevada from Bill Putnam of United Western Recorders in Los Angeles. Putnam was slimming down his business and wished to unload the studio now that Wally Heider had left it, so he sold it to Porter for a low price. Porter's first day at the studio was September 1. At that time, United Recording of Nevada had been operating for four years and was the most prominent of the six recording studios in Las Vegas, but it had problems with its equipment, radio frequency interference from nearby broadcast transmitters, and rumbling noises from a railway carrying freight past the building. Porter made recordings at his studio for artists such as Paul Anka who would arrive at 2:00 am after his show and record until dawn. Other projects involved recording live shows at Las Vegas hotels, including Buddy Rich's Mercy, Mercy live album at Caesars Palace in 1968.
In 1969, Porter and his maintenance technician modified the 12-input, 4-output mixing console to give it 8 outputs, and made their own 8-track tape recorder from Ampex parts. In August, Presley's producer Felton Jarvis brought the master tape for "Suspicious Minds" into United Recording so that Porter could help him with the song's unusual fade out and back in three-quarters of the way through. A bigger concern was that Jarvis wanted a horn section but there were no empty tracks left on the tape. Porter solved the dilemma by mixing the horns live in the studio as the original session tape played back, the total blend being recorded onto a stereo master. The song became a number one hit; the final one both for Porter and for Presley. Also in 1969, Porter founded Porter Industries, as a basis for engineering and electronics sales outside of his studio.
In December 1969, Presley called Porter to ask him to fix the sound for him in the main showroom at the International Hotel (renamed the Las Vegas Hilton two years later); he said he could not hear himself the last time he sang there, and a new run was scheduled for January. Porter went to see Presley's first rehearsal there, and found three stage monitors hanging 18 feet (5.5 m) high above the stage, with only one working. The hotel's engineers did not get the other two to work, so Porter had some of his own Shure Vocal Master loudspeakers brought over from the recording studio. He laid the column loudspeakers on their sides at the front lip of the stage and propped them up to aim at Presley, who was very happy with the result. Presley insisted upon having Porter mix his live show in January even though he was a recording engineer with no experience in live sound. Porter quickly learned about acoustic feedback during the first song, but backstage after the show, film stars and musical artists kept complimenting Presley, telling him that the concert sounded "just like the album". Porter ended up mixing Presley's live concerts from then on. Presley paid Porter well for a touring sound engineer; a 1974 contract for nearly two weeks of touring during September–October netted Porter $2,600, an amount equivalent to $12,500 in current value. Porter recorded several of these shows in the mid-1970s, released as albums, and witnessed firsthand Presley's physical decline from drug abuse. In 1975, Presley's doctors advised him to exercise more, so he had a racquetball court built at his mansion Graceland. Porter designed and supervised the installation of a powerful high-fidelity Electro-Voice loudspeaker sound system for the racquetball court and an adjoining lounge. On tour, Porter specified the best-sounding, most roadworthy equipment that existed: he used a Midas PRO4 mixing console and UREI equalizers. The tour was supported by Clair Brothers, who supplied all the audio gear and a monitor engineer, Bruce Jackson, who designed a powerful stage monitor system for Presley's show. In August 1977, Porter was changing planes in Boston to fly to Portland, Maine, to mix a Presley concert when he heard that the singer had died.[9] He attended Presley's heavily guarded funeral ceremony at Graceland. Between Presley appearances, Porter also handled sound duties for Ann-Margret in Las Vegas and on the road, under the business name Captain Audio Productions. He consulted on television specials for Ann-Margret and for Bob Hope in 1972–1973.
Porter was the first president of Vegas Music International (VMI), a record company formed in 1971 as a partnership between himself, artist manager Vic Beri, music publisher Frank Hooper, and Bob Reid of Vancouver, B.C. VMI was housed in Porter's United Recording building. The first VMI release was in December 1971—the album was To Be Free and 18 by Sandi Scott, which did not take off. Better results came soon; in the first year of business, VMI songwriter Ronnie Gaylord wrote "I Will Never Pass This Way Again", a modest success for Glen Campbell, the song covered by others including Brenda Lee, Vikki Carr and Wayne Newton, who closed his show with it at each performance. Las Vegas singer Benny Hester's first album Benny and a related single were announced by VMI in late 1972. Other artists recording with VMI included Sammy Davis Jr., Andy Williams, Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '77, Ike & Tina Turner, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Danny Thomas, Harry Belafonte, Bobby Darin and Louis Prima.
Porter was named director-at-large of the Country Music Association (CMA) in October 1972. He prepared a booklet for the organization in December, an instructional primer on sound techniques, describing microphones and their usage, loudspeaker types, audio mixers, and giving operating tips.
VMI's publishing business never scored a major hit, and Porter was frustrated by what he saw as bad business decisions forced on him by the partnership. In January 1973, he resigned. On October 14, a "mysterious fire" burned out United Recording of Nevada, including all VMI's papers, stored master tapes and cases of pressed records, and Porter lost all of the recording equipment stored inside, a total he estimated at $250,000—about $1.33 million in today's dollars. He still had his outside electronics company and he concentrated on that.
As a freelance engineer, he continued to work recording dates with famous artists including Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Sammy Davis Jr. By 1980, he had served as engineer on more than 7,000 recordings.
In 1975, Porter took a call from Jerry Milam of Milam Audio and Golden Voice Recording in South Pekin, Illinois, informing him that there was an audio engineering teaching position forming at the University of Miami School of Music.[15] Never having graduated from college himself, Porter went to Florida to create and co-author the first college level curriculum for the discipline. Porter was their second director of recording services, heading the teaching staff and audio facilities, for the Music Engineering Technology program at the University of Miami beginning in September 1975. He continued to accept tour dates with Presley, and returned to describe the experience for his 100 students.
In May 1981, Porter was granted tenure but in June he left because he was not happy in Florida's tropical climate. He accepted the marketing director position at a mixing console company called Auditronics, then left that to work with televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, assisting with live sound and recordings. He ended the arrangement with Jimmy Swaggart Ministries after differences arose.
Porter taught audio engineering and music history at the University of Colorado Denver in the late 1980s, living outside of Denver with his wife Charmaine, "Boots". At the Webster University School of Communications in St. Louis, Missouri, and for the university's Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts, Porter taught nine classes from 1999 to 2005. Porter's pioneering techniques, methodology and curriculum are still taught in many colleges and universities across the United States.
In 1992, the TEC Foundation inducted Porter into their TEC Awards Hall of Fame, along with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog and record producer Phil Ramone. Porter asked Chet Atkins to accompany him to the ceremony, but Atkins could not attend because of a prior engagement at Carnegie Hall. However, before the honor was conferred at the ceremony, a video was played of Atkins congratulating Porter, saying "you improved the echo sound tremendously and made things sound so big and so full."
Author John McClellan, biographer of Atkins, writes of Porter's golden ear:
"He is considered by many to be the greatest recording engineer of all time ... Bill Porter deserves as much credit as anyone in creating the "Nashville Sound." He achieved this through his creativeness, his ability to hear sound as colors, and his skill in capturing on tape the full bloom or three dimensions of sound—width, height and depth."
In 2003, Porter won the William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching, and he was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.
Late in life, Porter said that among his favorites of his career recordings were Atkins's The Most Popular Guitar, an album recorded with lush string orchestration, and Jerry Byrd's Byrd of Paradise, recorded during Porter's stint with Monument Records. Regarding the Nashville Sound, Porter believed that it was in the people who were involved: Hank Garland, Ray Edenton, Buddy Harman, Harold Bradley, Bob Moore, Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer, Velma Smith, Charlie McCoy, the Anita Kerr Singers, and the Jordanaires. He said, "They play perfectly together because they were like family. They did it without thinking! ... They played methodical yet simple rhythm patterns or fills. It was almost a jazz concept from the standpoint that a lot of it is in their head. If you listen to Hank Garland, you won't hear the same lick twice."
Porter's fourth wife, Mary, died while he was teaching in St. Louis. In 2004 he met Carole Smith, a native of Ogden, Utah, and he moved his belongings, including thousands of records, to Ogden in 2006 to be with her. The two married in 2006. Porter's health declined from Alzheimer's disease, and he died in a hospice near Ogden on July 7, 2010, at the age of 79. He was survived by his wife Carole, a brother and a sister, his children Nancy and Gene, and his grandchildren Sam, Marcie, Chandelle, and Weston.
bill putnam
Milton Tasker "Bill" Putnam (February 20, 1920 – April 13, 1989) was an American audio engineer, songwriter, producer, studio designer and businessman, who has been described as "the father of modern recording". He was the inventor of the modern recording console and is recognised as a key figure in the development of the postwar commercial recording industry.
Former colleague Bruce Swedien described Putnam's achievements thus:
"Bill Putnam was the father of recording as we know it today. The processes and designs which we take for granted — the design of modern recording desks, the way components are laid out and the way they function, console design, cue sends, multitrack switching — they all originated in Bill's imagination."
Putnam was the first person in the US to use artificial reverberation using echo chambers for commercial recording. (The BBC's broadcasting studios in Savoy Hill, London, used for both broadcasting and commercial recording, were the first anywhere to use purpose made echo chambers with both echo send and returns and cue sends and multi-band EQ, and recording to disc and tape as early as 1931.) He also developed the first US multi-band audio equalizer, and with his company Universal Recording Electronics Industries (UREI), he was responsible for the development of classic recording studio equipment including the UREI 1176LN, the UREI Time Align Monitor, and the famed Universal recordings consoles, which soon became standard equipment in studios all over America. Alongside his friend Les Paul, Putnam was also involved in the early development of stereophonic recording and he founded several major independent recording studios in Chicago, Hollywood and San Francisco.
In 1947, Putnam made the first recording of a single artist singing more than one line on a recording. Patti Page sang one vocal line of "Confess",[1] a duet in which the second part was recorded onto a large 17.25" disc and then played back as she sang the main vocal line; the two vocals and accompaniment being wedded onto a wire recorder. Les Paul followed in short order with his own quite different technique for doubling vocals.
In 1946, Putnam founded one of America's first independent recording studios, Universal Recording in Chicago. His reputation grew quickly thanks to his work with artists such as Patti Page, Vic Damone, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Little Walter, and Dinah Washington. His period at Universal saw a number of 'firsts' for the recording industry, including the first use of tape repeat, the first vocal booth, the first multiple voice recording, one of the first to use 8-track recording (preceded by Les Paul and Tom Dowd), the first use of delay lines in the studio, and the first release, in 1956, of half-speed mastered discs (on the Mercury label.)[2]
By the mid-1950s Putnam was one of the most sought-after engineer-producers in the United States, and Universal Recording had become so successful that clients including Nelson Riddle, Mitch Miller and Quincy Jones began urging him to open a facility on the west coast. In 1957, he sold his interest in Universal Recording and with support from Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, he established a new company called United Recording Corp. and moved to Hollywood, taking over United Studios at 6050 Sunset Boulevard. Putnam was determined to incorporate as many technological innovations into the new complex as possible and he constructed new facilities, including a significant expansion of the studio control rooms, which until that time were typically small booths.
When United Recording was founded, stereo recording was still a new innovation and it was considered little more than a novelty by the major record labels. But Putnam foresaw its importance and, at his own expense, he began making simultaneous stereo mixes of recordings produced at United Western and stockpiled these recordings. Around 1962, when stereo was taking off as a consumer audio format, the major labels found themselves without any significant back catalog of stereo recordings, so they offered to buy the stockpile of tapes. However, the canny Putnam cleverly negotiated a far more lucrative deal, whereby he was recompensed for the (much more expensive) studio time used in mixing the stereo versions. According to Putnam's former partner Allen Sides, at this time the studio was bringing in around US$200,000 per month in studio billing (equivalent to US$1.56 million per month today).
In 1961, he acquired the neighboring Western Recorders, located at 6000 Sunset, remodeling it and incorporating it into the complex, which was then renamed United Western Recorders. In 1985, Putnam sold the studio to partner Allen Sides, who then renamed it Oceanway Recording.
Former colleague Bruce Swedien described Putnam's achievements thus:
"Bill Putnam was the father of recording as we know it today. The processes and designs which we take for granted — the design of modern recording desks, the way components are laid out and the way they function, console design, cue sends, multitrack switching — they all originated in Bill's imagination."
Putnam was the first person in the US to use artificial reverberation using echo chambers for commercial recording. (The BBC's broadcasting studios in Savoy Hill, London, used for both broadcasting and commercial recording, were the first anywhere to use purpose made echo chambers with both echo send and returns and cue sends and multi-band EQ, and recording to disc and tape as early as 1931.) He also developed the first US multi-band audio equalizer, and with his company Universal Recording Electronics Industries (UREI), he was responsible for the development of classic recording studio equipment including the UREI 1176LN, the UREI Time Align Monitor, and the famed Universal recordings consoles, which soon became standard equipment in studios all over America. Alongside his friend Les Paul, Putnam was also involved in the early development of stereophonic recording and he founded several major independent recording studios in Chicago, Hollywood and San Francisco.
In 1947, Putnam made the first recording of a single artist singing more than one line on a recording. Patti Page sang one vocal line of "Confess",[1] a duet in which the second part was recorded onto a large 17.25" disc and then played back as she sang the main vocal line; the two vocals and accompaniment being wedded onto a wire recorder. Les Paul followed in short order with his own quite different technique for doubling vocals.
In 1946, Putnam founded one of America's first independent recording studios, Universal Recording in Chicago. His reputation grew quickly thanks to his work with artists such as Patti Page, Vic Damone, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Little Walter, and Dinah Washington. His period at Universal saw a number of 'firsts' for the recording industry, including the first use of tape repeat, the first vocal booth, the first multiple voice recording, one of the first to use 8-track recording (preceded by Les Paul and Tom Dowd), the first use of delay lines in the studio, and the first release, in 1956, of half-speed mastered discs (on the Mercury label.)[2]
By the mid-1950s Putnam was one of the most sought-after engineer-producers in the United States, and Universal Recording had become so successful that clients including Nelson Riddle, Mitch Miller and Quincy Jones began urging him to open a facility on the west coast. In 1957, he sold his interest in Universal Recording and with support from Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, he established a new company called United Recording Corp. and moved to Hollywood, taking over United Studios at 6050 Sunset Boulevard. Putnam was determined to incorporate as many technological innovations into the new complex as possible and he constructed new facilities, including a significant expansion of the studio control rooms, which until that time were typically small booths.
When United Recording was founded, stereo recording was still a new innovation and it was considered little more than a novelty by the major record labels. But Putnam foresaw its importance and, at his own expense, he began making simultaneous stereo mixes of recordings produced at United Western and stockpiled these recordings. Around 1962, when stereo was taking off as a consumer audio format, the major labels found themselves without any significant back catalog of stereo recordings, so they offered to buy the stockpile of tapes. However, the canny Putnam cleverly negotiated a far more lucrative deal, whereby he was recompensed for the (much more expensive) studio time used in mixing the stereo versions. According to Putnam's former partner Allen Sides, at this time the studio was bringing in around US$200,000 per month in studio billing (equivalent to US$1.56 million per month today).
In 1961, he acquired the neighboring Western Recorders, located at 6000 Sunset, remodeling it and incorporating it into the complex, which was then renamed United Western Recorders. In 1985, Putnam sold the studio to partner Allen Sides, who then renamed it Oceanway Recording.
bill szymczyk
Bill with B.B. King
William Frank "Bill" Szymczyk (/ˈsɪmzɪk/; born February 13, 1943) is an American music producer and technical engineer best known for working with rock and blues musicians, most notably the Eagles in the 1970s. He produced many top albums and singles of the 1970s, though he retired from the music business by 1990. He re-emerged in the late 2000s, taking on select projects including the 2007 Eagles album Long Road Out of Eden and the 2008 eponymous debut of Brian Vander Ark.
Unlike many music producers, Szymczyk has no background as a musician. He was originally a sonar operator for the U.S. Navy and took some audio production classes as part of his Navy training. Besides his work with the Eagles, he has produced hit songs and albums for such diverse artists as B.B. King, Joe Walsh, The James Gang, and Elvin Bishop.
Bill Szymczyk was born in Muskegon, Michigan on February 13, 1943. His mother worked as a nurse, and his father held several jobs, including factory worker and maintenance at a school. Growing up, his first introduction to music and electronics was when he built his own crystal radio from a kit. Using his radio, he became a fan of blues and R&B while listening to a station out of Nashville, Tennessee.
He joined the United States Navy in 1960, where he worked as a sonar technician. It was in the Navy that he took his first course in radio and television production. Upon leaving the service in 1964, and without much of an idea of what to do for a post-military career, he enrolled at New York University's Media Arts School.
Bill Szymczyk began working at a firm which produced demo recordings for Screen Gems Records and worked extensively with Brill Building songwriters such as Carole King and Gerry Goffin. He also worked as an assistant to music producers and songwriters. Quincy Jones and Jerry Ragovoy, eventually working his way up to chief engineer at Ragavoy's Hit Factory recording studio. His first work as the primary producer on an album came for a Harvey Brooks solo record. He dropped out of NYU to work full-time in the music industry.
He left the Hit Factory and took a job at ABC Records, taking a large pay cut in exchange for the opportunity to move from engineer to producer. He successfully lobbied ABC to let him work with B. B. King, whose own record label was a subsidiary of ABC and who was a long time idol of Szymczyk's. After convincing King that he could improve his sound to make him more appealing to a wider audience, King himself agreed to let Szymczyk produce for him. Among the albums he produced for King are the 1969 live album Live & Well, King's first ever top-100 album. He produced his follow-up studio album Completely Well, which featured "The Thrill Is Gone", the biggest hit of King's career and his signature song. He would continue to produce blues albums throughout the early 1970s for the likes of King and Albert Collins.
Szymczyk was moved several times while working for ABC Records; first to Los Angeles when ABC acquired Dunhill Records and Szymczyk took over production for the West Coast operations, and later to Denver when he decided to form his own label, Tumbleweed Records. He worked for a while as a disc jockey at radio station KFML, and continued to produce albums in New York and Los Angeles, such as the J. Geils Band's 1971 album The Morning After, recorded at the Los Angeles Record Plant. He did extensive work at the Colorado studio Caribou Ranch, where would be the center of his operations for the rest of the 1970s.
After producing the James Gang's first three albums, he followed singer-guitarist Joe Walsh when he left the band, first as a solo artist with the Szymczyk-produced albums Barnstorm (the first recorded at the Caribou Ranch studio) and The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get and later with the Eagles. His most prolific collaborations have been with Walsh; the two have made over 15 albums together in many settings. Walsh himself moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1971 in order to work with Szymczyk and the location would inspire one of Walsh's biggest solo hits, 1973's "Rocky Mountain Way". Besides work with Walsh in his band The James Gang and as a solo-artist, he also brought Walsh in to work on several albums he was doing with other musicians, using him as a session player for the B. B. King album Indianola Mississippi Seeds and the Michael Stanley album Friends and Legends. It was at Szymczyk's suggestion that the Eagles bring in Walsh to give them a "rock" edge; Walsh remains a core member of the band to this day.
Bill Szymczyk and Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound 2014His long relationship with the Eagles began with their 1974 album On the Border, an album he took over from London-based producer Glyn Johns. He would be the sole producer for the next three Eagles studio albums, including 1976's Hotel California, the first to feature Joe Walsh. Szymczyk was instrumental in giving the Eagles a more "rock sound" and helping them to move away from their country rock roots.
Among the other acts he worked with extensively through the 1970s include Michael Stanley and the The J. Geils Band. While working with The Outlaws, he coined the term "Guitar Army" to describe the band's sound; the name continues as a nickname for the band.[8] He worked in the studio for the Edgar Winter Group's biggest hit, the Rick Derringer-produced "Frankenstein", and later produced Derringer's best known solo album All American Boy and its hit single, "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo".[5] At the start of the 1980s he was a highly sought-after producer, and worked on such albums as Bob Seger's 1980 album Against the Wind and The Who's 1981 releaseFace Dances. During this time period, Szymczyk produced such hit singles as Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love", The Who's "You Better You Bet", The Eagles' "Hotel California", and Bob Seger's "Against the Wind".
His workload tailed off in the mid-1980s, due mostly to his own financial success.[5] He officially retired from the music industry in 1990,[3] but re-emerged in 2005, producing Dishwalla's self-titled fourth album. He returned to work with the Eagles on the 2007 album Long Road Out of Eden, and followed that with the 2008 solo debut of ex-Verve Pipe singer Brian Vander Ark.
He now lives in Little Switzerland, North Carolina with his wife, Lisi Szymczyk. The couple has two sons, Michael and Daniel, and have become involved in their local community, having raised money for a local shelter for victims of domestic violence, among other charity work. He still works as a producer, but is more selective about projects he works on.
Bill Szymczyk's has frequently been noted as the sort of producer who pushes bands to expand their musical horizons; he has been brought in with the specific intent of changing a band's sound. He himself has credited this tendency to his lack of musical knowledge, stating: "I'm a professional listener. I listen and I react. I never was a musician, so I don't bring any preconceived prejudices to the table; I don't favour the guitar over the keyboard, and so forth. I just listen and try to figure out if I have anything I can bring to a song."
For his work with the Eagles, he has been cited for his innovative mixing of drums, laboriously working to get the right microphones and placements for just the right sound. Rather than recording harmony vocals individually, and mixing them together later, as was common, Szymczyk preferred to capture the Eagles singing in ensemble, often spending many hours to record each phrase "just right".
For the Elvin Bishop hit, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," it was Szymczyk who suggested the inclusion of the song on Bishop's Struttin' My Stuff album, feeling the blues-oriented album lacked a pop single. The song would go on to become Bishop's biggest hit.[9]Such a pattern was repeated throughout his career. The Eagles brought him in to refine and improve their "rock" sound,[3] and all of their biggest selling albums and songs were Szymcyzk-produced. Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash has called him "my all time favourite producer". While the two did not always get along during recording, usually over Turner's bass-playing style, Turner does credit Szymczyk with giving the band a more commercial sound on one of their most successful albums, 1974's There's the Rub.
Unlike many music producers, Szymczyk has no background as a musician. He was originally a sonar operator for the U.S. Navy and took some audio production classes as part of his Navy training. Besides his work with the Eagles, he has produced hit songs and albums for such diverse artists as B.B. King, Joe Walsh, The James Gang, and Elvin Bishop.
Bill Szymczyk was born in Muskegon, Michigan on February 13, 1943. His mother worked as a nurse, and his father held several jobs, including factory worker and maintenance at a school. Growing up, his first introduction to music and electronics was when he built his own crystal radio from a kit. Using his radio, he became a fan of blues and R&B while listening to a station out of Nashville, Tennessee.
He joined the United States Navy in 1960, where he worked as a sonar technician. It was in the Navy that he took his first course in radio and television production. Upon leaving the service in 1964, and without much of an idea of what to do for a post-military career, he enrolled at New York University's Media Arts School.
Bill Szymczyk began working at a firm which produced demo recordings for Screen Gems Records and worked extensively with Brill Building songwriters such as Carole King and Gerry Goffin. He also worked as an assistant to music producers and songwriters. Quincy Jones and Jerry Ragovoy, eventually working his way up to chief engineer at Ragavoy's Hit Factory recording studio. His first work as the primary producer on an album came for a Harvey Brooks solo record. He dropped out of NYU to work full-time in the music industry.
He left the Hit Factory and took a job at ABC Records, taking a large pay cut in exchange for the opportunity to move from engineer to producer. He successfully lobbied ABC to let him work with B. B. King, whose own record label was a subsidiary of ABC and who was a long time idol of Szymczyk's. After convincing King that he could improve his sound to make him more appealing to a wider audience, King himself agreed to let Szymczyk produce for him. Among the albums he produced for King are the 1969 live album Live & Well, King's first ever top-100 album. He produced his follow-up studio album Completely Well, which featured "The Thrill Is Gone", the biggest hit of King's career and his signature song. He would continue to produce blues albums throughout the early 1970s for the likes of King and Albert Collins.
Szymczyk was moved several times while working for ABC Records; first to Los Angeles when ABC acquired Dunhill Records and Szymczyk took over production for the West Coast operations, and later to Denver when he decided to form his own label, Tumbleweed Records. He worked for a while as a disc jockey at radio station KFML, and continued to produce albums in New York and Los Angeles, such as the J. Geils Band's 1971 album The Morning After, recorded at the Los Angeles Record Plant. He did extensive work at the Colorado studio Caribou Ranch, where would be the center of his operations for the rest of the 1970s.
After producing the James Gang's first three albums, he followed singer-guitarist Joe Walsh when he left the band, first as a solo artist with the Szymczyk-produced albums Barnstorm (the first recorded at the Caribou Ranch studio) and The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get and later with the Eagles. His most prolific collaborations have been with Walsh; the two have made over 15 albums together in many settings. Walsh himself moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1971 in order to work with Szymczyk and the location would inspire one of Walsh's biggest solo hits, 1973's "Rocky Mountain Way". Besides work with Walsh in his band The James Gang and as a solo-artist, he also brought Walsh in to work on several albums he was doing with other musicians, using him as a session player for the B. B. King album Indianola Mississippi Seeds and the Michael Stanley album Friends and Legends. It was at Szymczyk's suggestion that the Eagles bring in Walsh to give them a "rock" edge; Walsh remains a core member of the band to this day.
Bill Szymczyk and Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound 2014His long relationship with the Eagles began with their 1974 album On the Border, an album he took over from London-based producer Glyn Johns. He would be the sole producer for the next three Eagles studio albums, including 1976's Hotel California, the first to feature Joe Walsh. Szymczyk was instrumental in giving the Eagles a more "rock sound" and helping them to move away from their country rock roots.
Among the other acts he worked with extensively through the 1970s include Michael Stanley and the The J. Geils Band. While working with The Outlaws, he coined the term "Guitar Army" to describe the band's sound; the name continues as a nickname for the band.[8] He worked in the studio for the Edgar Winter Group's biggest hit, the Rick Derringer-produced "Frankenstein", and later produced Derringer's best known solo album All American Boy and its hit single, "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo".[5] At the start of the 1980s he was a highly sought-after producer, and worked on such albums as Bob Seger's 1980 album Against the Wind and The Who's 1981 releaseFace Dances. During this time period, Szymczyk produced such hit singles as Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love", The Who's "You Better You Bet", The Eagles' "Hotel California", and Bob Seger's "Against the Wind".
His workload tailed off in the mid-1980s, due mostly to his own financial success.[5] He officially retired from the music industry in 1990,[3] but re-emerged in 2005, producing Dishwalla's self-titled fourth album. He returned to work with the Eagles on the 2007 album Long Road Out of Eden, and followed that with the 2008 solo debut of ex-Verve Pipe singer Brian Vander Ark.
He now lives in Little Switzerland, North Carolina with his wife, Lisi Szymczyk. The couple has two sons, Michael and Daniel, and have become involved in their local community, having raised money for a local shelter for victims of domestic violence, among other charity work. He still works as a producer, but is more selective about projects he works on.
Bill Szymczyk's has frequently been noted as the sort of producer who pushes bands to expand their musical horizons; he has been brought in with the specific intent of changing a band's sound. He himself has credited this tendency to his lack of musical knowledge, stating: "I'm a professional listener. I listen and I react. I never was a musician, so I don't bring any preconceived prejudices to the table; I don't favour the guitar over the keyboard, and so forth. I just listen and try to figure out if I have anything I can bring to a song."
For his work with the Eagles, he has been cited for his innovative mixing of drums, laboriously working to get the right microphones and placements for just the right sound. Rather than recording harmony vocals individually, and mixing them together later, as was common, Szymczyk preferred to capture the Eagles singing in ensemble, often spending many hours to record each phrase "just right".
For the Elvin Bishop hit, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," it was Szymczyk who suggested the inclusion of the song on Bishop's Struttin' My Stuff album, feeling the blues-oriented album lacked a pop single. The song would go on to become Bishop's biggest hit.[9]Such a pattern was repeated throughout his career. The Eagles brought him in to refine and improve their "rock" sound,[3] and all of their biggest selling albums and songs were Szymcyzk-produced. Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash has called him "my all time favourite producer". While the two did not always get along during recording, usually over Turner's bass-playing style, Turner does credit Szymczyk with giving the band a more commercial sound on one of their most successful albums, 1974's There's the Rub.
bob ezrin
Robert Alan "Bob" Ezrin (born March 25, 1949) is a Canadian music producer and keyboardist, best known for his work with Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, and Phish. As of 2010, Ezrin's career in music had spanned four decades and his production work continued into the 21st century, with acts such as Deftones and Thirty Seconds to Mars. After co-founding interactive media company, 7th Level, in 1993, Ezrin has branched out into philanthropy and activism, with music also introduced into this realm of his life, underpinning projects such as Music Rising and Young Artists for Haiti. Ezrin is also involved in education, co-founding the Nimbus School of Recording Arts in 2009.
Ezrin is the winner of a Juno Award and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in April 2004.
Ezrin is the winner of a Juno Award and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in April 2004.
As of 2014, Ezrin continues to work as a record producer, mix engineer, arranger and songwriter, in addition to being involved with a variety of other projects in digital media, live production, film, television, and theatrical production.
Ezrin has worked on recordings with numerous major artists, including Phish, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Lou Reed, The Kings, Hanoi Rocks, Taylor Swift, Peter Gabriel, K'naan, 2Cellos, Kristin Chenoweth, Rod Stewart, Nine Inch Nails, The Jayhawks, Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Darkness, Jane's Addiction, Dr. John, Nils Lofgren, Berlin, Kansas, Julian Lennon, and Deftones, among many others.
Ezrin has been described by Alice Cooper as "our George Martin".[10] Following his first ever production work on an album with Love it to Death in 1971, Ezrin embarked on a long-term collaboration that, by 1973, would see the release of the number one album, Billion Dollar Babies album, a year after the success of School's Out; Cooper subsequently became established as one of the biggest acts in the world. After the disbanding of Cooper's group, Ezrin continued his collaboration with Cooper, as the latter embarked upon a solo career. In 1975, Cooper released the Ezrin-produced album, Welcome To My Nightmare, and received a significant level of attention. Ezrin worked with Cooper not just as a producer, but also as a co-writer, arranger, and musician.
Ezrin produced the best-selling KISS album, Destroyer, in 1976.[13] As explained by Peter Criss during an interview in the documentary, KISS: Krazy Killer (1994), Ezrin co-wrote, arranged and performed the piano accompaniment to the song Beth. Ezrin proceeded to produce two other albums with the band -- Music From "The Elder" and Revenge—and remains close to the band's members in the 21st century.
Ezrin has worked with Pink Floyd on a number of occasions, co-producing the albums, The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell. He has also co-written the songs, "The Trial", "Signs of Life", "Learning to Fly", and "Take It Back".
Ezrin also produced the 1988 Kansas album In the Spirit of Things, and received a writing credit for the song Ghosts and three other songs.
In May 2009, Ezrin co-produced The Clearwater Concert at Madison Square Garden, celebrating the 90th birthday of musician and activist, Pete Seeger. More than 50 guest artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Ben Harper, Joan Baez, Tom Morello, Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, and Kris Kristofferson performed at the event. Ezrin also co-produced the PBS broadcast of the event.
Since 2010, Ezrin has co-produced Peter Gabriel's album, Scratch My Back; co-produced The House Rules, by Christian Kane; and produced singles for K'naan, the Canadian Tenors, and young pop sensation, Fefe Dobson, for her album, Joy. Ezrin also reunited with Cooper, working on Cooper's last album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, on the corresponding live show, and numerous other related projects. He also mixed several projects, including Taylor Swift's Speak Now World Tour LiveCD and DVD (2011), and an album by The Darkness (2012).
In 2012, Ezrin remixed the KISS 1976 Double-Platinum album, Destroyer. Also, he produced albums for 2 Cellos and rock legends, Deep Purple.
On Halloween, October 31, 2013, the band Phish debuted twelve new songs at a concert in Atlantic City, NJ which they announced as songs they were considering for a new album to be produced by Ezrin. The album, subsequently titled "Fuego," was recorded at Ronnie's Place and Anarchy Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and Phish's own "The Barn" in Burlington, Vermont. Released on June 24, 2014, this was the band's 12th studio album and first since 2009.
In 2009, Ezrin, along with Garth Richardson and Kevin Williams, cofounded the Nimbus School of Recording Arts in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), Canada. Ezrin stated that his goal was to provide new engineers and producers with the hands-on teaching experience that he believed was no longer available from traditional recording studios.
Ezrin's educational philosophy is that modern engineers and producers need to be proficient in a range of skills and that an effective education in the recording arts will also prepare a student for more general challenges in their lives and careers. The school offers three programs: Advanced Music Production, Music – The Business, and a Beats and Urban Music Program.[34]
Ezrin was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in April 2004 and the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in March 2006.
In 2011, Ezrin and Young Artist for Haiti won the Juno Award in Canada for "Single of the Year".[37] Also in 2011, he was awarded an "Outstanding Contribution" at the Classic Rock Magazine Awards.[38] In 2013, he was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto.
Ezrin is Vice Chairman of the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, a national initiative that supports music in US schools by donating musical instruments to under-funded music programs. He is also an Advisory Committee member of MusiCounts, the musical education initiative of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, that provides instruments to Canadian school music programs.
He is co-founder of Music Rising, an initiative to preserve the musical culture of the Gulf coast region following the damage caused by the hurricanes and flooding of 2005.
On February 18, 2010, Ezrin helped with the mobilization of the Young Artists for Haiti group. Fifty Canadian artists recorded a rendition of hip hop star K'naan's "Wavin' Flag" for the victims of the Haiti quake. The song was reworked by Ezrin to include specific lyrics for Haiti, with proceeds disseminated to Free the Children, War Child Canada, and World Vision Canada. The production raised over US$2 million. K'naan explained in regard to the initiation of the project: “I got a call from Randy [Lennox, president] at Universal [Music Canada] and Bob Ezrin. They had this idea that they wanted to do something lasting, that actually educates young people in Canada about Haiti and not let the fatigue of the subject wash over everybody and everybody just forget Haiti."
Ezrin is a member of the board of The Nashville Symphony and is part of the advisory board for Music Makes Us, an initiative of the Mayor's office seeking to ensure the existence of a vibrant music education program in every Nashville public school.
Ezrin is a Chairman Emeritus of the Los Angeles Mentoring Partnership and a past Trustee and Governor of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences(NARAS).
In 1982, Ezrin briefly appeared as the host of Enterprise, a City-TV panel show that replaced Dr. Morton Shulman's The Shulman File; he has also been a frequent interviewee for documentary films and television. Ezrin has created new theatrical, television, and live events with the @Radical.Media company, based in New York, including Jay-Z's feature film, Fade to Black. In 2012, Ezrin appeared in Artifact, a documentary film about the modern music business focused on the legal battle between Thirty Seconds to Mars and record label EMI.
Ezrin has worked on recordings with numerous major artists, including Phish, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Lou Reed, The Kings, Hanoi Rocks, Taylor Swift, Peter Gabriel, K'naan, 2Cellos, Kristin Chenoweth, Rod Stewart, Nine Inch Nails, The Jayhawks, Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Darkness, Jane's Addiction, Dr. John, Nils Lofgren, Berlin, Kansas, Julian Lennon, and Deftones, among many others.
Ezrin has been described by Alice Cooper as "our George Martin".[10] Following his first ever production work on an album with Love it to Death in 1971, Ezrin embarked on a long-term collaboration that, by 1973, would see the release of the number one album, Billion Dollar Babies album, a year after the success of School's Out; Cooper subsequently became established as one of the biggest acts in the world. After the disbanding of Cooper's group, Ezrin continued his collaboration with Cooper, as the latter embarked upon a solo career. In 1975, Cooper released the Ezrin-produced album, Welcome To My Nightmare, and received a significant level of attention. Ezrin worked with Cooper not just as a producer, but also as a co-writer, arranger, and musician.
Ezrin produced the best-selling KISS album, Destroyer, in 1976.[13] As explained by Peter Criss during an interview in the documentary, KISS: Krazy Killer (1994), Ezrin co-wrote, arranged and performed the piano accompaniment to the song Beth. Ezrin proceeded to produce two other albums with the band -- Music From "The Elder" and Revenge—and remains close to the band's members in the 21st century.
Ezrin has worked with Pink Floyd on a number of occasions, co-producing the albums, The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell. He has also co-written the songs, "The Trial", "Signs of Life", "Learning to Fly", and "Take It Back".
Ezrin also produced the 1988 Kansas album In the Spirit of Things, and received a writing credit for the song Ghosts and three other songs.
In May 2009, Ezrin co-produced The Clearwater Concert at Madison Square Garden, celebrating the 90th birthday of musician and activist, Pete Seeger. More than 50 guest artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Ben Harper, Joan Baez, Tom Morello, Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, and Kris Kristofferson performed at the event. Ezrin also co-produced the PBS broadcast of the event.
Since 2010, Ezrin has co-produced Peter Gabriel's album, Scratch My Back; co-produced The House Rules, by Christian Kane; and produced singles for K'naan, the Canadian Tenors, and young pop sensation, Fefe Dobson, for her album, Joy. Ezrin also reunited with Cooper, working on Cooper's last album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, on the corresponding live show, and numerous other related projects. He also mixed several projects, including Taylor Swift's Speak Now World Tour LiveCD and DVD (2011), and an album by The Darkness (2012).
In 2012, Ezrin remixed the KISS 1976 Double-Platinum album, Destroyer. Also, he produced albums for 2 Cellos and rock legends, Deep Purple.
On Halloween, October 31, 2013, the band Phish debuted twelve new songs at a concert in Atlantic City, NJ which they announced as songs they were considering for a new album to be produced by Ezrin. The album, subsequently titled "Fuego," was recorded at Ronnie's Place and Anarchy Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and Phish's own "The Barn" in Burlington, Vermont. Released on June 24, 2014, this was the band's 12th studio album and first since 2009.
In 2009, Ezrin, along with Garth Richardson and Kevin Williams, cofounded the Nimbus School of Recording Arts in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), Canada. Ezrin stated that his goal was to provide new engineers and producers with the hands-on teaching experience that he believed was no longer available from traditional recording studios.
Ezrin's educational philosophy is that modern engineers and producers need to be proficient in a range of skills and that an effective education in the recording arts will also prepare a student for more general challenges in their lives and careers. The school offers three programs: Advanced Music Production, Music – The Business, and a Beats and Urban Music Program.[34]
Ezrin was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in April 2004 and the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in March 2006.
In 2011, Ezrin and Young Artist for Haiti won the Juno Award in Canada for "Single of the Year".[37] Also in 2011, he was awarded an "Outstanding Contribution" at the Classic Rock Magazine Awards.[38] In 2013, he was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto.
Ezrin is Vice Chairman of the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, a national initiative that supports music in US schools by donating musical instruments to under-funded music programs. He is also an Advisory Committee member of MusiCounts, the musical education initiative of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, that provides instruments to Canadian school music programs.
He is co-founder of Music Rising, an initiative to preserve the musical culture of the Gulf coast region following the damage caused by the hurricanes and flooding of 2005.
On February 18, 2010, Ezrin helped with the mobilization of the Young Artists for Haiti group. Fifty Canadian artists recorded a rendition of hip hop star K'naan's "Wavin' Flag" for the victims of the Haiti quake. The song was reworked by Ezrin to include specific lyrics for Haiti, with proceeds disseminated to Free the Children, War Child Canada, and World Vision Canada. The production raised over US$2 million. K'naan explained in regard to the initiation of the project: “I got a call from Randy [Lennox, president] at Universal [Music Canada] and Bob Ezrin. They had this idea that they wanted to do something lasting, that actually educates young people in Canada about Haiti and not let the fatigue of the subject wash over everybody and everybody just forget Haiti."
Ezrin is a member of the board of The Nashville Symphony and is part of the advisory board for Music Makes Us, an initiative of the Mayor's office seeking to ensure the existence of a vibrant music education program in every Nashville public school.
Ezrin is a Chairman Emeritus of the Los Angeles Mentoring Partnership and a past Trustee and Governor of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences(NARAS).
In 1982, Ezrin briefly appeared as the host of Enterprise, a City-TV panel show that replaced Dr. Morton Shulman's The Shulman File; he has also been a frequent interviewee for documentary films and television. Ezrin has created new theatrical, television, and live events with the @Radical.Media company, based in New York, including Jay-Z's feature film, Fade to Black. In 2012, Ezrin appeared in Artifact, a documentary film about the modern music business focused on the legal battle between Thirty Seconds to Mars and record label EMI.
bruce jackson
Jackson at Wembley Stadium
Bruce Robert Jackson (3 June 1949 – 29 January 2011) was an Australian audio engineer who co-founded JANDS, an Australian audio, lighting and staging company. He joined American touring audio engineer Roy Clair and mixed concert stage monitors for Elvis Presley in the 1970s. With Clair Brothers, a concert sound company, Jackson designed audio electronics including a custom mixing console. Beginning in 1978, Jackson toured as Bruce Springsteen's band engineer for a decade, using Clair Brothers sound systems. A business interest in Fairlight CMI in Sydney introduced Jackson to digital audio, and he subsequently founded the digital audio company Apogee Electronics in Santa Monica, California, where he lived at the time. After selling his share of Apogee, Jackson co-founded with Roy and Gene Clair a joint venture which produced the Clair iO, a loudspeaker management system for control of complex concert sound systems. Jackson turned the venture commercial with the help of Dave McGrath's Lake Technology. Dolby Laboratories bought the technology and formed Dolby Lake with Jackson as vice president, then in 2009 Lab.gruppen acquired the brand. Jackson was honoured with the Parnelli Innovator Award in 2005 for his inventive loudspeaker controller.
While still a partner at Apogee, Jackson began touring with Barbra Streisand, mixing concert sound and serving as sound designer from 1993 to 2007. With two other audio engineers he received an Emmy Award for sound design and sound mixing on Streisand's TV special Barbra: The Concert.[1] Jackson worked on sound design for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney[2] and served as audio director for the opening and closing ceremonies. He performed the same role in Doha, Qatar, at the 2006 Asian Games and in Vancouver, Canada, at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Jackson first met Roy Clair in 1970 during a world tour by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears when they stopped at Sydney for a concert held at Randwick Racecourse.[6][10] Clair had brought his unusually large American concert sound system to Australia and Jackson was curious to hear it, and to see how the big black 'W' bins were designed. He and a friend sneaked into the concert and spoke with Clair, asking "a whole stack of questions". Clair decided to leave his sound system in Jackson's hands for a series of Johnny Cash tour dates coming up in some six months, rather than shipping all the gear home to the USA and back in between. Jackson stored the system and then mixed the Cash tour across Australia. Afterward, Clair invited Jackson to visit him in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Following a trip to London, Jackson stopped in at Clair Brothers and stayed to live in Pennsylvania.
Jackson assisted Clair Brothers by teaming with Ron Borthwick to design a mixing console that folded up into its own road case, a proprietary model used by Clair Brothers for some 12 years of top tours.[11] The console used novel plasma bargraph meters which displayed both average and peak sound levels, combining the characteristics of fast peak meters and slower VU meters. Clair Brothers built 10 of the consoles, the first live sound console to incorporate parametric equalisation.
While still a partner at Apogee, Jackson began touring with Barbra Streisand, mixing concert sound and serving as sound designer from 1993 to 2007. With two other audio engineers he received an Emmy Award for sound design and sound mixing on Streisand's TV special Barbra: The Concert.[1] Jackson worked on sound design for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney[2] and served as audio director for the opening and closing ceremonies. He performed the same role in Doha, Qatar, at the 2006 Asian Games and in Vancouver, Canada, at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Jackson first met Roy Clair in 1970 during a world tour by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears when they stopped at Sydney for a concert held at Randwick Racecourse.[6][10] Clair had brought his unusually large American concert sound system to Australia and Jackson was curious to hear it, and to see how the big black 'W' bins were designed. He and a friend sneaked into the concert and spoke with Clair, asking "a whole stack of questions". Clair decided to leave his sound system in Jackson's hands for a series of Johnny Cash tour dates coming up in some six months, rather than shipping all the gear home to the USA and back in between. Jackson stored the system and then mixed the Cash tour across Australia. Afterward, Clair invited Jackson to visit him in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Following a trip to London, Jackson stopped in at Clair Brothers and stayed to live in Pennsylvania.
Jackson assisted Clair Brothers by teaming with Ron Borthwick to design a mixing console that folded up into its own road case, a proprietary model used by Clair Brothers for some 12 years of top tours.[11] The console used novel plasma bargraph meters which displayed both average and peak sound levels, combining the characteristics of fast peak meters and slower VU meters. Clair Brothers built 10 of the consoles, the first live sound console to incorporate parametric equalisation.
bruce swedien
Bruce Swedien is a Grammy Award-winning audio engineer and music producer. He is known for his work with Quincy Jones.
Swedien first came to recognition for his work in 1962 on Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons "Big Girls Don't Cry" for which he won a Grammy nomination.
Swedien is a five-time Grammy winner and has been nominated 13 times.[1] He recorded, mixed, and assisted in producing the best-selling album in the world, Thriller by Michael Jackson. He was the primary sound engineer for Jackson's studio recordings from 1978 to 2001.
He also recorded and mixed for jazz artists such as Count Basie, Art Blakey, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock and Jeff Oster. His pop work includes Patti Austin, Natalie Cole, Roberta Flack, Mick Jagger, David Hasselhoff, Jennifer Lopez, Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Rufus, Chaka Khan, Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, Donna Summer, Sarah Vaughan, and the zouk band Kassav'. He worked on the scores for Night Shift, The Color Purple and Running Scared.
On 10 November 2001, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy from the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden for his achievements as a sound engineer. Swedien also held "masterclasses" at the Swedish National Radio for practicing sound engineers.
On 30 August 2015, he was presented the Pensado Giant Award at the second annual Pensado Awards held at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, CA. The award was presented by Quincy Jones.
Although born in Minneapolis, Bruce started his studio career in Chicago, working at Universal Studios under chief engineer Bill Putnam. He first met Quincy Jones there while Jones was vice president for Mercury Records in Chicago. The two worked on albums for artists like Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan. Bruce later moved to Brunswick Records in the late 1960s and 1970s where he ran and developed the label's studios and sound. The label, under producer Carl Davis, was responsible for numerous R&B and pop hits during that time, with artists such as The Chi-Lites, Tyrone Davis and Jackie Wilson.
Swedien is noted for pioneering the 'Acusonic Recording Process' which involves pairing up microphones together on vocals and instruments, a technique enabled by synchronizing several multi-track recorders with SMPTE timecode. This achieved an enhanced roomy ambient sound, some of which is evident on albums produced in collaboration with Quincy Jones on tracks such as "Sounds And Stuff Like That!!", George Benson's "Give Me the Night", and the Michael Jackson albums he worked on.
Swedien first came to recognition for his work in 1962 on Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons "Big Girls Don't Cry" for which he won a Grammy nomination.
Swedien is a five-time Grammy winner and has been nominated 13 times.[1] He recorded, mixed, and assisted in producing the best-selling album in the world, Thriller by Michael Jackson. He was the primary sound engineer for Jackson's studio recordings from 1978 to 2001.
He also recorded and mixed for jazz artists such as Count Basie, Art Blakey, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock and Jeff Oster. His pop work includes Patti Austin, Natalie Cole, Roberta Flack, Mick Jagger, David Hasselhoff, Jennifer Lopez, Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Rufus, Chaka Khan, Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, Donna Summer, Sarah Vaughan, and the zouk band Kassav'. He worked on the scores for Night Shift, The Color Purple and Running Scared.
On 10 November 2001, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy from the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden for his achievements as a sound engineer. Swedien also held "masterclasses" at the Swedish National Radio for practicing sound engineers.
On 30 August 2015, he was presented the Pensado Giant Award at the second annual Pensado Awards held at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, CA. The award was presented by Quincy Jones.
Although born in Minneapolis, Bruce started his studio career in Chicago, working at Universal Studios under chief engineer Bill Putnam. He first met Quincy Jones there while Jones was vice president for Mercury Records in Chicago. The two worked on albums for artists like Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan. Bruce later moved to Brunswick Records in the late 1960s and 1970s where he ran and developed the label's studios and sound. The label, under producer Carl Davis, was responsible for numerous R&B and pop hits during that time, with artists such as The Chi-Lites, Tyrone Davis and Jackie Wilson.
Swedien is noted for pioneering the 'Acusonic Recording Process' which involves pairing up microphones together on vocals and instruments, a technique enabled by synchronizing several multi-track recorders with SMPTE timecode. This achieved an enhanced roomy ambient sound, some of which is evident on albums produced in collaboration with Quincy Jones on tracks such as "Sounds And Stuff Like That!!", George Benson's "Give Me the Night", and the Michael Jackson albums he worked on.
c.a. tuthill
From what I can tell, Cuyler Tuthill was an audio engineer for film - primarily in the 1930's. Below is a sample of his body of work in relation to sound recording
He also contributed a large body of work to several audio publications in the 1940's as well - not to mention his book: "How to Service Tape Recorders"
He also contributed a large body of work to several audio publications in the 1940's as well - not to mention his book: "How to Service Tape Recorders"
c.g. mcproud
A graduate mechanical engineer, McProud began his working years in civil engineering.
He joined Paramount Pictures in the early days of "talkies" and worked there for 13 years. Working with audio all day, he followed it as a hobby and avocation and designed and installed music systems in the homes of many movie greats in the early 1930s.
During the war McProud, or "Mac" as he was known to his associates, worked on the development of sonar systems for the Navy; he was later assigned to help in preparing maintenance manuals for the same equipment, introducing him to the writing world. Following the war he entered the magazine field, did free-lance writing, and finally became the managing - - editor of Audio Engineering, now Audio magazine, the original magazine in the highfidelity field, which was founded in 1947. In 1949, following the death of its founder John H. Potts, he became editor, publisher, and part owner. In 1953 the AES presented him with an award for doing "the most for the advancement of the society in the previous year."
The following year he was awarded a fellowship for his work in the recording and reproduction of sound and for his work in transducer design, development, and production. Mac was among the original group and a moving force in founding the Audio Engineering Society. He served as its executive vice president in 195 1 and president in 1952 and as a governor. In 1959 McProud received a citation in recognition of the contributions of Audio magazine to the education of the audio fraternity under his editorship. He is also a life member of the IEEE. Well known in the audio fraternity worldwide, Mac attended audio shows in London, Paris, Japan, Mexico, and most of the major cities of the United States. Often referred to as "Mr. Audio." Mac is credited C. G. McProud (1904-1986) fidelity music systems for the home and giving impetus to an entire industry. McProud retired from Audio in 197 1 but continued as a contributing editor.
He joined Paramount Pictures in the early days of "talkies" and worked there for 13 years. Working with audio all day, he followed it as a hobby and avocation and designed and installed music systems in the homes of many movie greats in the early 1930s.
During the war McProud, or "Mac" as he was known to his associates, worked on the development of sonar systems for the Navy; he was later assigned to help in preparing maintenance manuals for the same equipment, introducing him to the writing world. Following the war he entered the magazine field, did free-lance writing, and finally became the managing - - editor of Audio Engineering, now Audio magazine, the original magazine in the highfidelity field, which was founded in 1947. In 1949, following the death of its founder John H. Potts, he became editor, publisher, and part owner. In 1953 the AES presented him with an award for doing "the most for the advancement of the society in the previous year."
The following year he was awarded a fellowship for his work in the recording and reproduction of sound and for his work in transducer design, development, and production. Mac was among the original group and a moving force in founding the Audio Engineering Society. He served as its executive vice president in 195 1 and president in 1952 and as a governor. In 1959 McProud received a citation in recognition of the contributions of Audio magazine to the education of the audio fraternity under his editorship. He is also a life member of the IEEE. Well known in the audio fraternity worldwide, Mac attended audio shows in London, Paris, Japan, Mexico, and most of the major cities of the United States. Often referred to as "Mr. Audio." Mac is credited C. G. McProud (1904-1986) fidelity music systems for the home and giving impetus to an entire industry. McProud retired from Audio in 197 1 but continued as a contributing editor.
c.j. lebel
Clarence J. Lebel was an American inventor of fluorescent lamp and holder of 9 other patents, first President of Audio Instrument Company, and first president of Audio Engineering Society.
charles w. vadersen
I had somewhat of a hard time finding any kind of bio on this dude, but I did find a cool article from Bell Labs of his involvement in the war and what he did for them/us. I also found an old patent of his as well (down below). I also know that he was a chairman of the IEEE.
caldwell p. smith
charles a. hisserich
Charles Hisserich is best known for being a film sound recorder in the 1930's. He also has several patents in his name.
charles boegli
Charles Boegli was an electrical engineer known for his work with tubes in audio.
charles d. cole
Charles Cole was in the general engineering department of the American Broadcasting Co.
charles f. adams
charles francis bush, jr.
charles w. harrison, jr.
charles w. king
clarence c. moore
cliff howard
curtiss r. schafer
d.b. frudd
d.r. andrews
dan healy
daniel flickinger
daniel j. plach
dave davies
david c. bomberger
david hafler
david l. klepper
david sarser
david w. worden
don v.r. drenner
donald e. maxwell
donald l. clark
donovan v. geppert
dunford a. kelly
e.j. marcus
e.w. savage
earl r. meissner
eddie kramer
Edwin H. "Eddie" Kramer (born 19 April 1942 in Cape Town, South Africa) is a recording producer and engineer. Kramer has collaborated with several artists now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including the Beatles,David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Carlos Santana.
Kramer has engineered and/or produced records for other well-known artists in various genres. They include Anthrax, Joe Cocker, Peter Frampton, John Mayall, Mott the Hoople, John Sebastian, Carly Simon, the Small Faces, Dionne Warwick and Whitesnake.
Kramer's movie soundtrack credits include Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight, Festival Express, Jimi Plays Monterey, Jimi Plays Berkeley, Live at the Fillmore East, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, The Pursuit of Happiness, Rainbow Bridge, The Song Remains the Same, and Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More. Kramer was interviewed extensively in Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin,’ a two-hour American Masters documentary which debuted in November 2013.
He is also a photographer who has exhibited a number of his intimate images of performers, particularly Hendrix, with whom he worked on Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, Band of Gypsys, andThe Cry of Love, as well as the posthumous Valleys of Neptune, People, Hell and Angels, Miami Pop Festival, and other releases produced through Experience Hendrix, the organization formed by Hendrix's heirs. Kramer was born to art and music-loving parents Sonny and Minna Kramer, active opponents of apartheid who moved from South Africa to London in the early 1960s for political reasons. At age four he began studying the piano. That instrument remained his first love, but he also dabbled with the violin and the cello. He studied classical piano at the South African College of Music. During these studies he became fascinated with jazz and rock, much to his father's chagrin. Kramer moved to London at age 19, some six months after his parents' relocating there. There he recorded jazz groups in a home studio with primitive recording equipment, installed hi-fi equipment in antique furniture, and installed album playback systems for the Soho Record Centre, the preeminent London record store chain of the day.
Kramer got his first industry job in 1962 at Advision Studios. A year later he was hired by Pye Studios, where he assisted on mobile recordings of classical works. He also assisted on Pye Studios recordings by the Kinks, the Searchers, the Undertakers, Petula Clark, and Sammy Davis Jr. In 1964 he founded KPS Studios, a mono- and two-track facility which was acquired in 1965 by Regent Sound, where the Rolling Stones had recorded their first album. Regent then tasked Kramer to help build and run their new four-track studio. The Beatles had recorded "Fixing a Hole" there, later to be featured on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Kramer engineered two Beatles hit singles which appeared on Magical Mystery Tour—"All You Need Is Love" and "Baby You're a Rich Man". The two songs were recorded at Olympic Studios, where, in 1967, Kramer engineered albums for the Rolling Stones, Small Faces, Traffic, and Jimi Hendrix. Kramer became a permanent part of Hendrix's creative process, collaborating on the four albums which Hendrix released before his death in 1970.
In 1968 Kramer relocated to New York, primarily to continue working with Hendrix. Headquartered first at The Record Plant and later working as an independent producer and engineer, Kramer produced the first Johnny Winter album and engineered a sequence of five Led Zeppelin albums, beginning with Led Zeppelin II.
Kramer and his crew attended the 1969 Woodstock Festival; they recorded the entire festival in a harried, sleepless, three-day binge. It required vitamin B shots for stamina, and was interspersed with brilliant performances from several of rock's then-reigning acts, as documented in both the film, Woodstock, and the three-disc album Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More.
Kramer began the second decade of his career working alongside architect John Storyk to oversee creation of Jimi Hendrix's state-of-the-art studio, Electric Lady Studios, built and equipped for a then-astonishing $1 million. He served as Director of Engineering there from 1970 to 1974, producing Carly Simon's debut solo album, Carly Simon, as well as albums for Sha Na Na and Peter Frampton, and also engineering albums for Lena Horne, Dionne Warwick, and David Bowie, David Live and Young Americans. (The latter featured rhythm guitar from John Lennon on its Number One hit, "Fame".)
In 1971 he mixed Humble Pie's double album Performance Rockin' the Fillmore, featuring Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton, still Larry Corryell's Barefoot Boy, his first and only album for Flying Dutchman label, and Curtis Mayfield's double album Curtis/Live!, his first release after leaving The Impressions. In 1973 Kramer mixed Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. In the same year he began a lengthy association with Kiss. Earlier he had produced a four-song demo that won their first recording contract. He eventually produced Alive II, Double Platinum, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun, Alive III as well as member Ace Frehley's first solo album, Ace Frehley, which yielded a hit single, "New York Groove". Also in 1973 he engineered the live Derek and the Dominos album In Concert.
Kramer left Electric Lady Studios in 1975. Working independently, he engineered the Rolling Stones' Love You Live, Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti and The Song Remains the Same, and Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive!, the biggest-selling album of 1976, a 2-disc release that sold over 14 million. In the same year he mixed Bad Company's third album, Run with the Pack.
1980s to present[edit]Kramer produced Buddy Guy, classical guitarist John Williams, award-winning country group the Kentucky Headhunters, hard-core rockers and metalheads such as Icon, Pretty Maids, Fastway, and Anthrax. He produced Among the Living for Anthrax in 1987, which yielded a Top 10 single in the UK, "I Am the Law.”
September 1992 saw the publication of a book co-authored by Kramer and John McDermott. Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight was built on Kramer’s years of collaboration with Hendrix, augmented by fresh interviews with key musicians and other participants in the meteoric Hendrix career.
In 1993 Kramer produced and engineered Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix, featuring tracks by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, the Cure, Buddy Guy, classical violinist Nigel Kennedy, Living Colour, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, hip hop artists P.M. Dawn, Spin Doctors, and others. The album raised $750,000 for music and dance scholarships ( Berklee College of Music, the Juilliard School, and Dance Theatre of Harlem), administered by the United Negro College Fund.
In 1994 Kramer released a two-part video series, "Adventures in Modern Recording", utilizing interviews with Les Paul, the seminal guitarist as well as pioneer of both electric guitar development and modern recording techniques such as multi-tracking and looping. In the same year Kramer produced the Spin Doctor's single for Woodstock '94, as well as Buddy Guy's Slippin' In the 1995 Grammy winner for Best Blues Album and winner of the W.C. Handy Award for Album of the Year in 1996. Buddy Guy and the Saturday Nite Live Band with G.E. Smith, also produced by Kramer, was a 1996 Grammy nominee.
At the time of his death, Jimi Hendrix had a considerable backlog of material recorded in anticipation of future album releases. In a multi-million-dollar lawsuit which concluded in 1995, the heirs of Jimi Hendrix won back the rights to his voluminous recordings.[3] Since then, Kramer has served as co-producer of all Hendrix releases.
Kramer produced a second Hendrix tribute album in 1995, In From the Storm. Its diverse artists' roster included the London Metropolitan Orchestra, Toots Thielemans, Carlos Santana, Robben Ford, Taj Mahal, Sting, Steve Vai, Buddy Miles, Brian May, and Bootsy Collins. In 1997 he produced Now, the third Paul Rogers studio album. He won a 1999 Grammy award for his audio production on the video for Jimi Hendrix's live album Band of Gypsys. Kramer collected another Grammy in 2002 for engineering a single entitled "The Game of Love", with Carlos Santana and vocal by Michelle Branch. The track also won a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
In 2004, Kramer had several Hendrix-related projects, including helping DigiTech design and create an effects pedal which emulates characteristically Hendrixian guitar sounds. He also remastered Hendrix albums for Classic Vinyl, and remixed Woodstock, a posthumous live release, in 5.1 surround sound. Concerning his remastering work, Kramer told Guitar Player magazine, "I was able to really enhance and improve upon the actual sound, so if the original sound was good I was able to make it even better. I gave it a more full-bodied sound. I was able to improve some of the dynamics. Of course this is made possible by new technologies and equipment." Kramer specifically credited modern monitors, which provide abundant high-end detail, making it clear where various instruments are within the stereo image.[4]
In 2005 Kramer reunited with architect John Storyk to design Anacapa Studios in Malibu, California. In the same year, Kramer remastered the Woodstock video footage of Jimi Hendrix for DVD release, revealing a fuller perspective of the guitarist's performance.
Again working with Digitech, Kramer helped design and create a Brian May guitar effects pedal in 2006. Also that year, galleries in Santa Monica, California, Hollywood, and Rotterdam exhibited Kramer's photographs of rock stars performing, recording, and in candid moments.
Gallery photographic exhibitions in 2007 included Santa Fe, New Mexico and Beverly Hills, California. Kramer also remixed Evil Ways a previously unreleased live Santana track from Woodstock, in 2007, for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. In 2008 Kramer mixed tracks for the Jimi Hendrix avatar (a character that a game player can use as an alter ego) Activision's Guitar Hero. He also engineered and mixed a 2008 album with Joey Santiago and Dave Lovering of the Pixies.
Kramer again exhibited photos in 2009, at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in Manhattan, as well as a newly opened branch Morrison Hotel Gallery in Del Mar, California. He was filmed and interviewed in 2009 for a BBC documentary about Sir George Martin, producer of all but one of the Beatles' album releases. In that same year he remixed the posthumously-released Band of Gypsys Live at the Fillmore East, along with albums by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Santana, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Waves Audio, a producer of software for audio engineers, released the Eddie Kramer Collection in 2009, a set of five plug ins for replicating Kramer's studio touch in recording guitar, drums, vocals, bass, and special effects.
A 2010 exhibit at San Francisco Art Exchange displayed Kramer's photos of Hendrix and other rock luminaries. In 2010 he also remixed "Cheap Sunglasses", a re-make of a ZZ Top single by the Australian hard rock band Wolfmother, and in conjunction with John McDermott and the Hendrix family's organization, Experience Hendrix, Kramer prepared Valleys of Neptune, an album of previously-unreleased Hendrix performances.
Kramer was chosen to be a presenter at the 2011 Grammy Technical Awards. Also in 2011 he recorded preeminent pedal steel blues/gospel guitarist Robert Randolph and the Family Band on the album Lickety Split, and Carlos Santana, a guest star on two of the album's tracks, as well as completing further mixes of Hendrix recordings in 5.1 Surround Sound. 2011 also saw the release of three more Kramer plug-ins for Wave, Kramer Master Tape, the Kramer HLS Channel, and the Kramer Pie Compressor.
In 2012 he did further sessions with Randolph, and Buddy Guy, and produced and engineered tracks for Acoustic Generations, a Hendrix tribute album featuring contemporary acoustic remakes of Hendrix songs. The project includes contributions from Brandi Carlile,Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Jason Mraz, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Billy Gibbons, Rafael Saadiq, Heart, and Crosby and Nash.
Kramer's activities in 2013 included introducing three Eddie Kramer Signature guitar effects pedals from F-Pedals, with partner Francesco Sondelli at the NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants), and also consulting with former Doors guitarist Robby Krieger on a new recording studio. Kramer also worked again with Robert Randolph in recording a "sacred steel" band for a 2013 release called Robert Randolph Presents: The Slide Brothers. 5 March 2013 was the release date of People, Hell and Angels, a collection of 12 songs which Jimi Hendrix had planned for his follow-up to Electric Ladyland, recorded in 1968–69, following the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The backing musicians include Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, later to become Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, and Stephen Stills on bass. "Somewhere", a single released from the album, reached Number One on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales Chart. November 2013 saw the release of the Hendrix documentary Hear My Train A Comin', and another Hendrix live album, Miami Pop Festival.
"Jimi utilized the studio as a rehearsal space", thank God he did." Kramer described Hendrix as "very sharp, very focused, very funny, very shy, totally dedicated to his music and his art. He was such a complete human being with such far-reaching intellect."[5] Kramer places Hendrix among Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Louis Armstrong. "He really is in that league, because his individuality was so strong and his message was so strong and his mastery of his instrument was so complete. He was a maverick. He broke a lot of barriers, musically and in every way." "Tastes and sounds may change", echoes Chris Talbott of the Associated Press, "but Hendrix always remains close at hand".
Continuing his involvement with cutting-edge technologies, Kramer is working with Digital Theatre Systems (DTS) in the development of Headphone: X, an app which replicates 5.1, 7.1, and 11.1 Surround Sound in any type of headphone.
Rolling Stone ranks Hendrix as the greatest guitarist of all time. Kramer specifically cites his strong individuality, powerful message, and expansion of the sonic vocabulary of electric guitar, including its potentials for controlled feedback and distortion. In the words of master musician Les Paul, for whom the Gibson Les Paul is named, "Man, he was all over that thing! He had that thing wide open."
Kramer recalls Hendrix as extremely disciplined in the studio, with his objectives thoroughly pre-planned. To some extent this was a result of working with results-oriented manager and early producer Chas Chandler, who brought Hendrix to England in September 1966, where he established his fame before returning to the United States. Hendrix envisioned the tonal spectrum as a palette of colors, often instructing Kramer with color-based commands. "Make it sound green," for example, was satisfied by adding reverb.
Led Zeppelin II was the first of five albums which Kramer engineered for this famously free-wheeling band. It was mixed in a two-day marathon session. While working on the track "Whole Lotta Love", Kramer hit a spot where part of a previously-recorded vocal track kept bleeding through, in which a screaming Robert Plant intones "Woman. You need it!" Instinctively, Kramer added reverb to the passage, just as Jimmy Page had done. They glanced at each other and laughed. Page then said "Leave it in.”
In June 1973, a group of struggling rock musicians whose previous band, Wicked Lester, had flamed out, cut a five-song demo as Kiss with Kramer at Electric Lady Studios. Within two months they had a contract with Casablanca Records. By late 1975, Kiss had a reputation for exciting stagecraft but lackluster album sales. They asked Kramer to produce their daring release of a 2-disc live album, Alive!. It subsequently reached gold status and generated the group's first hit single, "Rock and Roll All Nite". This not only buoyed the group, it probably staved off a bankruptcy filing by their struggling label.
Kramer was assistant engineer on Between the Buttons, Flowers, and Their Satanic Majesties Request. The work which he and producer Jimmy Miller had done with Traffic moved the Stones to book the pair for Beggars Banquet, their first album recorded withoutAndrew Loog Oldham, the group's former manager and producer. Beggars Banquet re-asserted the group's R&B roots. According to Kramer, Miller did much to position the Rolling Stones for the longevity which they have since enjoyed: "He went to the heart and soul of where they came from; he was so adept at evoking the psyche of the band, and so clever at production. I've always tried to model myself after Jimmy in terms of how to get a session going, how to make the artists really get excited about what they're playing."
Kramer's and his cohorts at Olympic Studios caught a break when the Beatles' customary recording facility at Abbey Road Studios was unavailable on 11 May 1967, when the Beatles wished to record "Baby, You're a Rich Man." Olympic was frantic to create a strong impression. By good fortune they happened to have a Clavioline, an early synthesizer, on hand. Lennon was fascinated by the instrument. He improvised droning, Indian-sounding passages to weave among the song's verses. Olympic was subsequently chosen for the 14 June recording of "All You Need Is Love." The songs comprised a two-sided Summer of 1967 Beatles' hit. "They were so disarming and so great in the studio," Kramer recalls, "very targeted about what they'd come in to achieve."
Kramer has engineered and/or produced records for other well-known artists in various genres. They include Anthrax, Joe Cocker, Peter Frampton, John Mayall, Mott the Hoople, John Sebastian, Carly Simon, the Small Faces, Dionne Warwick and Whitesnake.
Kramer's movie soundtrack credits include Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight, Festival Express, Jimi Plays Monterey, Jimi Plays Berkeley, Live at the Fillmore East, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, The Pursuit of Happiness, Rainbow Bridge, The Song Remains the Same, and Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More. Kramer was interviewed extensively in Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin,’ a two-hour American Masters documentary which debuted in November 2013.
He is also a photographer who has exhibited a number of his intimate images of performers, particularly Hendrix, with whom he worked on Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, Band of Gypsys, andThe Cry of Love, as well as the posthumous Valleys of Neptune, People, Hell and Angels, Miami Pop Festival, and other releases produced through Experience Hendrix, the organization formed by Hendrix's heirs. Kramer was born to art and music-loving parents Sonny and Minna Kramer, active opponents of apartheid who moved from South Africa to London in the early 1960s for political reasons. At age four he began studying the piano. That instrument remained his first love, but he also dabbled with the violin and the cello. He studied classical piano at the South African College of Music. During these studies he became fascinated with jazz and rock, much to his father's chagrin. Kramer moved to London at age 19, some six months after his parents' relocating there. There he recorded jazz groups in a home studio with primitive recording equipment, installed hi-fi equipment in antique furniture, and installed album playback systems for the Soho Record Centre, the preeminent London record store chain of the day.
Kramer got his first industry job in 1962 at Advision Studios. A year later he was hired by Pye Studios, where he assisted on mobile recordings of classical works. He also assisted on Pye Studios recordings by the Kinks, the Searchers, the Undertakers, Petula Clark, and Sammy Davis Jr. In 1964 he founded KPS Studios, a mono- and two-track facility which was acquired in 1965 by Regent Sound, where the Rolling Stones had recorded their first album. Regent then tasked Kramer to help build and run their new four-track studio. The Beatles had recorded "Fixing a Hole" there, later to be featured on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Kramer engineered two Beatles hit singles which appeared on Magical Mystery Tour—"All You Need Is Love" and "Baby You're a Rich Man". The two songs were recorded at Olympic Studios, where, in 1967, Kramer engineered albums for the Rolling Stones, Small Faces, Traffic, and Jimi Hendrix. Kramer became a permanent part of Hendrix's creative process, collaborating on the four albums which Hendrix released before his death in 1970.
In 1968 Kramer relocated to New York, primarily to continue working with Hendrix. Headquartered first at The Record Plant and later working as an independent producer and engineer, Kramer produced the first Johnny Winter album and engineered a sequence of five Led Zeppelin albums, beginning with Led Zeppelin II.
Kramer and his crew attended the 1969 Woodstock Festival; they recorded the entire festival in a harried, sleepless, three-day binge. It required vitamin B shots for stamina, and was interspersed with brilliant performances from several of rock's then-reigning acts, as documented in both the film, Woodstock, and the three-disc album Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More.
Kramer began the second decade of his career working alongside architect John Storyk to oversee creation of Jimi Hendrix's state-of-the-art studio, Electric Lady Studios, built and equipped for a then-astonishing $1 million. He served as Director of Engineering there from 1970 to 1974, producing Carly Simon's debut solo album, Carly Simon, as well as albums for Sha Na Na and Peter Frampton, and also engineering albums for Lena Horne, Dionne Warwick, and David Bowie, David Live and Young Americans. (The latter featured rhythm guitar from John Lennon on its Number One hit, "Fame".)
In 1971 he mixed Humble Pie's double album Performance Rockin' the Fillmore, featuring Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton, still Larry Corryell's Barefoot Boy, his first and only album for Flying Dutchman label, and Curtis Mayfield's double album Curtis/Live!, his first release after leaving The Impressions. In 1973 Kramer mixed Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. In the same year he began a lengthy association with Kiss. Earlier he had produced a four-song demo that won their first recording contract. He eventually produced Alive II, Double Platinum, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun, Alive III as well as member Ace Frehley's first solo album, Ace Frehley, which yielded a hit single, "New York Groove". Also in 1973 he engineered the live Derek and the Dominos album In Concert.
Kramer left Electric Lady Studios in 1975. Working independently, he engineered the Rolling Stones' Love You Live, Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti and The Song Remains the Same, and Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive!, the biggest-selling album of 1976, a 2-disc release that sold over 14 million. In the same year he mixed Bad Company's third album, Run with the Pack.
1980s to present[edit]Kramer produced Buddy Guy, classical guitarist John Williams, award-winning country group the Kentucky Headhunters, hard-core rockers and metalheads such as Icon, Pretty Maids, Fastway, and Anthrax. He produced Among the Living for Anthrax in 1987, which yielded a Top 10 single in the UK, "I Am the Law.”
September 1992 saw the publication of a book co-authored by Kramer and John McDermott. Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight was built on Kramer’s years of collaboration with Hendrix, augmented by fresh interviews with key musicians and other participants in the meteoric Hendrix career.
In 1993 Kramer produced and engineered Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix, featuring tracks by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, the Cure, Buddy Guy, classical violinist Nigel Kennedy, Living Colour, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, hip hop artists P.M. Dawn, Spin Doctors, and others. The album raised $750,000 for music and dance scholarships ( Berklee College of Music, the Juilliard School, and Dance Theatre of Harlem), administered by the United Negro College Fund.
In 1994 Kramer released a two-part video series, "Adventures in Modern Recording", utilizing interviews with Les Paul, the seminal guitarist as well as pioneer of both electric guitar development and modern recording techniques such as multi-tracking and looping. In the same year Kramer produced the Spin Doctor's single for Woodstock '94, as well as Buddy Guy's Slippin' In the 1995 Grammy winner for Best Blues Album and winner of the W.C. Handy Award for Album of the Year in 1996. Buddy Guy and the Saturday Nite Live Band with G.E. Smith, also produced by Kramer, was a 1996 Grammy nominee.
At the time of his death, Jimi Hendrix had a considerable backlog of material recorded in anticipation of future album releases. In a multi-million-dollar lawsuit which concluded in 1995, the heirs of Jimi Hendrix won back the rights to his voluminous recordings.[3] Since then, Kramer has served as co-producer of all Hendrix releases.
Kramer produced a second Hendrix tribute album in 1995, In From the Storm. Its diverse artists' roster included the London Metropolitan Orchestra, Toots Thielemans, Carlos Santana, Robben Ford, Taj Mahal, Sting, Steve Vai, Buddy Miles, Brian May, and Bootsy Collins. In 1997 he produced Now, the third Paul Rogers studio album. He won a 1999 Grammy award for his audio production on the video for Jimi Hendrix's live album Band of Gypsys. Kramer collected another Grammy in 2002 for engineering a single entitled "The Game of Love", with Carlos Santana and vocal by Michelle Branch. The track also won a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
In 2004, Kramer had several Hendrix-related projects, including helping DigiTech design and create an effects pedal which emulates characteristically Hendrixian guitar sounds. He also remastered Hendrix albums for Classic Vinyl, and remixed Woodstock, a posthumous live release, in 5.1 surround sound. Concerning his remastering work, Kramer told Guitar Player magazine, "I was able to really enhance and improve upon the actual sound, so if the original sound was good I was able to make it even better. I gave it a more full-bodied sound. I was able to improve some of the dynamics. Of course this is made possible by new technologies and equipment." Kramer specifically credited modern monitors, which provide abundant high-end detail, making it clear where various instruments are within the stereo image.[4]
In 2005 Kramer reunited with architect John Storyk to design Anacapa Studios in Malibu, California. In the same year, Kramer remastered the Woodstock video footage of Jimi Hendrix for DVD release, revealing a fuller perspective of the guitarist's performance.
Again working with Digitech, Kramer helped design and create a Brian May guitar effects pedal in 2006. Also that year, galleries in Santa Monica, California, Hollywood, and Rotterdam exhibited Kramer's photographs of rock stars performing, recording, and in candid moments.
Gallery photographic exhibitions in 2007 included Santa Fe, New Mexico and Beverly Hills, California. Kramer also remixed Evil Ways a previously unreleased live Santana track from Woodstock, in 2007, for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. In 2008 Kramer mixed tracks for the Jimi Hendrix avatar (a character that a game player can use as an alter ego) Activision's Guitar Hero. He also engineered and mixed a 2008 album with Joey Santiago and Dave Lovering of the Pixies.
Kramer again exhibited photos in 2009, at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in Manhattan, as well as a newly opened branch Morrison Hotel Gallery in Del Mar, California. He was filmed and interviewed in 2009 for a BBC documentary about Sir George Martin, producer of all but one of the Beatles' album releases. In that same year he remixed the posthumously-released Band of Gypsys Live at the Fillmore East, along with albums by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Santana, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Waves Audio, a producer of software for audio engineers, released the Eddie Kramer Collection in 2009, a set of five plug ins for replicating Kramer's studio touch in recording guitar, drums, vocals, bass, and special effects.
A 2010 exhibit at San Francisco Art Exchange displayed Kramer's photos of Hendrix and other rock luminaries. In 2010 he also remixed "Cheap Sunglasses", a re-make of a ZZ Top single by the Australian hard rock band Wolfmother, and in conjunction with John McDermott and the Hendrix family's organization, Experience Hendrix, Kramer prepared Valleys of Neptune, an album of previously-unreleased Hendrix performances.
Kramer was chosen to be a presenter at the 2011 Grammy Technical Awards. Also in 2011 he recorded preeminent pedal steel blues/gospel guitarist Robert Randolph and the Family Band on the album Lickety Split, and Carlos Santana, a guest star on two of the album's tracks, as well as completing further mixes of Hendrix recordings in 5.1 Surround Sound. 2011 also saw the release of three more Kramer plug-ins for Wave, Kramer Master Tape, the Kramer HLS Channel, and the Kramer Pie Compressor.
In 2012 he did further sessions with Randolph, and Buddy Guy, and produced and engineered tracks for Acoustic Generations, a Hendrix tribute album featuring contemporary acoustic remakes of Hendrix songs. The project includes contributions from Brandi Carlile,Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Jason Mraz, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Billy Gibbons, Rafael Saadiq, Heart, and Crosby and Nash.
Kramer's activities in 2013 included introducing three Eddie Kramer Signature guitar effects pedals from F-Pedals, with partner Francesco Sondelli at the NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants), and also consulting with former Doors guitarist Robby Krieger on a new recording studio. Kramer also worked again with Robert Randolph in recording a "sacred steel" band for a 2013 release called Robert Randolph Presents: The Slide Brothers. 5 March 2013 was the release date of People, Hell and Angels, a collection of 12 songs which Jimi Hendrix had planned for his follow-up to Electric Ladyland, recorded in 1968–69, following the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The backing musicians include Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, later to become Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, and Stephen Stills on bass. "Somewhere", a single released from the album, reached Number One on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales Chart. November 2013 saw the release of the Hendrix documentary Hear My Train A Comin', and another Hendrix live album, Miami Pop Festival.
"Jimi utilized the studio as a rehearsal space", thank God he did." Kramer described Hendrix as "very sharp, very focused, very funny, very shy, totally dedicated to his music and his art. He was such a complete human being with such far-reaching intellect."[5] Kramer places Hendrix among Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Louis Armstrong. "He really is in that league, because his individuality was so strong and his message was so strong and his mastery of his instrument was so complete. He was a maverick. He broke a lot of barriers, musically and in every way." "Tastes and sounds may change", echoes Chris Talbott of the Associated Press, "but Hendrix always remains close at hand".
Continuing his involvement with cutting-edge technologies, Kramer is working with Digital Theatre Systems (DTS) in the development of Headphone: X, an app which replicates 5.1, 7.1, and 11.1 Surround Sound in any type of headphone.
Rolling Stone ranks Hendrix as the greatest guitarist of all time. Kramer specifically cites his strong individuality, powerful message, and expansion of the sonic vocabulary of electric guitar, including its potentials for controlled feedback and distortion. In the words of master musician Les Paul, for whom the Gibson Les Paul is named, "Man, he was all over that thing! He had that thing wide open."
Kramer recalls Hendrix as extremely disciplined in the studio, with his objectives thoroughly pre-planned. To some extent this was a result of working with results-oriented manager and early producer Chas Chandler, who brought Hendrix to England in September 1966, where he established his fame before returning to the United States. Hendrix envisioned the tonal spectrum as a palette of colors, often instructing Kramer with color-based commands. "Make it sound green," for example, was satisfied by adding reverb.
Led Zeppelin II was the first of five albums which Kramer engineered for this famously free-wheeling band. It was mixed in a two-day marathon session. While working on the track "Whole Lotta Love", Kramer hit a spot where part of a previously-recorded vocal track kept bleeding through, in which a screaming Robert Plant intones "Woman. You need it!" Instinctively, Kramer added reverb to the passage, just as Jimmy Page had done. They glanced at each other and laughed. Page then said "Leave it in.”
In June 1973, a group of struggling rock musicians whose previous band, Wicked Lester, had flamed out, cut a five-song demo as Kiss with Kramer at Electric Lady Studios. Within two months they had a contract with Casablanca Records. By late 1975, Kiss had a reputation for exciting stagecraft but lackluster album sales. They asked Kramer to produce their daring release of a 2-disc live album, Alive!. It subsequently reached gold status and generated the group's first hit single, "Rock and Roll All Nite". This not only buoyed the group, it probably staved off a bankruptcy filing by their struggling label.
Kramer was assistant engineer on Between the Buttons, Flowers, and Their Satanic Majesties Request. The work which he and producer Jimmy Miller had done with Traffic moved the Stones to book the pair for Beggars Banquet, their first album recorded withoutAndrew Loog Oldham, the group's former manager and producer. Beggars Banquet re-asserted the group's R&B roots. According to Kramer, Miller did much to position the Rolling Stones for the longevity which they have since enjoyed: "He went to the heart and soul of where they came from; he was so adept at evoking the psyche of the band, and so clever at production. I've always tried to model myself after Jimmy in terms of how to get a session going, how to make the artists really get excited about what they're playing."
Kramer's and his cohorts at Olympic Studios caught a break when the Beatles' customary recording facility at Abbey Road Studios was unavailable on 11 May 1967, when the Beatles wished to record "Baby, You're a Rich Man." Olympic was frantic to create a strong impression. By good fortune they happened to have a Clavioline, an early synthesizer, on hand. Lennon was fascinated by the instrument. He improvised droning, Indian-sounding passages to weave among the song's verses. Olympic was subsequently chosen for the 14 June recording of "All You Need Is Love." The songs comprised a two-sided Summer of 1967 Beatles' hit. "They were so disarming and so great in the studio," Kramer recalls, "very targeted about what they'd come in to achieve."
eddison von ottenfeld
edgar m. villchur
edmund t. flewelling
edward j. gately, jr.
edward tatnall canby
elliot d. full
elliot w. markow
ellwood w. lippencott
emerick toth
emile berliner
emil rathenau
emmanuel berlant
emory g. cook
enoch light
eric small
ernest leaner
"Ernest Leaner, 68, former owner and founder of United Record Distributorship in Chicago, was the first major black record distributor in the United States. His uncle, Al Benson, had been a pioneer in black radio in Chicago, his son, Bill, said. That's the tree he came from. As far as the Midwest was concerned, he was the person who distributed the early records of the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder, to name a few. Among the record labels he distributed were Motown, Stax, Soul, VIP, Sceptor, Wand and Cotillion, which included recordings of artists such as Dionne Warwick and B.B. King. Mr. Leaner developed two record companies of his own with studios at 1827 S. Michigan Ave. They were One-Derful and Toddlin' Town record companies. Some of their more notable hits included Twine Time by Alvin Cash and ``Shake A Tail Feather by the Five Du-Tones.
When record companies started distributing their own labels, he opened Ernie's One-Stop Records and a chain of stores, Record World Retail Outlets. He was affable, outgoing and a father figure to many, his son said." - Kenan Heise
When record companies started distributing their own labels, he opened Ernie's One-Stop Records and a chain of stores, Record World Retail Outlets. He was affable, outgoing and a father figure to many, his son said." - Kenan Heise
eugene f. coriell
f. hardwick
f.f. plauer
f.h. slaymaker
f.n.a. hawkins
frank h. mcintosh
franklin robbins
frederick w. smith
fritz sennheiser
g. leonard werner
g.a. singer
g.b. houck
g.h. floyd
g.r. thurmond
g.r. yenzer
gary kellgren
gene paul
geoff emerick
georg neumann
george a. argabrite
george alexandrovich
george augspurger
george w. curran
george douglas
george ellis jones, jr.
george h. floyd
george martin
george massenburg
george m. nixon
george h. warfel
george stutheim
gerald shirley
gino rudolfi
glen southworth
glyn johns
gordon j. gow
grover "jeep" harned
h. toomin
h.a. hartley
h.b. davis
h.d. hastings
h.e. roys
h.f. olson
h.h. scott
h.k. smith
h.m. gurin
h.p. meisinger
h.s. morris
h.w. augustadt
hal magargle
harold e. bryan
harold harris
harold klimpel
harold lindsay
harold reed
harold t. sherman
harrie k. richardson
harry a. pearson
harry f. olson
henry berlin
herbert eidson, jr.
herbert g. cole
herbert I. keroes
howard a. chinn
howard t. souther
howard t. sterling
i.i. boswell
irving green
isabel capps
j. avins
j.a. youngmark
j.b. halter
j.f. sodaro
j.g. woodward
j.h. beaumont
j.j. andrea
j.l. hathaway
j.m. gottschalk
j.p. maxfield
j.p. smith
j.p. van duyne
j.p. wentworth
j.s. boyers
j.w. turner
jack d. gallagher
james b. lansing
james moir
jay blakesley
jay carver
jeff markell
jerome goodman
jim anderson
jim scott
jimmy robinson
joe meek
joe e. otis
joe tall
joel tall
john boyers
john A. maurer
john a. mulvey
john d. colvin
john d. goodell
john e. karlson
john eargle
john h. beaumont
john h. thompson
john k. hilliard
john hirsch
john m. van beuren
john t. mullin
john palladino
john preston
john r. schjelderup
john j. scully
john w. sims
john stephens
john winslow
john woram
joseph f. dundovic
joseph marshall
julius postal
k.c. morrical
katsuma tani
Kenneth wilkinson
Wilkinson went on to engineer at hundreds of recording sessions. He was said to have worked with more than 150 conductors. He was the engineer most responsible for Richard Itter's Lyrita recordings (which Decca produced). Itter always requested Wilkinson as engineer, calling him "a wizard with mikes".
Wilkinson's stereo recordings with the conductor Charles Gerhardt (including a series of Reader's Digest recordings and the RCA Classic Film Scores series) and the producer John Culshaw made his name and reputation known to record reviewers and audiophiles. His legacy was extended by the fact that he trained every Decca engineer from 1937 onwards.
Wilkinson, always called "Wilkie" in the music business, was known as a straight-talking man, interested only in the quality of the work.[1] The Decca producer Ray Minshull (1934–2007) recalled Wilkinson's methods in an interview with Jonathan Valin in March
Everyone loved and respected Wilkie, but during a session he could be exacting when it came to small details. He would prowl the recording stage with a cigarette – half-ash – between his lips, making minute adjustments in the mike set-up and in the orchestral seating. Seating arrangement was really one of the keys to Wilkie's approach and he would spend a great deal of time making sure that everyone was located just where he wanted them to be, in order for the mikes to reflect the proper balances. Of course, most musicians had a natural tendency to bend toward the conductor as they played. If such movement became excessive, Wilkie would shoot out onto the stage and chew the erring musician out before reseating him properly. He wanted the musicians to stay exactly where he had put them. He was the steadiest of engineers, the most painstaking and the most imaginative. In all of his sessions, he never did the same thing twice, making small adjustments in mike placement and balances to accord with his sense of the sonic requirements of the piece being played.
Among Wilkinson's favourite recordings was Britten's War Requiem. This was recorded in January 1963 at one of Wilkinson's favourite venues, Kingsway Hall, with Culshaw as the producer.[3] Among other recordings engineered by Wilkinson were Wagner's Parsifalrecorded live at Bayreuth in 1951, of which the critic Andrew Porter wrote, "...the most moving and profound of spiritual experiences ... Decca have recorded, superbly, a superb performance",[4] and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with Sir Georg Solti conducting theChicago Symphony Orchestra in May 1972 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Krannert Center.
Wilkinson retired from Decca when the company was taken over by the PolyGram group in 1980. He made no free-lance recordings. His work was released on Lyrita and Reader's Digest records (as mentioned above) and RCA Records with recordings licensed through Decca. His recordings were characterised by the producer Tam Henderson in an appreciation: "The most remarkable sonic aspect of a Wilkinson orchestral recording is its rich balance, which gives full measure to the bottom octaves, and a palpable sense of the superior acoustics of the venues he favored, among them the Assembly Hall at Waltham Forest Town Hall, Walthamstow in London and The Kingsway Hall of revered memory".
Wilkinson's stereo recordings with the conductor Charles Gerhardt (including a series of Reader's Digest recordings and the RCA Classic Film Scores series) and the producer John Culshaw made his name and reputation known to record reviewers and audiophiles. His legacy was extended by the fact that he trained every Decca engineer from 1937 onwards.
Wilkinson, always called "Wilkie" in the music business, was known as a straight-talking man, interested only in the quality of the work.[1] The Decca producer Ray Minshull (1934–2007) recalled Wilkinson's methods in an interview with Jonathan Valin in March
Everyone loved and respected Wilkie, but during a session he could be exacting when it came to small details. He would prowl the recording stage with a cigarette – half-ash – between his lips, making minute adjustments in the mike set-up and in the orchestral seating. Seating arrangement was really one of the keys to Wilkie's approach and he would spend a great deal of time making sure that everyone was located just where he wanted them to be, in order for the mikes to reflect the proper balances. Of course, most musicians had a natural tendency to bend toward the conductor as they played. If such movement became excessive, Wilkie would shoot out onto the stage and chew the erring musician out before reseating him properly. He wanted the musicians to stay exactly where he had put them. He was the steadiest of engineers, the most painstaking and the most imaginative. In all of his sessions, he never did the same thing twice, making small adjustments in mike placement and balances to accord with his sense of the sonic requirements of the piece being played.
Among Wilkinson's favourite recordings was Britten's War Requiem. This was recorded in January 1963 at one of Wilkinson's favourite venues, Kingsway Hall, with Culshaw as the producer.[3] Among other recordings engineered by Wilkinson were Wagner's Parsifalrecorded live at Bayreuth in 1951, of which the critic Andrew Porter wrote, "...the most moving and profound of spiritual experiences ... Decca have recorded, superbly, a superb performance",[4] and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with Sir Georg Solti conducting theChicago Symphony Orchestra in May 1972 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Krannert Center.
Wilkinson retired from Decca when the company was taken over by the PolyGram group in 1980. He made no free-lance recordings. His work was released on Lyrita and Reader's Digest records (as mentioned above) and RCA Records with recordings licensed through Decca. His recordings were characterised by the producer Tam Henderson in an appreciation: "The most remarkable sonic aspect of a Wilkinson orchestral recording is its rich balance, which gives full measure to the bottom octaves, and a palpable sense of the superior acoustics of the venues he favored, among them the Assembly Hall at Waltham Forest Town Hall, Walthamstow in London and The Kingsway Hall of revered memory".
earl kramer
konosuke matsushita
l. goodfriend
l.b. hedge
l.b. keim
l.h. bogen
l.j. anderson
l.k. andrews
l.m. leeds
l.m. wigingtow
l.p. haner
l.w. howard
larry levine
lawrence fleming
leo del gar kulka
leo l. beranek
leo l. helterline
leon a. wortman
leonard carduner
leslie ann jones
Les Paul
lewis s. goodfriend
lloyd jones
louis h. hippe
michael rettinger
m.e. clark
m.e. gunn
m.v. kiebert, jr.
m.v. marcus
marshall king
martin dickstein
marvin camras
mary ford
maurice p. johnson
maximilian weil
melvin c. sprinkle
meyer leifer
michael bishop
michael rettinger
michael d. spitz
milt gabler
murlan s. corrington
myron stolaroff
n.h. crowhurst
n.m. haynes
nat boxer
nathan grossman
norman h. crowhurst
Norman Granz
norman pickering
norman t. prisament
o.l. angevine, jr.
olan e. kruse
otto j.m. smith
owen bradley
p.g.a.h. voigt
p.w. wildow
paul cohen
paul st. george
paul weathers
Paul Weathers "revolutionized the high-fidelity world" with an advanced phonograph stylus in the early 1950s.
In 1950, Mr. Weathers founded his own firm, Weathers Industries, in Collingswood and later in Barrington, to market the then-state-of-the-art, lightweight phonograph arm. In addition to the stylus, Mr. Weathers' firm introduced one of the first three-piece speaker systems in the late 1950s. The firm was eventually merged with Advanced Industries.
Mr. Weathers began his career working for RCA Corp., Camden, and after 15 years with RCA founded his firm. He was named to the Hi-Fi Hall of Fame in the mid-1970s. At RCA, his first duties were in the field of motion picture sound and later in public address, sound reinforcement and industrial electronics.
Mr. Weathers was product manager of the sound department when he left RCA.
He received his education at Purdue University and Indiana University in the 1920s.
In 1950, Mr. Weathers founded his own firm, Weathers Industries, in Collingswood and later in Barrington, to market the then-state-of-the-art, lightweight phonograph arm. In addition to the stylus, Mr. Weathers' firm introduced one of the first three-piece speaker systems in the late 1950s. The firm was eventually merged with Advanced Industries.
Mr. Weathers began his career working for RCA Corp., Camden, and after 15 years with RCA founded his firm. He was named to the Hi-Fi Hall of Fame in the mid-1970s. At RCA, his first duties were in the field of motion picture sound and later in public address, sound reinforcement and industrial electronics.
Mr. Weathers was product manager of the sound department when he left RCA.
He received his education at Purdue University and Indiana University in the 1920s.
"Mr. Weathers was, as I have posted, a rare combination of excellent engineer and excellent businessman. As you may know, the best money was in cartridges and speakers. Nowadays, think "Bose". Later on, that turntable. At that time, heavier was better. He went exactly the opposite direction, with excellent results. And later on, the AR turntable was extremely successful. Just compare the two of them! The "out the door" costs of all his products were unbelievable! He kept open a small repair shop 'til near his death, just to keep his old customers satisfied. He was a very distinguished looking gentleman with a thin "Clark Gable" mustache. Every year, he would buy a new Cadillac Fleetwood, black, and park it by the front door of the factory, next to a small sign that said, "Reserved for Mr Weathers". He had an excellent, long-time connection with RCA and had worked for them. His factory was just a few miles from Camden, NJ. Most of the speakers we used were surplus stock from RCA. They were treated at the edges with a mixture that I still have the formula for somewhere. Then lead weights were glued to the centers and some were given a large pad of thick cotton, also glued on. He DID know how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!
I was a customer for several years before becoming an employee. I was the service department. Repairs, letters, phone calls, greeting customers at the plant. Practically all repairs were at no cost. The customers were very happy and loyal. If they had known the cost to retail price ratio, they would have fainted. Whenever his equipment was reviewed, they were always raves. He personally ran all the displays at the trade shows.
As you can tell, working there was the high point of my early career. It was only a year, but it was great. When he sold out to TelePrompter, I was let go. I'm sure you know the Irving Kahn story! After that, it went through a couple of other ownerships. He would develop a new line of products, sell a lot, a company would come in and buy him out. Then they would just let it go and come back and ask him if he wanted the company back. He would buy it back, for next to nothing and then introduce new products, that he had been developing all that time. He did that several times. He knew how to make money. That's why I admire him for keeping his little shop open in later life. He did it for his customers; I'm sure that he didn't need the money.
One of his first speakers, a square, thin unit, was I believe called the Symphony. It sold for $135. The cost, as I recall was about $15. In 1959, he brought out the first three-piece stereo system with two bookshelf speakers that looked like...books, with a cardboard cabinet and a sub-woofer, that he determined, later to be proved, could be placed anywhere in the room.
He passed away in early 1992, at the age of 86." - L. Gench
peter bang
peter c. goldmark
peter g. sulser
phil ramone
phil spector
philip d. stahl
philip b. williams
pierce j. aubry
price fish
quincy jones
r. cameron barritt
r.b. nevin
r.b. watson
r.e. zenner
r.f. bigwood
R.G. Anthes
R.H. Brown
R.H. Coddington
R.H. eastop
R.H. Tinkham
R.M. somers
r.s. anderson
ralph p. glover
ray m. dolby
Richard C. Hitchcock
richard howland ranger
robert c. moyer
robert g. metzner
roger nichols
roy halee
roy c. abbett
roy s. fine
rudy van gelder
Rudy Van Gelder (born November 2, 1924, Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American recording engineer who specializes in jazz.
Regarded as the most important recording engineer of jazz by some observers, Van Gelder has recorded several thousand jazz sessions, including many widely recognized as classics, in a career spanning more than half a century. Van Gelder has recorded many of the great names in the genre, including Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Grant Green, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver, Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Ike Quebec and many others. He worked with many record companies, but he is most closely associated with Blue Note Records.
Van Gelder's interest in microphones and electronics can be traced to a youthful enthusiasm for amateur radio. A longtime jazz fan (his uncle, for whom Rudy was named, had been drummer for Ted Lewis's band in the mid-1930s), Van Gelder himself had lessons on trumpet. In 1946, Van Gelder recorded friends in his parents' Hackensack, New Jersey house in which his parents had a special control room designed and built.[2][3] "When I first started, I was interested in improving the quality of the playback equipment I had," Van Gelder commented in 2005, "I never was really happy with what I heard. I always assumed the records made by the big companies sounded better than what I could reproduce. So that's how I got interested in the process. I acquired everything I could to play back audio: speakers, turntables, amplifiers". One of Van Gelder's friends, baritone saxophonist Gil Mellé, introduced him to Blue Note Records producer Alfred Lion around 1952.
Within a few years Van Gelder was in demand by many other independent labels based around New York, including Prestige Records and Savoy Records. Bob Weinstock, owner of Prestige, recalled in 1999, "Rudy was very much an asset. His rates were fair and he didn’t waste time. When you arrived at his studio he was prepared. His equipment was always ahead of its time and he was a genius when it came to recording."
The 1950s also saw Van Gelder do engineering and mastering work for the classical label Vox Records.
Until the late 1950s Van Gelder worked during the day as an optometrist. In the summer of 1959, Van Gelder moved his operations to a larger studio in Englewood Cliffs, a few miles southeast of the original location,[8] and left his day job in favor of recording full-time. The new studio's design structure was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and bore some resemblance to a chapel, with high ceilings and fine acoustics.
In the mid-1950s, Thelonious Monk composed a tribute to Van Gelder called "Hackensack." It was in Englewood Cliffs where John Coltrane recorded his A Love Supreme album for Impulse! Records in 1964. Other labels, such as Verve Records, made use of the new facility while Blue Note and Prestige continued their associations with Van Gelder for several years.
In 1967, Alfred Lion retired from running Blue Note, and the company's owners, Liberty Records (from 1965), began to use other engineers more regularly. Prestige, too, had started to use other studios a few years earlier. Van Gelder remained active in music, most notably as the engineer for most of Creed Taylor's CTI Records releases, a series of proto-smooth jazz albums that were financially successful, but not always well received by critics.
Though his output slowed, Van Gelder remained active as a recording engineer into the new century. In the late 90s he worked as a recording engineer for some of the songs featured on the soundtrack to the TV Show Cowboy Bebop. From 1999, he remastered the analog Blue Note recordings he made several decades earlier into 24-bit digital recordings in its RVG Edition series, and also for a similar series of re-masters featuring some of the Prestige albums he recorded for its current owners, Concord Records.
Van Gelder was secretive about his recording methods, leading to much speculation among fans and critics about particular details. His recording techniques are often admired[according to whom?] for their warmth and presence. Some critics[who?], however, have also expressed distaste for the thin and recessed sound of the instruments, mainly the piano. Richard Cook called Van Gelder's characteristic method of recording and mixing the piano "as distinctive as the pianists' playing" itself. Blue Note president and producer Alfred Lion criticized Van Gelder for what Lion felt was his occasional overuse of reverb, and would jokingly refer to this trait as a "Rudy special" on tape boxes. Despite his dominance in recorded jazz, some artists avoided Van Gelder's studio. Bassist and composer Charles Mingus refused to record with Van Gelder, stating "[Van Gelder] changes people's sounds".
Van Gelder was named a fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) in 2009. In 2013, he received the Society's most prestigious award, the AES Gold Medal.
Regarded as the most important recording engineer of jazz by some observers, Van Gelder has recorded several thousand jazz sessions, including many widely recognized as classics, in a career spanning more than half a century. Van Gelder has recorded many of the great names in the genre, including Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Grant Green, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver, Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Ike Quebec and many others. He worked with many record companies, but he is most closely associated with Blue Note Records.
Van Gelder's interest in microphones and electronics can be traced to a youthful enthusiasm for amateur radio. A longtime jazz fan (his uncle, for whom Rudy was named, had been drummer for Ted Lewis's band in the mid-1930s), Van Gelder himself had lessons on trumpet. In 1946, Van Gelder recorded friends in his parents' Hackensack, New Jersey house in which his parents had a special control room designed and built.[2][3] "When I first started, I was interested in improving the quality of the playback equipment I had," Van Gelder commented in 2005, "I never was really happy with what I heard. I always assumed the records made by the big companies sounded better than what I could reproduce. So that's how I got interested in the process. I acquired everything I could to play back audio: speakers, turntables, amplifiers". One of Van Gelder's friends, baritone saxophonist Gil Mellé, introduced him to Blue Note Records producer Alfred Lion around 1952.
Within a few years Van Gelder was in demand by many other independent labels based around New York, including Prestige Records and Savoy Records. Bob Weinstock, owner of Prestige, recalled in 1999, "Rudy was very much an asset. His rates were fair and he didn’t waste time. When you arrived at his studio he was prepared. His equipment was always ahead of its time and he was a genius when it came to recording."
The 1950s also saw Van Gelder do engineering and mastering work for the classical label Vox Records.
Until the late 1950s Van Gelder worked during the day as an optometrist. In the summer of 1959, Van Gelder moved his operations to a larger studio in Englewood Cliffs, a few miles southeast of the original location,[8] and left his day job in favor of recording full-time. The new studio's design structure was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and bore some resemblance to a chapel, with high ceilings and fine acoustics.
In the mid-1950s, Thelonious Monk composed a tribute to Van Gelder called "Hackensack." It was in Englewood Cliffs where John Coltrane recorded his A Love Supreme album for Impulse! Records in 1964. Other labels, such as Verve Records, made use of the new facility while Blue Note and Prestige continued their associations with Van Gelder for several years.
In 1967, Alfred Lion retired from running Blue Note, and the company's owners, Liberty Records (from 1965), began to use other engineers more regularly. Prestige, too, had started to use other studios a few years earlier. Van Gelder remained active in music, most notably as the engineer for most of Creed Taylor's CTI Records releases, a series of proto-smooth jazz albums that were financially successful, but not always well received by critics.
Though his output slowed, Van Gelder remained active as a recording engineer into the new century. In the late 90s he worked as a recording engineer for some of the songs featured on the soundtrack to the TV Show Cowboy Bebop. From 1999, he remastered the analog Blue Note recordings he made several decades earlier into 24-bit digital recordings in its RVG Edition series, and also for a similar series of re-masters featuring some of the Prestige albums he recorded for its current owners, Concord Records.
Van Gelder was secretive about his recording methods, leading to much speculation among fans and critics about particular details. His recording techniques are often admired[according to whom?] for their warmth and presence. Some critics[who?], however, have also expressed distaste for the thin and recessed sound of the instruments, mainly the piano. Richard Cook called Van Gelder's characteristic method of recording and mixing the piano "as distinctive as the pianists' playing" itself. Blue Note president and producer Alfred Lion criticized Van Gelder for what Lion felt was his occasional overuse of reverb, and would jokingly refer to this trait as a "Rudy special" on tape boxes. Despite his dominance in recorded jazz, some artists avoided Van Gelder's studio. Bassist and composer Charles Mingus refused to record with Van Gelder, stating "[Van Gelder] changes people's sounds".
Van Gelder was named a fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) in 2009. In 2013, he received the Society's most prestigious award, the AES Gold Medal.
rupert neve
saul b. martinez
semi j. begun
sidney silver
stanley shure
stefan kudelski
svend olufsen
talton r. craig
terry brown
thomas edison
tom dowd
tony bongiovi
trina shoemaker
william h. miltenburg
williarn a. palmer
willi studer
a lot more coming soon....many with biographies and achievements.
