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.
