I retired 10 years ago from a lifetime working (mostly) in pro audio. I held a few different positions before I landed on my feet but I started in San Francisco selling 70's hi-fi gear, JBL, Pioneer, Advent, Marantz, Sony and Sony TVs at a place called Mathew's TV and Stereo City. It was a total circus but I had just moved to SF and we needed tunes so I took the job to get a decent stereo organized.
Mathews sucked in a number of ways but it was an introduction to a certain strata of audio people, factory reps, end users and interested or interesting parties. Also, it was a community of horny late 60s early 70s people that was entertaining in that context. One of the guys working with me in sales there was actually an engineer who had studied audio and audio production. We became friendly. By the time I quit he was already representing Teac/Tascam and other nice things in Northern California. He insisted I should work at this place called Sound Genesis. I would like it. He had already recommended me to them and they needed a person like me so I needed to go talk to the owners. . I wasn't sure what a person like me actually was, but I did need a job and this sounded promising. No more retail hifi for me.
My actual life in audio began at Sound Genesis, Bryant Street, San Francisco in 1974. They had a 16mm post production facility including editing suites and a small studio for mixing down three (film) tracks as it was done at that time while you monitored the sound and the film. The studio also had a nice voice recording capability. If a bigger space was needed we could use a multipurpose room just behind the studio but this was not ideal. However the small voice and drum booth were very nice, purpose built and fit a niche in the city's audio resources. . The studio was fascinating to me not least because I had no experience in such things There was also what you could actually do in and with the system. You could sync 3 channels of audio to film, monitor those three tracks with film in synch as well as record to tape or 16mm film, synchronizing that while processing it, etc. etc. We had a respectable eight track capability as well. We also offered field and remote recording and sold recording equipment and tape. We had a good shop for machine repair and alignment, breadboarding circuits, making things, wiring up looms, doing whatever. There were talented people to do specialized things and finally, we had experimental owners. I didn't study engineering which as you can imagine turned out to be a major disadvantage for the duration but I was encouraged to learn on the job from the smart people to whatever extent my limited capacity allowed.
Everything interested me and we all know that makes things easier. The owner believed in education so he supported our taking classes which, in my case, he paid for and which I probably couldn't have taken without the help. From there the whole thing opened like a flower. Not without some dues, but not that bad either It was a thoroughly different time and place.
Is this worth expanding on? I'd seriously hate to bore anybody or make too much of this.
Mathews sucked in a number of ways but it was an introduction to a certain strata of audio people, factory reps, end users and interested or interesting parties. Also, it was a community of horny late 60s early 70s people that was entertaining in that context. One of the guys working with me in sales there was actually an engineer who had studied audio and audio production. We became friendly. By the time I quit he was already representing Teac/Tascam and other nice things in Northern California. He insisted I should work at this place called Sound Genesis. I would like it. He had already recommended me to them and they needed a person like me so I needed to go talk to the owners. . I wasn't sure what a person like me actually was, but I did need a job and this sounded promising. No more retail hifi for me.
My actual life in audio began at Sound Genesis, Bryant Street, San Francisco in 1974. They had a 16mm post production facility including editing suites and a small studio for mixing down three (film) tracks as it was done at that time while you monitored the sound and the film. The studio also had a nice voice recording capability. If a bigger space was needed we could use a multipurpose room just behind the studio but this was not ideal. However the small voice and drum booth were very nice, purpose built and fit a niche in the city's audio resources. . The studio was fascinating to me not least because I had no experience in such things There was also what you could actually do in and with the system. You could sync 3 channels of audio to film, monitor those three tracks with film in synch as well as record to tape or 16mm film, synchronizing that while processing it, etc. etc. We had a respectable eight track capability as well. We also offered field and remote recording and sold recording equipment and tape. We had a good shop for machine repair and alignment, breadboarding circuits, making things, wiring up looms, doing whatever. There were talented people to do specialized things and finally, we had experimental owners. I didn't study engineering which as you can imagine turned out to be a major disadvantage for the duration but I was encouraged to learn on the job from the smart people to whatever extent my limited capacity allowed.
Everything interested me and we all know that makes things easier. The owner believed in education so he supported our taking classes which, in my case, he paid for and which I probably couldn't have taken without the help. From there the whole thing opened like a flower. Not without some dues, but not that bad either It was a thoroughly different time and place.
Is this worth expanding on? I'd seriously hate to bore anybody or make too much of this.
