Meeting Reports and related articles
On Monday 5th May 2025, AES Melbourne Section members were treated to a tour of what is arguably the world’s leading end-to-end vinyl record production facility, and certainly the most knowledgeable on the subject.
Continue reading “Meeting Report: 5th May 2025 – Tour of Zenith Records”Members and guests of the AES Melbourne Section connected via Zoom to hear Ross Cockle recount his days at the Bill Armstrong and Armstrong AAV Studios in the seventies and eighties.
Following an introduction by Section Chair, Graeme Huon, Ross started by recounting how he had started at Armstrong Studios in Albert Road, South Melbourne in 1973 as part of the workforce needed for the transition to the new Armstrongs Studios in Bank Street.
This was just after they had taken delivery of the first Australian-built Optro 16-Track recorder. Ross joined as Armstrongs was bolstering staff numbers to handle the move into the “old butter factory” premises that Bill Armstrong had just purchased in Bank Street. He told of how he started as a “gofer” fetching cigarettes and “recording fluid” (alcohol) for the producers and engineers – not an issue at all in those days, despite being only 15-16 years old. We then got a rundown of the microphones being used at that time, lots of EV RE20s, Neumann U67s and some FET U47s, as well as a classic valve U47 that was kept for special sessions. He went on to tell us how he graduated to dubbing duties, where he had to make multiple copies of radio commercials for distribution to stations, and how recording radio commercials and jingles was the money-making enterprise that subsidised the music recording operation, and how jingles were being recorded during the day, and bands being recorded at night at a lower studio rate. He described the Ampex 351 and Rola 77 tape recorders used for dubbing.
Continue reading “Meeting Report: 10th February 2025 – Ross Cockle – The Armstrong Studio & AAV Years”This month we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the formation of the AES Melbourne Section with a dinner at Club Ringwood.
Sixteen members and guests attended, with two last-minute dropouts, and several apologies from long-time members. It was a convivial evening with lots of friendly chat and reminiscences, along with some very fine food indeed.
Section Chair, Graeme Huon welcomed everybody, thanking the Committee, our sponsor Amphenol Australia, and Paolo Menolotto for facilitating the sponsorship. He also thanked Secretary Peter Smerdon for all his work in organising the event. In remarking on the formation of the Section in December 1974 he remarked how the original Committee included luminaries of the audio industry at the time such as Wulf Gray (Simon Gray Pty Ltd) Graham Thirkell (Optronics), Brian Horman (Klarion), Roger Savage (Armstrong Studios & Soundfirm), and John Ryan (ABC).
Continue reading “Section’s 50th Anniversary: Our Anniversary Dinner – 9th Dec 2024”Members and guests of the Melbourne Section gathered at the Maton Guitars factory where Patrick Evans, Manager, Product Design, Development and Speciality Projects conducted a tour of their manufacturing facility and spoke to us on:
Following an introduction by Section Chair Graeme Huon, Patrick gave us a brief rundown of the history of Maton. He related how founder Bill May and his brother Reg started making guitars in a single car garage in Thornbury in 1946. In the late ‘40s they moved to a purpose-built factory in Surrey Hills, where they stayed for the remainder of Bill’s career. On Bill’s retirement in the mid ‘80s his daughter Linda and her husband Neville bought the business. Patrick related how Bill still kept coming into the factory after retirement, going downstairs to work on a double bass.
That double bass is still on display in the foyer of the current factory.
