You fell in love with compression...
...from the origins really. I started in the mid-'60s. I got into the music business as a session singer, but I was always interested in equipment. I had always been an electronic hobbyist. But in the 1960s, recording gear was in its infancy (by modern standards). It was extremely simple and extremely expensive. The young guys, which included me at the time, would have to make do with what we could find in film studios and radio broadcast studios, or design and manufacture our own stuff. That's where I got into it. I'd worked with a number of producers, most notably Joe Meek. I was part of his regular backing vocal group. In fact, we were on almost every song he made from 1962 up to sometime in 1965, which probably amounted to two to three hundred singles. So, in addition to spending a lot of time in the studio, it happened to be a time of enormous expansion of technique — and gear, too.
Could you walk me through that evolution?
We started out working in mono. We developed techniques of tracking (in the old sense) where we would record the backing track on a full track of quarter-inch tape. Then, we would erase half of the track and record on that half. Then, we would mix the two together while recording a new track. So, you ended up with three tracks, without the generational loss of having bounced numerous times. So that was where I really got interested in gear.
Was it the gear or working with Meek or both? He was a notorious experimenter!
Well, Joe Meek was really a fiend about compression. He played around with some existing American equipment that was available at the time from Fairchild. We also played around with photoelectric compression, but it was in a very simple capacity. We used conventional tungsten filament lamps and cadmium sulfide cells. There was a little power amp to drive the lamp, which was really a terrible way to go about things — but it worked.
Where did you source parts at that time? There was no audio electronics mega store or chains like Radio Shack on every block.
It was mostly military surplus stores. And we would strip parts out of old military radios. Bear in mind that everything was tube. As the industry grew, parts started to become available. Eventually in Europe, some suppliers started to pop up.
When did you decide to start making gear to sell?
It kind of just came about. By 1969 there were a bunch of studios in the vicinity of Denmark Street and the owners would come in and ask how we got a sound or an effect. Of course, it would be one of our homemade equalizers or compressors. They would borrow that, but they would never give it back. Then I would have to go make another one. Eventually, it transpired that it became economical to start a company to make equipment. The first was the Alice Mixer Company in 1969. Alice went on to develop quite large mixer consoles for movie companies in the U.K. And then we moved on to production desks for broadcast, which included the BBC and commercial radio stations.
So, how did you make the transition from large format and specialized consoles to the various compressor and rack gear designs?
I didn't really get involved in esoteric designs for compressors and things during the Alice days. I mean, they were part of the console and there were designs around, but I got disenchanted with it in the 1980s and wanted a break from consoles. At that point someone had approached me to use my expertise in other areas. In particular, I was asked to design a system for the financial industry that allowed people around the world to communicate simultaneously using speakers and microphones. Now, this was right up my alley, because I had been doing something similar for the BBC for radio phone-in programs. So, for a time I moved out kind of sideways from the conventional audio business.
Did that use telephone lines?
Yes, exactly. It was for instant trading. The important thing was the speed at which the deal was made — literally a fraction of a second. A person would call out a price and someone around the world would yell, "Mine!" and that would be a deal. By 1992 I wanted to get out of the banking industry. I moved to the southwest of England. I bought a cottage and a small boat and tried to semi-retire. But I missed the audio industry. So, I started working with some musical artists in the west country. We started putting together some tracks for a Christian music project and I lacked a suitable compressor. Now, in 1992 there wasn't much available in terms of a compressor that was at a sensible price.
Well, you would have had the dbx 160, the Alesis 3630. . .
And I didn't fancy most of those compressors. The others would have been older models that were tube based. There were Altecs or Westrex or Fairchilds — if you could find them.
That was the time where people were throwing gear away — these new digital boxes were coming out that were going to replace all of our old gear with new, digital models.
And I really try not to think about that. I was recording choral sections and I thought I could really use a something optical in terms of compression. So, I built an optical stereo compressor. It worked and it sounded pretty nice. My brother who is a songwriter heard it, and suggested I bring it to London for a session that was going on. But this was a Friday, and I had built the prototype in a very scratched up aluminum box. It just looked disgusting. It was awful. So, there I was, late on a Friday afternoon. I got into my car and drove into the local town, and there was an auto accessory shop. I got there right as he was trying to close up for the evening. And I inquired if he had any good gloss paint that would go on in one coat and will look good. And he kind of reached behind his back — and without even looking he handed me a can of spray paint. And it was bright green!
It sure was!
And this is absolutely true. I stood there wondering if I should argue with the guy or make him go see what he had out back? Or should I go for it and maybe this was this meant to be? So, I decided to keep quiet and pay the man and go home. So, I got back and painted the unit and I took it to London the next day.
What the people say?
