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Forum Home » Sound Reinforcement » The Basement » Historical audio engineers
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| Re: Historical audio engineers [message #301804 is a reply to message #301768 ] |
Tue, 11 March 2008 13:40   |
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 Lee Brenkman
Messages: 977
Registered: April 2004
Location: Oakland CA |
Has No Life |
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A worthy endeavor Binkster
One more that you left out - after all he did record AND do live sound for "The King"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Porter_(audio)
And Fred Catero and Abe Jacobs need to be added to the list as well
Fred, not only because he did great work, but because he was one of the first engineers at Columbia to insist that engineers get credits on liner notes.
Abe because he revolutionized theater sound and pretty much INVENTED the job description "sound designer.
And maybe Bob Cohen and Charlie Butten, if for no other reason that they made it easier for tech crews to actually TALK to each other at loud live shows. Can you imagine a world WITHOUT ClearCom or the equivalent?
Cheers,
Lee
[Updated on: Tue, 11 March 2008 13:42]
"if you can't hear Freddie Green, you're playing too loud"...Count Basie
"I'd like the monitors to sound like they've got chapped lips"...Tom Waits
"Grandescunt Aucta Labore"
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| Re: Historical audio engineers [message #301836 is a reply to message #301804 ] |
Tue, 11 March 2008 14:41 |
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Michael 'Bink' Knowles
Messages: 4057
Registered: April 2004
Location: Oakland, CA |
Has No Life |
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| Lee Brenkman wrote on Tue, 11 March 2008 11:40 |
A worthy endeavor Binkster
One more that you left out - after all he did record AND do live sound for "The King"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Porter_(audio)
And Fred Catero and Abe Jacobs need to be added to the list as well
Fred, not only because he did great work, but because he was one of the first engineers at Columbia to insist that engineers get credits on liner notes.
Abe because he revolutionized theater sound and pretty much INVENTED the job description "sound designer.
And maybe Bob Cohen and Charlie Butten, if for no other reason that they made it easier for tech crews to actually TALK to each other at loud live shows. Can you imagine a world WITHOUT ClearCom or the equivalent?
Cheers,
Lee
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Good ones, Lee. I've always like Fred Catero's blustery personality aside from his excellent work. And yeah, ClearCom can't be overlooked.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carver
Gordon Gow (McIntosh)
Ron Wickersham (Alembic)
Susan Wickersham (née Frates) (Alembic)
Jim Furman (Alembic, Furman)
Emory Cook (early stereo applications)
John Meyer
Tom Danley
Dave Gunness
Abe Jacob (sound system designer at 1967 Monterey Pop)
Harry McCune, Sr. (sound company founder; supposed inventor of microphone windscreen and telephone answering machine)
Bob Heil (The Who sound system; one of two talkbox inventors)
Allan Markoff (1969 Woodstock sound system)
Charlie Watkins (WEM P.A. Column, Copicat Tape Echo, WEM Slave amplifier)
Steve Gagne (FM Productions; developed long-throw concert bass horns)
Bob Cavin (McCune, Apogee, Furman; console designer, digital amplifier control; first "blackbox" amp/crossover/limiter; first monitor mixer; first multi-angle stage wedge)
There's still many more...
-Bink
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| Re: Historical audio engineers [message #302029 is a reply to message #301836 ] |
Tue, 11 March 2008 22:00 |
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| Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Tue, 11 March 2008 13:41 |
[snip]
Bob Cavin (McCune, Apogee, Furman; console designer, digital amplifier control; first "blackbox" amp/crossover/limiter; first monitor mixer; first multi-angle stage wedge)
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So is he the one responsible for that pair of prototype SM6s that everyone tried to hoard all the time?
They had a vertical orientation with the horn appearing above the woofer, instead of beside it. I don't believe they could pole mount. Probably number ASM6001 and ASM6002. Supposedly they sounded way way better than the standard SM6s.
Last time I was in the Anaheim they were trying to figure out how to keep 'em around and not ship them back to the main office.
-Mikey P
Michael D. Prasuhn
Freelance audio engineer and technical director/IT
http://mikeyp.net
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| Bob Cavin and stage wedges [message #302047 is a reply to message #302029 ] |
Tue, 11 March 2008 23:01 |
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Michael 'Bink' Knowles
Messages: 4057
Registered: April 2004
Location: Oakland, CA |
Has No Life |
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| Michael Prasuhn wrote on Tue, 11 March 2008 20:00 |
So is he the one responsible for that pair of prototype SM6s that everyone tried to hoard all the time?
They had a vertical orientation with the horn appearing above the woofer, instead of beside it. I don't believe they could pole mount. Probably number ASM6001 and ASM6002. Supposedly they sounded way way better than the standard SM6s.
Last time I was in the Anaheim they were trying to figure out how to keep 'em around and not ship them back to the main office.
-Mikey P
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Yeah, those ones rocked. I don't know if Bob designed them. I, too, think the wooden cabinet on that revision sounded better. In my memory, they were modified McCune SM5s, not SM6es. Last time I used those was on a Black and White Ball gig back in the early '90s. Jeez, that was a long time ago. 
Before the SM6 was the SM4... a multi-angle bi-amped monitor that used an Altec 604B co-axial. It sounded great at medium volume but it was big, its center of gravity was lopsided, it was awkward for one guy to lift, its seams tended to crack and leak air and it was not at all suited to the louder customers. Ernie Heckscher loved 'em. 
The SM3 was a boxy lightweight mid-high bi-amped pup and the SM2 was a very compact passive design with a 10" and a piezo horn. Neither of them had monitor wedge pretensions apparent in their construction, though someone had fabbed a few collapsible wooden cradles that tilted them up for stage usage. I don't know what the SM1 was; I never saw one. Or if I did, I didn't know what I was seeing. There was a lot of dusty stuff in the way back. 
You might want to write Bob Cavin and ask him if there was some multi-angle monitor speaker predating the SM4. Maybe the first multi-angle stage wedge was a single prototype. I sure don't know! Bob's website: http://bobcavin.com/
-Bink
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| Re: Historical audio engineers [message #302113 is a reply to message #301768 ] |
Wed, 12 March 2008 09:46 |
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John Roberts {JR}
Messages: 7472
Registered: April 2004
Location: MS |
Has No Life |
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I applaud this effort.
I don't think a few hour session at an AES show could do justice to even a small fraction of this list.
This strikes me as perhaps a good longer term project for local AES chapters. First to identify important contributions made by people in their region and then to document that. These local efforts could be consolidated into a larger whole. Certainly AES efforts could be cross linked to WIKI, etc.
I regret that some of these individuals are already gone so they can't be interviewed but associates and subordinates may still be findable. This should be an ongoing project, not just a one time deal. The IEEE from time to time published a historical overview along similar lines across the broader category of electronics.
There was (is?) an Audio Museum that IIRC was associated with the AES, but this was more old hardware than "engineer" organized. Perhaps a more logical organization of this is by tracing the progress of technology and people associated with those technology milestones can be cross linked. Many companies also have corporate museums either formal or informally, that could be documented by willing employees.
This is a potentially massive project and you will get different short lists from different people, but that's fine. It's better to have too many entries than not enough.
In many cases the historical individual will be associated with one major series of products or technology, like Dan Dugan with his automatic mixing invention, so this alternate organization may be academic, the people and what they do/did is inextricably linked together.
JR
https://www.resotune.com/
"A bus in a console is spelled with one 's', but you can buss your girlfriend while riding in a bus."
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| AES Historical Committee [message #302144 is a reply to message #302113 ] |
Wed, 12 March 2008 12:11 |
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Michael 'Bink' Knowles
Messages: 4057
Registered: April 2004
Location: Oakland, CA |
Has No Life |
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| John Roberts {JR} wrote on Wed, 12 March 2008 07:46 |
I applaud this effort.
I don't think a few hour session at an AES show could do justice to even a small fraction of this list.
This strikes me as perhaps a good longer term project for local AES chapters. First to identify important contributions made by people in their region and then to document that. These local efforts could be consolidated into a larger whole. Certainly AES efforts could be cross linked to WIKI, etc.
I regret that some of these individuals are already gone so they can't be interviewed but associates and subordinates may still be findable. This should be an ongoing project, not just a one time deal. The IEEE from time to time published a historical overview along similar lines across the broader category of electronics.
There was (is?) an Audio Museum that IIRC was associated with the AES, but this was more old hardware than "engineer" organized. Perhaps a more logical organization of this is by tracing the progress of technology and people associated with those technology milestones can be cross linked. Many companies also have corporate museums either formal or informally, that could be documented by willing employees.
This is a potentially massive project and you will get different short lists from different people, but that's fine. It's better to have too many entries than not enough.
In many cases the historical individual will be associated with one major series of products or technology, like Dan Dugan with his automatic mixing invention, so this alternate organization may be academic, the people and what they do/did is inextricably linked together.
JR
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AES has its Historical Committee; they do some mighty fine activities such as assembling vintage gear for demos. In 2000, they hosted "When Vinyl Ruled" with a rotary-knob Putnam remote recording mixer, a pair of Ampex 300 tape recorders and three Altec 604s for playback. There was a vintage microphone demo in 2001. Before that, Jack Mullin would bring all the oldest gear he could find and demonstrate each one by itself.
AESHC also invests effort in organizing scraps of the past; they're improving digital online access to historic patents, for instance. They have a lot on their plate. 
Bill Wray and Gene Radzik co-chair the AES Historical Committee and John G. "Jay" McKnight (Magnetic Reference Laboratory) is Chair Emeritus. Check it out here:
AES Historical Committee (AESHC) website. Volunteers don't have to be members!
I agree that this should be a long-term project. Our most important pioneer engineers are sometimes lauded in popular media but more frequently given only a few paragraphs of PR copy or a final "In Memoriam" in an industry publication. I would like to see more of a public face put to what we do and who we are.
JR, you mention people linked to their hardware inventions: in many cases, important new hardware developments were put forward by a team of clever cats who remained relatively nameless following the effort. My organization of this list by individuals will miss these stories but that doesn't mean the stories shouldn't be told. It would be great to read about the various team development efforts at Bell Labs, for instance.
Non-hardware conceptual and methodological developments are important, too. There's software pioneers, too. It's not just voicecoils and formers.
A big challenge moving forward will be to sort the classic EE engineers from the much larger list of recording and mixing engineers. At this point on Wikipedia they're all jumbled together. 
I'm going to ping the AESHC guys and let them know we're mounting this effort. Perhaps they'll be interested in putting a generous helping of AES information out on Wikipedia; perhaps they'll opt to play it closer to the chest.
-Bink
P.S. More engineers worthy of an article or expansion:
William J Halligan (Hallicrafters)
Lincoln Walsh (Bozak) transmission-line loudspeaker
Harold Rhodes (electric piano)
James Edward Maceo West (electret mic)
Gerhard M. Sessler (electret mic)
Wally Heider (concert remote recording)
John M. Eargle (JBL)
Sidney Harman (JBL)
John G. "Jay" McKnight (MRL, AMPEX)
Myron Stolaroff (AMPEX)
John Leslie (AMPEX)
Jack Mullin (tape recorders)
John Herbert Orr (magnetic tape)
Walter Weber (1907-1944) (Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG)) or German Broadcasting Company. Bias implementation and stereophony in magnetic recording.
Hugh Knowles (miniaturized transducers)
Lee DeForest (triode "Audion")
Heinz K. Thiele
Willi Studer
Dick Heyser (TDS)
Avery Robert Fisher (hifi)
Herman Hosmer Scott (hifi)
Leo Fender (Stratocaster)
Tom Dowd (recording engineer and innovator)
Peter Baxandall (tone control)
Jim Gamble (mixing console)
[Updated on: Thu, 13 March 2008 00:49]
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| Re: AES Historical Committee [message #302274 is a reply to message #302168 ] |
Wed, 12 March 2008 20:49 |
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Lee Brenkman
Messages: 977
Registered: April 2004
Location: Oakland CA |
Has No Life |
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| John Roberts {JR} wrote on Wed, 12 March 2008 11:09 |
Audio is a small world indeed.
JR
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And a world with some surprising participants
As this segment of actress Hedy Lamarr's Wikipedia biography demonstrates:
Avant garde composer George Antheil, a son of German immigrants and neighbor of Lamarr, had experimented with automated control of instruments. Together, they submitted the idea of a Secret Communication System in June 1941. On 11 August 1942, U.S. Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and Hedy Kiesler Markey. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam.
The idea was impractical, ahead of its time, and not feasible due to the state of mechanical technology in 1942. It was not implemented in the USA until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba,[4] after the patent had expired. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil (who died in 1959) made any money from the patent. Perhaps due to this lag in development, the patent was little-known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr an award for this contribution.[1]
Lamarr's and Antheil's frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections, namely CDMA.[5] Similar patents had been granted to others earlier, like in Germany in 1935 to Telefunken engineers Paul Kotowski and Kurt Dannehl who also received U.S. Patent 2,158,662 and U.S. Patent 2,211,132 in 1939 and 1940.
Who'd a thunk it watching her in the movies...
"if you can't hear Freddie Green, you're playing too loud"...Count Basie
"I'd like the monitors to sound like they've got chapped lips"...Tom Waits
"Grandescunt Aucta Labore"
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