studio engineers

John Boylan is best known as a hit-making record producer working with Charlie Daniels, Linda Ronstadt, Boston and the Little River Band. In addition to his successful career, John has a passion for the history of electronic and recording equipment. He has studied the roots of recording gear and its development over the last one hundred years. In recent years John has worked on several movie projects including “Born on the Fourth of July” and the TV program, Elmopalooza. 

Graham Butterworth has spent a few decades in the British music industry. He has worked with both retailers and suppliers alike and has witnessed first hand changes to the industry that have impacted the music business. Along the way he has also developed many life long friends. Graham was one of the first publishers to create a magazine for a very focused group of musicians such as magazines dedicated for audio engineers, guitarists and drummers. 

Ed Cherney won a Grammy Award for his work as recording engineer for the 1989 Bonnie Raitt’s album “Nick of Time.” This was just one of his many projects as mixer and engineer. He has worked with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Elton John, just to name a few. During his career he helped to pioneer recording techniques and equipment as well as build several studios. Ed has won TEC Awards for his work in the industry and is a founding member of the Music Producers Guild of America, which is now the Producers and Engineer’s Wing of The Recording Academy.
 

John Fry is the founder of Ardent Records and is a noted recording engineer with a special talent for sound mixing and studio sound control. The results of his efforts are enough to fill several walls with gold and platinum records from the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Led Zeppelin. John is also a devoted Christian who saw the need to produce quality Christian rock music in an era before it was a large musical category or commercial success. His pioneer recordings using his engineering talents are well noted within the industry. His list of admirers seems to be an ever growing list of top-rated sound engineers and producers.
 

Leslie Ann Jones is the renowned recording engineer and pioneering producer and mixer who helped re-define the craft of engineering in the 1970s and 80s. She is well known for her long list of successful and award winning projects as much as she is known within the industry as a giving and talented professional. She is also a past chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Board of Trustees and a multiple Grammy Award winner. Her impressive projects over the years includes the films “Apocalypse Now” and “Happy Feet” as well as the album “Good Night, Good Luck” by Dianne Reeves, which won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

George Massenburg has been the recording engineer on countless successful albums during his long and varied career, but may be best known for changing the way the music products industry looked at pro-audio gear with his 1972 paper on the parametric equalizer. Parametric equalizer, also known as EQ allows audio engineers to control the three primary parameters of an internal band-pass filter which are amplitude, center frequency and bandwidth. In 1982, Massenburg founded GML, Inc., which produces equipment for specific recording applications, with a strong focus on EQ products. 

Rupert Neve is the top echelon of sound engineering. His mixing consoles, with their unique designs and groundbreaking technology, have become mainstays of the recording industry and the stuff of recording legend. His name is hallowed among recording engineers worldwide. From a keen interest in audio and electronics as a child growing up in Argentina, he started a small radio assembly and distributorship there during World War II while still in school, constantly pursuing better sound quality. Moving then to the British Royal Corps of Signals and on to founding a sound production company in the UK, he never looked back.

Alan Parsonsis known throughout the world for his innovative recordings in the 1970s and 1980s with the Alan Parsons Project, but did you know he was also an audio engineer who worked on such landmark albums as the last two albums by the Beatles and Pink Floyd’s "Dark Side of the Moon”? His studio work began at Abbey Road Studios in London when he was a teenager. Before The Alan Parsons Project, he scored many successes as a producer, notably with The Hollies, Ambrosia and Al Stewart.  During his NAMM interview, Alan provided several insightful stories about his engineering and production activities as well as talking about the the most important innovations to the advancement of audio engineering that have taken place during his career.

George Renfro spent his career beating the bushes in the record business, calling on radio stations, following up with concert promoters and being a freelancer for record companies in the effort to promote new hit records. The nearly forgotten role of record promoter was at its peek in the 1950s and ‘60s when George was hired by nearly all the record labels in the Los Angeles area to get their latest records heard. As a result George is given credit for countless successful acts getting their start in the record business. Even more than his business success, George has become one of the best loved people in the music industry!

Hillel Resner wrote for Mix Magazine for several years before the idea of creating a special award for audio engineering came into existence. Hillel worked alongside David Schwartz, the founder of Mix, to establish what is now known as the TEC Awards. The goal behind the awards is to recognize excellence in the proaudio world and over the years has become a coveted prize for those who design and produce recording equipment. When Hillel left Mix he became the president of the TEC Awards Foundation and under his leadership the organization established the Les Paul Award as well as moving the annual awards program to the NAMM Show in 2011.