Nancy Flannery (November 4, 1959 – March 28, 2023)
One morning over 30 years in the past, we had been sitting within the newly created workplace we’d opened in upstate New Paltz, N.Y., when a slim, dark-haired and very assured younger lady walked in and introduced that she was accessible to work for us.
Her identify was Nancy Flannery, and her earlier employment historical past was as assistant to Sally Grossman, spouse of famed music trade expertise supervisor (and Woodstock, N.Y., entrepreneur) Albert Grossman, for whom John (Storyk) had designed an area recording studio, efficiency venue, house and workplace expansions and associated institutions. Sally had prompt that Nancy speak to us about “a tougher place.”
We weren’t all that busy on the time, however Nancy agreed to come back onboard as our bookkeeper. In time, as our enterprise (and employees) continued to increase, Nancy’s superb capability for greedy, organizing and ameliorating our more and more complicated enterprise points made her an indispensable member of our crew. She was our lynchpin, the glue that stored all of WSDG’s disparate initiatives and employees so as. She was, in a way, the very soul of our operation.
As the years handed, we grew from an area Highland/Woodstock/Kingston operation into a world enterprise, with places of work in Switzerland, Germany, Latin America, China, Saudi Arabia, and different far-off lands. We additionally shifted WSDG’s organizational administration from two principals to a extra sensible “company democracy.” Long-term associates had been named Partners and awarded formal titles. Nancy Flannery grew to become Partner/CFO.
She was a Force of Nature. Her rising monetary administration experience, her extraordinary reminiscence, and her superb folks abilities made her each invaluable and indispensable. Nancy was additionally our Den Mother. She’d invite new (and infrequently homesick) younger interns to home-cooked household dinners along with her husband (and former highschool sweetheart), Mike, and daughters Clara, Marisa and Ainsley. Nancy beloved canine, music, good meals and life usually. She had boundless power, however she didn’t endure fools gladly.
Tragically, on a Tuesday morning, March 28, 2023, Nancy Flannery died of a coronary heart assault. Her passing was completely sudden and stays incomprehensible. Our lives and our world had been vastly diminished by her passing. She can be terribly missed, however by no means forgotten.
SPOT, recording Big Boys “Fun Fun Fun” at Third Coast Studio, Austin Texas; March 14 1982. PHOTO: Photobill/Bill Daniel; used with permission.
Sheboygan, WI (March 6, 2023)—Glenn “SPOT” Lockett, who helmed most of the most-influential records popping out of California’s early punk scene, died March 4, 2023 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Diagnosed with fibrosis in 2021, Locket was awaiting a lung transplant when he suffered a stroke three months in the past from which he by no means correctly recovered. A documentarian of the nascent Nineteen Eighties Los Angeles punk world by way of his pictures and music manufacturing work, Lockett was answerable for capturing a number of the earliest efforts by now-revered acts like Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Misfits, Subhumans, Redd Kross, Meat Puppets, Minutemen and others. He was 71.
Lockett was born July 1, 1951 in Los Angeles, the son of Claybourne Lockett, a former fighter pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. Initially raised in Hollywood, the youthful Lockett realized guitar at age 12, and developed a ardour for jazz and improvisational music that led to his as soon as auditioning for Captain Beefheart. Moving to Hermosa Beach within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, Lockett thrust himself into the realm’s thriving arts scene, capturing all of it along with his music, digicam lens and, quickly, recording tape, as he took up engineering after serving to construct a facility, Media Art Recording Studio on Pier Avenue.
While discovering his approach round a studio, Lockett started utilizing the pseudonym SPΘT—stylized in all-caps with a dot within the middle of the “O”—when he wrote freelance jazz document opinions for native weekly newspaper Easy Reader. Nonetheless, he primarily labored as a waiter in a vegetarian restaurant and it was there that he met fellow musician Greg Ginn. The two musicians usually jammed, and Lockett briefly performed bass in Ginn’s band, Panic, which might in the end evolve into Black Flag. When Ginn determined to start out his personal document label, SST Records, it was solely a matter of time earlier than Lockett turned deeply concerned as its in-house producer/engineer.
In the years that adopted, SPOT might frequently be discovered within the credit of the label’s releases as he recorded, combined and produced or co-produced most SST acts between 1980 and 1985. As a consequence, he had a hand in a number of the seminal punk releases of the period, together with Descendents’ debut album, 1982’s Milo Goes To College; Hüsker Dü’s acclaimed 1984 assortment, Zen Arcade; the primary three Meat Puppets albums; the primary two albums and an EP by Saint Vitus; and a half-dozen Black Flag releases, amongst others.
Most of these acts have been recorded at Hermosa Beach’s then-fledgling Total Access Recording Studios, nonetheless owned and operated at this time by producer/engineer Wyn Davis. Former Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould recalled the period in a Tweet memorializing SPOT, noting, “From 1982 to 1984, Hüsker Dü recorded 4 initiatives with SPOT. We labored at Total Access in Redondo Beach, CA, largely throughout the discounted in a single day hours. SPOT all the time inspired free expression and experimentation, at the same time as these recordings have been made as expeditiously as potential.” He added, “SPOT was an exquisite soul who cherished making music, documenting the scene, and unconditionally supporting all of the initiatives that bear his title. Thank you, SPOT. You gave a lot to all of us.”
While initially intently related to SST, SPOT produced, engineered and/or dealt with technical duties on numerous releases on by way of the 2000s for different labels, together with Touch And Go, Rykodisc, New Alliance, Homestead, Taang! and PVC, notably co-producing 1983’s Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood, the final Misfits album to function co-founder Glenn Danzig, which was launched on the singer’s personal Plan 9 label. Ultimately, SPOT would go on to supply greater than 100 records.
Fed up with Los Angeles, SPOT moved to Austin, Texas within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, the place he launched quite a few his personal solo, lo-fi experimental recordings through the years, earlier than ultimately transferring to Sheboygan, the place he printed a pictures assortment, Sounds of Two Eyes Opening—Southern California Life: Skate/Beach/Punk 1969-1982 (2014), amassing his work documenting the Los Angeles subscultures he ran in.
Former SST co-owner Joe Carducci introduced SPOT’s passing on Facebook, praising the producer’s recording type that he felt utilized “the primacy of dwell jazz taking part in into recording bands towards prevailing makes an attempt to melt or industrialize a back-to-basics arts motion in sound.” He added that SPOT had been writing a novel in recent times, Decline and Fall of Alternative Civilization, adapting a 10-hour on-line audio drama he had produced and narrated in 2016.
Dave Hill on the 2015 NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA. Photo: Future.
Duluth, MN (March 3, 2023)—Renowned for his high-end pro-audio gear designs, Dave Hill died February 22, 2023 in Duluth, MN on account of issues as a consequence of most cancers. Over the course of a lifetime within the pro-audio enterprise, Hill created legendary analog and digital gear for a number of corporations together with his personal manufacturers, Crane Song and Dave Hill Designs. He was 68.
Hill was born November 19, 1954 in Superior, WI. At an early age, he developed a eager curiosity in electronics, constructing radios with a neighbor whereas nonetheless in elementary college; by his teen years, he was fixing audio gear for buddies and dealing in an area music retailer, repairing Fender amplifiers and Wurlitzer organs. Tying into the area’s music scene, by the early Nineteen Seventies, he co-owned a studio and was mixing stay sound for touring acts.
Connecting with Summit Audio, he developed the TLA-100 compressor; launched within the mid-Eighties, the unit went on to change into a staple for studio and stay sound engineers—a future that was maybe foreseeable when the unique proof-of-concept unit was put to make use of on a Hall & Oates session after which not returned. Hill went on to create quite a lot of basic designs for Summit Audio, together with the TPA-200B, the EQP100 and EQP200 and the DCL200. Elsewhere, he did some design work with Soundeluxe, SoundField and A-Designs Audio.
In 1992, whereas toying with opening his personal pro-audio firm, Hill did some freelance movie recording work, serving to doc the renovation of the John A. Blatnik Bridge, which connects Duluth, MN and Superior, WI over the Saint Louis River. The large development challenge required giant sections of the bridge’s deck to be lowered to barges ready within the water under, and the distinctive, caterwauling sounds of the cranes bearing masses turned the inspiration for the title of his new firm: Crane Song.
Hill based Crane Song in 1995, and whereas he initially deliberate to construct analog synths, he finally went with what he knew, debuting the corporate with the STC8 stereo compressor/limiter. The model rapidly caught on and over time, the corporate turned recognized for its high-end recording {hardware}—a variety that included analog-to-digital converters, mic preamps, compressors, and 500-series rackmount modules—in addition to plug-ins, an space the corporate moved into in 2002. While persevering with with Crane Song, he additionally based Dave Hill Designs in 2010, utilizing that model to concentrate on digitally managed analog merchandise.
Crane Song normal supervisor Tim Dorsey introduced Hill’s passing on Facebook, noting that it was the founder’s want that the businesses proceed after his demise, and that Hill had outlined a product roadmap for the long run, and had likewise hand-picked successors Martin Reus and Ryan Rusch to proceed his work.
Donations might be made in Hill’s reminiscence to Helping Paws Pet Rescue Inc., 125 W Bayfield St, Washburn, WI 54891.
Steve Mackey in a nonetheless from the “Mis-Shapes” promo video from 1995’s Different Class. Photo: Island Records.
New York, NY (March 2, 2023)—U.Okay. various rock producer Steve Mackey has died on the age of 56. After first breaking into the music enterprise because the bassist for Nineties Britpop cornerstone Pulp, Mackey went on to carve out a formidable second act as a producer and songwriter, working with the likes of Florence + the Machine, Arcade Fire, Spiritualized, Willy Moon, M.I.A., The Pastels and Marianne Faithful, amongst many others. His passing was introduced on his Instagram account by his spouse, Katie Grand, who famous he had been within the hospital for 3 months with an undisclosed sickness.
Born November 10, 1966, in Sheffield, Mackey began out enjoying in storage bands and following Pulp from a distance because the native indie heroes recorded two albums to some discover within the mid-80s. Asked to hitch the group in 1989, he obliged and shortly Pulp’s third album, 1991’s Separations, did effectively sufficient that the act was scooped up by Island Records, paving the best way for its profession highpoint throughout three well-received albums—1994’s His’n’Hers; 1995’s Different Class, which spawned the hit single “Common People” and gained the 1996 Mercury Music Prize; and 1998’s This Is Hardcore. The group disbanded following its final album, We Love Life, in 2001, however reunited a number of occasions over time.
While Mackey grew to become more and more concerned within the group’s sound throughout his tenure, post-Pulp, he moved into manufacturing for others, co-writing and producing tracks for Florence + the Machine on that group’s first album, 2009’s Lungs, in addition to producing Arcade Fire’s 2017 assortment, Everything Now and Spiritualized’s 2018 effort, And Nothing Hurt. Outside of the recording trade, his manufacturing work could possibly be present in museums, too, as he created set up sound designs at The Louvre in Paris, MOMA in New York and the Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai.
When Pulp introduced final fall that it will reunite for a summer season 2023 tour, Mackey bowed out, wishing his bandmates effectively (he had labored repeatedly with frontman Jarvis Cocker within the intervening years for the reason that band’s preliminary finish). Mackey leaves behind his spouse, stylist/journalist Katie Grand; son Marley; dad and mom Katherine and Paul Mackey; and sister Michelle.
David Lynch and John Neff as “Blue Bob,” Asymmetrical Studios, LA 2002. Photo by Mr. Bonzai/David Goggin.
Portland, OR (January 4, 2023)—With a career that saw him work with everyone from Steely Dan to David Lynch, journeyman audio engineer John Neff wore many hats—producer, film mixer, songwriter, studio owner, radio host, label head and many more. That career came to an end, however, on December 27, 2022 when Neff passed in Portland, OR at the age of 71.
Born March 13, 1951 in Birmingham, Michigan, Neff broke into the music business in 1965 as a member of cult act The Ascots (“So Good”). Throughout the early 1970s, he worked as a session musician in Detroit, MI, often working for producer Don Davis at United Sound Systems—a regular gig that resulted in his playing on more than 125 records during his time there. The lure of the road called, however, and Neff spent much of the latter half of the 1970s on the road playing with the likes of Hoyt Axton and Steppenwolf.
Neff closed out the Seventies by moving to Hawaii; landing in Maui, he set up a studio to produce regional acts, founded Maui Zone Records which went on to release 26 albums, and hosted a local radio show for nine years. His reputation within the region’s music scene grew and in 1989, Walter Becker of Steely Dan asked Neff to build a studio for him on the island. Once it was completed, Neff wound up recording solo albums for both members of Steely Dan—Becker’s 1994 collection, Eleven Tracks of Whack, and Donald Fagen’s 1993 set, Kamakiriad.
Neff recounted those days later in a Mr. Bonzai interview for Mix, recalling, “Walter wanted everything available at all times—as does any studio owner—but the engineer is to disappear into the woodwork. I produced and engineered many albums on my own there, but on his and Donald Fagen’s CDs, creative input was frowned upon. We did some experimenting in the beginning. I think the most fun was the after-session, late-night ‘jams’ in the studio. On the technical side, working with those guys, and with Roger Nichols, was ‘graduate school.’ As Walter put it, ‘Donald slices a finer hair.’”
After moving to Phoenix, AZ in 1993 to open a studio, Neff also founded a studio design firm and connected with auteur David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet), creating a theater and professional recording facility (Asymmetrical Studio) in the director’s Los Angeles home. Neff quickly wound up running the studio, going on to work as a score engineer and re-recording mixer on Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and The Straight Story. Collaboration between the pair continued into other realms as they formed a duo, BlueBOB, and spent two years recording the project’s eponymous album, which was released in 2000.
“David Lynch, he is a true Renaissance Man,” he said, discussing the project in Mix. “There isn’t a moment he isn’t thinking. We go down some twisted roads, not everything works out, but man, do we find some interesting sounds! For instance, on BlueBOB, he had me sing through his director’s megaphone into a beautiful tube U-47, with only multiple delays coming back into the headphones—no dry signal at all. You try that sometime.”
In the mid-2000s, Neff left partway through the creation of Lynch’s 2006 film Inland Empire, moving upstate to Marin County, where he freelanced at Sausalito’s Record Plant Studios, recording among other projects Journey’s multi-platinum Revelation album. He eventually landed in Portland, OR, where he opened yet another studio, The Lab, mixing films and music projects. Neff officially retired when he turned 70, closing the studio and selling off his recording equipment and guitars, though he continued to occasionally play live in others’ bands and produce some artists.
Looking back at his career in the early 2000s, he told Mix, “It’s funny—I was never huge at anything, but my education has never ended. Curiosity is a good thing.”
Los Angeles, CA (January 3, 2023)—Producer/keyboardist Paul Fox, known for his work with some of the biggest names in Eighties R&B and Nineties’ Alternative Rock, died peacefully on December 25, 2022. For the last 10 years, he had suffered from Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease, which he was first diagnosed with in 2012. Fox was 68.
Born May 22, 1954 in Valley Stream, New York, Fox moved to the West Coast, first entering the San Francisco jazz scene before moving to Los Angeles, where he quickly became an in-demand session keyboardist, playing on tracks for Rod Stewart, The Commodores, Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole, Danny Elfman, Jeffrey Osborne, Vanity, Kim Wilde, 5 Star, Krokus, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Thelma Houston, Matthew Wilder, The Tubes, Josie Cotton and Mötley Crüe, among many others.
However, arguably it was his work on keyboards throughout the Pointer Sisters’ mid-80s peak that paved the way for his production career. Tackling Emulator duties for the trio’s 1983’s triple-platinum Break Out and then other synths for 1985’s platinum-selling follow-up, Contact, Fox returned to play keyboards but additionally earned associate producer credits on four tracks for 1986’s Hot Together. During this time, he also started to land production credits on tracks with other R&B hitmakers of the era, including The Commodores, Princess and Chico DeBarge, all of which led to his big production break, helming XTC’s classic double-album of psychedelic pop, 1989’s Oranges & Lemons.
The 1990s saw Fox’s production career explode in the emerging alternative rock world, as he produced the likes of The Wallflowers, Phish, The Sugarcubes (Björk), Gene Loves Jezebel, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, Victoria Williams, Edwin McCain, Ziggy Marley, Semisonic, Sara Hickman, 10,000 Maniacs, Texas, Too Much Joy, Grant Lee Buffalo, Phantom Planet, Sixpence None The Richer, Meredith Brooks, Yes, They Might Be Giants, Boy George and many more.
Following his diagnosis with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s in 2012, Fox and his wife, Franne Golde—a multi-platinum award-winning songwriter in her own right, having worked with Diana Ross, Heart, Celine Dion, Pat Benatar, Whitney Houston, Selena and others—became involved in lobbying both state and national legislators for increased governmental research funding and improved access to care for those afflicted with the disease. In the years that followed, the couple were on the boards of both the Alzheimer’s Association and Music Mends Minds. Fox is survived by Golde and their son, Syd.
Rastatt, Germany (December 12, 2022)—Peter Lawo, founder of the German broadcast and media technologies company that bears his name, passed away on November 24, 2022, at the age of 85.
The company issued the following:
“The committed engineer and entrepreneur founded today’s Lawo AG in 1970 and laid the foundation for the company’s worldwide reputation and economic success with innovative audio products and uncompromising quality standards.
In the 1970s, Peter Lawo developed an electronic sound processor for the music of contemporary composer Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, which strongly influenced the compositions of “New Music”. His contacts with musicians led to first projects with regional public broadcaster Suedwestfunk (SWF) and installations at the station’s so-called “Experimental Studio”. This was followed by developing the first audio mixing system for SWF, which was used for music mixes with artists such as Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Brian Ferneyhough, Christobal Halffter, and Dieter Schnebel.
Based on this success, Lawo established contacts with system integrators in the industry and broadcasters. His maxim from the beginning was, “Listen to your customers and users, find out what they really need, and find solutions that go beyond those needs.” Right from the start, his first mixing consoles for broadcasting, which were still analog at the time, were characterized by uncompromising build and sound quality and were unbeatable in their user-oriented operability, functionality and design.
Already in the early 1980s, Lawo used computer technology in its mixing consoles and built the “Programmable Audio Control” (Programmierbare Ton-Regie, PTR) with analog signal processing and digital control of all mixer settings, for which Lawo developed motorized faders in-house. With this system, the Lawo company established itself as a manufacturer of large, high-quality broadcast mixing consoles with innovative solutions and outstanding sound.
In the meantime, Lawo had focused entirely on audio technology for broadcasting and spun off all other, equally successful business areas – medical lasers, public transport destination displays and radio helmets for rescue helicopters. The PTR was followed in 1994 by the first fully digital mc mixing console series, which achieved great success on the German and European markets.
In 1999, Peter Lawo handed over the reins of the company to his son Philipp Lawo, under whose visionary leadership Lawo developed into one of the pioneers of IP technology in broadcasting and one of the world’s leading suppliers of network, control, audio and video systems. Be it Formula 1, Bundesliga soccer or World Championships – today, there is almost no broadcast of major global sports event in which the products and solutions of the Rastatt-based company do not make a decisive contribution to the production. The products are developed in Germany and manufactured to the highest quality standards at the company’s headquarters in Rastatt.
With Peter Lawo, the company has lost a passionate engineer, ingenious inventor and dedicated entrepreneur, who put his heart and soul into the well-being of his company even after his retirement from management.
Our deepest sympathies go out to his wife, family and friends in these mournful days.”
Los Angeles, CA (April 27, 2021) — Al Schmitt, arguably the most successful recording engineer ever, died Monday, April 26, at the age of 91. Over the course of a 70-plus-year career, Schmitt worked with multiple generations of music superstars, capturing some of the best-known songs and albums of his lifetime. The recipient of 20 Grammy Awards, Schmitt also won two Latin Grammys and a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the first ever for an engineer), and had more than 160 Gold and Platinum recordings to his credit. Just some of the artists Schmitt worked with included Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini, Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Dr. Dre, Lady Gaga, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Toto, Diana Krall, Steely Dan, Luis Miguel, Norah Jones, George Benson, Natalie Cole, Quincy Jones, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters and Jefferson Airplane.
Born in New York City, Schmitt grew up around recording, often visiting his uncle’s facility in Manhattan, Harry Smith Recording, as a child. With that influence, it was unsurprising that after serving in the US Navy, he became apprentice engineer at 19, working under producer Tom Dowd at Apex Recording in NYC. Learning on the job, Schmitt was only entrusted with recording the occasional demo acetate until Duke Ellington and his big band—which included greats like Billy Strayhorn and Johnny Hodges—showed up unexpectedly to record on a quiet weekend in 1949. As the only engineer on hand, Schmitt tried to make the most of the eight inputs available, setting up mics using sketchy placement diagrams he’d hastily drawn while assisting on other sessions. He told Ellington “I’m not qualified” so often that eventually the jazz great had to calmly reassure him that he could do it.
Al Schmitt recorded the small combo tracks on the famed Peter Gunn soundtrack, paving the way for an extensive run of recording Henry Mancini soundtracks
After moving around New York studios for nearly a decade, Schmitt headed west to Los Angeles in 1958, initially working at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, where he first collaborated with Henry Mancini, recording small combo tracks on the composer’s 1959 The Music from Peter Gunn soundtrack. It was the start of a fruitful working relationship, as Schmitt went on to record numerous Mancini soundtracks, including Mr. Lucky, Charade, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (for which he got a Grammy nomination) and Hatari, which landed Schmitt his first Grammy Award.
Schmitt moved to RCA as a staff engineer in 1963 and was soon promoted to staff producer. While there, he produced the likes of Sam Cooke, Eddie Fisher, Ann-Margaret and Jefferson Airplane among others, but the endless 16-hour days and lack of support from upper management led to him quitting in 1966 to go independent. Over the next few years, he continued to produce Jefferson Airplane and added Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Al Jarreau and others to his discography, but found he missed engineering, as union rules of the era forbade producers from touching the console. As the 1970s wore on, he returned to mostly engineering, which he greatly preferred.
The 1977 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording (Non-Classical) went to Al Schmitt, Roger Nichols, Elliot Scheiner and Bill Schnee for Steely Dan’s “Aja”
It wasn’t a bad career decision—during the 1970s and 80s, Schmitt won a slew of Grammys for his work engineering George Benson’s Breezin’; Steely Dan’s staple Aja and stand-alone single “FM (No Static At All)”; and Toto’s comeback album, Toto IV. In the decades that followed, he would take home Grammys for work on multiple Diana Krall albums; Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable…with Love; albums with Quincy Jones, Luis Miguel, Chick Corea and Dee Dee Bridgewater; a pair of Grammys for Paul McCartney’s Kisses on the Bottom; and a jaw-dropping five trophies for Ray Charles’s 2004 album, Genius Loves Company.
In 2014, Schmitt was honored by the Hollywood Walk of Fame with his own star, located outside the iconic Capitol Records building—home to Capitol Studios, where he spent countless hours recording over the decades. In the mid-2000s, Schmitt was a founding member of METAlliance, a group of top engineers who regularly hold recording workshops around the globe; Schmitt often shared his insights and knowledge with Pro Sound News readers through the METAlliance’s recurring column.
In 2018, he teamed with Maureen Droney, managing director of the Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing, to write his autobiography, Al Schmitt On the Record: The Magic Behind the Music, which shared not only much of his technical knowledge and wild recording session tales, but also career advice on what’s required on a personal level to stay at the top of one’s game for decades. Earlier this year, he collaborated with software company Leapwing to release a signature Leapwing Al Schmitt Signature plug-in.
At press time, the cause of Schmitt’s death is undisclosed, but a Facebook memorial page has been created in his name. His family released a statement April 27, noting,
“Al Schmitt’s wife Lisa, his five children, eight grandchildren, and five great grandchildren would like his friends and extended recording industry family to know that he passed away Monday afternoon, April 26. The world has lost a much loved and respected extraordinary individual, who led an extraordinary life. The most honored and awarded recording producer/engineer of all time, his parting words at any speaking engagement were, “Please be kind to all living things.”
Loved and admired by his recording colleagues, and by the countless artists he worked with, from Jefferson Airplane, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Diana Krall, Dr. John, Natalie Cole and Jackson Browne to Bob Dylan—and so many more—Al will be sorely missed. He was a man who loved deeply, and the friendships, love and admiration he received in return enriched his life and truly mattered to him. A light has dimmed in the world, but we all learned so much from him in his time on earth, and are so very grateful to have known him.
Wimberley, TX (February 13, 2021)—Legendary pro-audio equipment designer Rupert Neve died February 12, 2021 due to non COVID-related pneumonia and heart failure. Neve’s passing brought to an end a career of more than 70 years that saw him create some of pro audio’s most revered, imitated and sought-after equipment, created for all corners of the industry, from recording to radio to live sound and more. As much an entrepreneur as he was an inventor, Neve’s legacy includes a slew of companies bearing his name, and it is no exaggeration to say equipment based on his designs will be used in studios around the world for decades to come. He was 94.
Born July 31, 1926 in Newton Abbot, England, Rupert Neve grew up in in Buenos Aires, Argentina; showing an interest in audio early on, he began designing audio amplifiers and radio receivers at 13, soon repairing and selling radios as a business before volunteering at age 17 to join the Royal Signals during World War II, providing communications support to the British Army. Following the war, he settled back in England, where he built a mobile recording studio used to cut operas, speeches, choirs and more on to lacquer discs. Concurrently, he also provided sound reinforcement systems for events involving Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth II and Winston Churchill.
Neve worked for a variety of companies in the 1950s before eventually striking out on his own to found CQ Audio, which produced Hi-Fi speaker systems. This attracted the attention of composer Desmond Leslie, who commissioned Neve to build a mixing console for him in the early 1960s; the console is still in residence in Castle Leslie, Ireland.
The Leslie console led to Neve founding the first of multiple audio companies that would bear his name, Neve Electronics, in 1961, initially operating out of his home before moving into proper facilities later in the Sixties. As the use of transistors gained popularity, Neve developed a transistor-based console for London’s Phillips Recording Studio in 1964, and continued to create new desks, most notably the Neve 80 and 50 series, which are revered for their microphone preamp, equalizer and processing modules, such as the widely cloned and emulated 1073 and 1081. Neve also developed the first moving fader system, NECAM (NEve Computer Assisted Mixdown); after seeing a pre-release demo on a Neve 16/4 console, Beatles producer George Martin’s first words were “How soon can I have one?” and Martin’s AIR Studios in London soon became the first NECAM-enabled facility.
Neve sold the company in the mid-1970s and left to form ARN Consultants, the result of a 10-year non-compete clause in the sales contract. ARN in turn teamed up with Amek Systems, a collaboration that led to Neve developing the Amek 9098 console, as well as outboard gear and his Transformer-Like Amplifier (TLA) design, which featured in numerous Amek desks.
Rupert Neve signing an RND 5088 mixing console, installed in Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio in Wimberley, TX, in 2013.
In 1985, ARN founded Focusrite Ltd., primarily producing outboard gear such as dynamic processors and EQs, as well as another large-format console, of which only eight were made before the company was liquidated in 1989; the company’s assets were purchased by a new company, Focusrite Audio Engineering (today Focusrite PLC), with which Neve was not involved. Concurrently, but likewise unrelated directly to Neve himself, the original Neve Electronics was sold to Siemens in 1985, which in turn merged with UK company Advanced Music Systems, resulting in pro-audio manufacturer AMS-Neve, which continues to this day.
Neve and his wife, Evelyn, moved to Wimberley, Texas in late 1994, and in 1997, he became only the third person to receive a Technical Grammy Award. The Neves became U.S. citizens in 2002 and founded Rupert Neve Designs in 2005, which today produces a variety of products, including its 5088 analog mixing console and a range of rackmount and desktop equipment for processing, summing and more. Even so, Neve continued to also create products for other companies, including preamps and pickups for Taylor Guitars, microphones for sE Electronics, plug-ins for Yamaha’s live sound consoles, and more.
Over the course of his career, Rupert Neve was awarded 16 TEC Awards for his Rupert Neve Designs products, and in 2006, received an Audio Engineering Society Fellowship Award. He is survived by his wife of nearly 70 years, Evelyn; five children, Mary, David, John, Stephen, and Ann; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Producer Elliot Mazer in October, 1973. Getty Images
New York, NY (February 10, 2021)—Legendary producer/engineer Elliot Mazer died of a heart attack in his San Francisco home on Sunday, February 7, 2021, after suffering from dementia in recent years, according to Rolling Stone. Mazer was a lifelong audio pro and inventor/entrepreneur whose interests—and their influential results—ranged well beyond the recording studio, though he remained best-known for his career-defining work with Neil Young, The Band and others. He was 79.
A producer/engineer for more than 50 years, Mazer worked with a broad cross-section of artists across a variety of genres, including Linda Ronstadt, Chubby Checker, The Dream Syndicate, Dead Kennedys, William Ackerman, Michael Hedges, Janis Joplin, Gordon Lightfoot, The Byrds, The Tubes, Y&T, David Soul, Bob Dylan, Juice Newton, Rufus Thomas, Maynard Ferguson and many more.
Born in New York City on September 5, 1941, Mazer was raised in nearby Teaneck, NJ, and got his first taste of the music business working in retail for the then-burgeoning Sam Goody record store chain. In 1962, he became acquainted with Bob Weinstock, a customer who also happened to be the founder of Prestige Records, and soon Weinstock offered the 21-year-old Mazer a runner position, tracking tapes and delivering music to radio stations. In the course of his work in Prestige’s tape library, Mazer discovered forgotten, unreleased John Coltrane tracks from a 1958 session at the famed Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ. In the intervening years, Coltrane had left the Prestige label and gone on to growing acclaim, so Mazer compiled the four tracks, which were released without the artist’s input, as the album Standard Coltrane. Soon after, the first producer credit of Elliot Mazer appeared on Dave Pike’s Bossa Nova Carnival.
Throughout the early Sixties, Mazer worked with a variety of artists at Cameo-Parkway, from co-writing hits for Chubby Checker (“Hooka Tooka”) to recording the likes of Rufus Thomas and Maynard Ferguson, before moving on to work independently later in the decade. During that time, he hit the studio with the likes of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Gordon Lightfoot, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ian & Sylvia and others. His knack for recording live shows emerged during that era as well; throughout his career, Mazer would go on to capture seminal concerts by Bob Dylan, Michael Bloomfield, Lightfoot, Janis Joplin and Big Brother, It’s A Beautiful Day, Leonard Bernstein, Young and most notably, The Band’s iconic The Last Waltz.
Mazer moved to Nashville around the turn of the Seventies, where he quickly made a name for himself applying engineering techniques he had picked up recording different genres in New York City, thus offering something different from the region’s pros who had come up solely through country music. He established Quadrafonic Studios (a joke name, as it didn’t have quad capabilities), which in turn was put on the map when it became the musical birthplace of Neil Young’s landmark Harvest album.
Neil Young’s Harvest, engineered and co-produced by Elliot Mazer.
The two met at a dinner party while Young was in town to appear on The Johnny Cash Show, and by the end of the evening, they’d arranged to track some songs the next day. Mazer called up some top session players—many of whom would go on to play with Young regularly through his career—and they went on to record the majority of the album at Quadrafonic. The resulting record, packed with classic rock radio staples like “Heart of Gold,” “Old Man” and “The Needle and the Damage Done,” became the biggest hit of Young’s career, going quadruple-platinum in the U.S. and becoming the top-selling album of 1972. Mazer and Young would collaborate on 10 more albums over the next 40 years.
Mazer produced and engineered throughout his career, going on to found another recording facility, His Master’s Wheels, in San Francisco, but his audio pursuits took him outside the confines of the studio as well. In the mid-Seventies, he co-developed the D-Zap, a simple device used by live sound pros to detect gear that wasn’t properly grounded, thus preventing artists and crew members from receiving dangerous, potentially fatal electric shocks.
In the late Seventies and early Eighties, Mazer was a consultant to Stanford University’s Computer Center for Research in Music and Acoustics—the team that built the first all-digital recording studio. While there, he also developed an interest in early AI technology, leading to his co-founding Artificial Intelligence Resources Inc. in the late ’80s to create AirCheck, an automated system for tracking songs’ radio airplay. Selling the company to Radio Computing Services in the Nineties, he continued AirCheck’s development through 2005. In 2011, Mazer joined the faculty of Elon University as a Visiting Distinguished Scholar in Music Technology, where he offered a series of master classes to students.
Mazer’s family has requested that all donations in his memory be given to the Recording Academy’s charity, MusiCares.
