Carl Countryman (August 19, 1946 – October 26, 2006) was president and Chief Engineer of Countryman & Associates of Menlo Park, California.
Countryman was most recognized for designing a number of complex and effective microphones for performance. He is best known for the E6 earset and Type 85 Direct Box. His work was nominated for the 2002
Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards.
Countryman engineered a number of devices that enabled the multimedia and psychedelic art scenes of the 1960s and 1970s. Multimedia artist
Tony Martin (artist)
Tony Martin (1937 – March 24, 2021) was an American painter and new media artist known for his groundbreaking light art and viewer interactive sculptures and installations,
and the paintings associated with those works. His six decade painting c ...
cited Countryman's custom electronics as key to his cybernetic feedback art in the 1960s. Countryman's electronics coupled photosensors, microphones, and other electronics in two briefcases Martin could use as he staged shows in different cities.
Martin cites Countryman's electronic innovations as crucial to his art.
In the early 1970s, his piano pickups enabled the Grateful Dead's
Keith Godchaux
Keith Richard Godchaux (July 19, 1948 – July 23, 1980) was a pianist best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead from 1971 to 1979.
Biography
Godchaux was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Concord, California ...
to use Steinway and Yamaha grand pianos as part of their famous
Wall of Sound
The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound) is a music production formula developed by American record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios, in the 1960s, with assistance from engineer Larry Levine and the conglomerate of sessio ...
.
The pickups worked similarly to condenser mics, allowing the musicians to produce "truly brilliant" sound compared to microphone amplification, according to
Owsley Stanley
Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 – March 12, 2011) was an American-Australian audio engineer and clandestine chemist. He was a key figure in the San Francisco Bay Area hippie movement during the 1960s and played a pivotal role ...
.
The pickup technology used the piano string itself as part of the circuit.
The technology, developed for the Grateful Dead, became a part of many musical performers' rigs.
Other custom amplification included a clavichord pickup built for keyboardist Jim Lowe.
References
External links
Countryman & Associates
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Countryman, Carl
American audio engineers
Microphone manufacturers
1946 births
2006 deaths
Engineers from California
Engineers from San Francisco
20th-century American engineers
Audio equipment manufacturers of the United States