Audio Production



I've been doing audio (mostly live sound) for a long time, starting way back in high school when I'd find old tube stuff at the University of Michigan Property Disposition warehouse, fix it up, and add it to my "studio". Eventually I was overdubbing between two cassette decks, playing little tape loops from my crufty old garage sale reel-to-reel, and doing other odd things. Meanwhile I was also working as a stagehand for my high school's auditorium, which did a pretty good amount of outside rental business. Working those shows taught me a lot about the basic business side of theater.

In college I worked for a sound company which eventually became MacPherson Loudspeakers, but at the time was basically Dave MacPherson and one or two irregular employees. Dave was a great guy to learn from, since he always made an effort to have professional gear and was also good at audio theory. I also started doing more serious electronic repair work at this point. MacPherson ended up developing a very cool line of concert speaker systems - the company still exists and can be found at www.macpherson-inc.com, and I was actively involved in the development of the Model One, Model Two, and Model Four speakers and the Black Box active speaker processor.
MacPherson continued as a live sound company, providing PA for shows of up to 50,000 people and giving me the experience of working with artists like Joan Baez, Buddy Guy, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, War, Mitch Ryder, Count Basie Orchestra, and many others.

Eventually I graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Computer Science and spent the next nine years as a software developer. However, I eventually reached the burnout point with programming, plus a realization that I was getting too much physical damage from having a 100% desk job. This is why I've gotten back into audio recently. It's not as nice an industry as software, but it's something I'm better suited for.

After getting back into audio I got back into practice by doing live sound at The Ark, a nationally-famous folk club located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I worked with Eric Taylor, Pierre Bensusan, Shemikia Copeland, Cristina Branco, Eric Anderson, and others at The Ark.

I'm currently working at TC Furlong in the Chicago area. We do a lot of wireless microphones, which is a rather interesting and tricky field of expertise. I also do system alignment with SMAART or SIM3. I do repair work, including digital consoles and wireless gear. I'm also still designing and building my own microphones, something I started doing around 2005-2006.

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