Paul Wolff (audio Engineer)
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Paul Wolff is an American
electronics engineer Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flow ...
and
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...
, who is a designer of professional
audio recording Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording t ...
equipment. He designs recording consoles including immersive and audio mixing equipment for professional recording. He has been associated with companies including Datatronix,
API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
, Tonelux, and Fix Audio Designs. His customers include Jim Messina,
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III (born June 6, 1959) and Terry Steven Lewis (born November 24, 1956) are an American R&B/ pop songwriting and record production team. Their productions have received commercial success since the 1980s with var ...
, and Startec Studios among others. Wolff was inducted into the TEC Awards Hall of Fame for creating the API Lunchbox. He is a frequent speaker on panels for the
Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...
(AES).


Early life

Wolff was born in
Traverse City, Michigan Traverse City ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Grand Traverse County, Michigan, Grand Traverse County, although it partly extends into Leelanau County, Michigan, Leelanau County. The city's population was 15, ...
northwest of
Cadillac Cadillac Motor Car Division, or simply Cadillac (), is the luxury vehicle division (business), division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Its major markets are the United States, Canada and China; Cadillac models are ...
to Gene and Pat (née Kasler). He has a brother Glenn and sister Lisa. Both of his parents were musicians. His paternal grandfather, Albert Wolff, served as an
artilleryman Artillery consists of ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to h ...
in
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. Albert Wolff was part of a military review of 250 of the tallest American soldiers chosen to form an honor guard for
King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. George was born during the reign of his pa ...
and received a personal letter of commendation from the king after returning from the U.S. Pat Wolff wrote "I Ran Away With An All-Girl Band" a book about her time in the all-female swing band Victory Sweethearts. Paul Wolff began his career as the
front of house In the performing arts, the front of house (FOH) is the part of a performance venue that is open to the public. In theatres and live music venues, it consists of the auditorium, and foyers, as opposed to the front stage and backstage areas. ...
sound engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a sound recording, recording or a Concert, live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization (audio), equalization, Dynamic range ...
for
The Bayou The Bayou was a music venue and nightclub located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The club occupied an old building at 3135 K Street, NW, in Georgetown, under the Whitehurst Freeway for forty-six years. The club opened in S ...
, a venue and nightclub in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
for performers including Foreigner,
Pat Benatar Patricia Mae Giraldo (née Andrzejewski; formerly and still professionally Benatar ; born January 10, 1953) is an American singer and songwriter. In the United States, she has two multi-platinum albums, five platinum albums, and 15 US ''Billboa ...
,
Dire Straits Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals, lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), John Illsley (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Pick Withers (drums, percussion). Th ...
, and others.


Associated companies


Datatronix and API

In 1978, Wolff began working in the console business at Datatronix just after the company had acquired
Automated Processes, Inc. Automated Processes Inc. (API or API Audio) is an American company that designs, manufactures, and markets mixing consoles and Audio signal processing, signal processors, including modular signal processor units in the 500-series format standa ...
, (API). In 1985 Wolff, purchased API, the audio assets of Datatronix that were put up for sale. After buying it, For legal reasons he was not able to use the original name of the company. He renamed it "API Audio Products". Among his customers was Startec in Washington, D.C. who opened a new 24-track facility in 1983 with a custom built API console. In 1987 Wolff, the API president, announced the successful conversion of manufacturing the 2520 op-amp to an automated assembly "drastically reduces costs without affecting the sound at all". In 1999, upon the sale of API Audio Products to the ATI Group, best known as manufacturers of public address consoles, they incorporated under the original "Automated Processes" name. In 2003, as director of engineering Wolff designed the Vision console with input from
Galaxy Studios Galaxy Studios is a music recording, Audio mixing (recorded music), mixing, Audio mastering, mastering and post-production facility established in 1980 by two brothers, Wilfried and Guy Van Baelen. It is the origin of Auro 3D sound technology, in ...
' head engineer
Ronald Prent Ronald Prent is a Dutch mix engineer best known for pioneering in surround sound mixing and immersive audio. In 2019, Prent received a Grammy nomination in the category of “ Best Immersive Audio Album” for the Simple Minds album ''Symbol''. ...
, after Prent requested a custom-built six-channel version of API'S two-channel 2500 mastering compressor. In August 2003, the first Vision Surround Mixing Console was installed in Galaxy Studios in
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
.


Lunchbox

Around 1985 after Aphex discontinued the 500 series rack, Wolff, as the new owner of API, received approval from Marvin Caesar, president of Aphex, to make the 500 series Lunchbox. At the time, the Lunchbox was in a 4-slot format. The name "Lunchbox" was coined by Art Kelm as he had been buying the original boxes from Aphex and calling them lunchboxes.


Tonelux

Wolff founded Tonelux Designs Ltd, manufacturing modular recording equipment and became its owner and designer. He then sold the company to PMI Audio Group in March 2010.


Fix Audio Designs, Slate Media

Wolff joined Slate Media Technology Team as a hardware design specialist on the RAVEN Multi-Touch Console series, Slate Monitor Controller, and VMS-1 Mic Preamplifier. In 2015, Wolff created Fix Audio Designs.


Work with Jim Messina

In September 2015, Wolff co-produced and recorded Jim Messina's live shows for his "In The Groove" album. Recording locations included the
Lobero Theatre The Lobero Theatre is an historic building in Santa Barbara, California, United States. The theater was originally built as an opera house, in a refurbished adobe school building, by Italian immigrant José Lobero in 1873. Located downtown at t ...
in
Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...
and the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in
Arroyo Grande, California Arroyo Grande (Spanish for "Big Creek") is a town in San Luis Obispo County, California, San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. History The earliest inhabitants of Arroyo Grande Valley were the northern or Obispeno Chumash Indians ...
southeast of
San Luis Obispo ; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...
. Wolff said, "I streamed it live with
HD video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines (N ...
, while mixing front of house, while mixing front row seats, while mixing mono mix for the monitor guy, while mixing side fills, while tracking. We took two nights and mixed for three months."


Wolff Audio

Wolff founded Wolff Audio with Jared Vogt. The company is based in Santa Barbara, California. Gregg Wells mixed the
Wicked Wicked may refer to: Books * ''Wicked'' (Maguire novel), a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire that inspired the musical of the same name * ''Wicked'', a 1997 novel series collaboration between Australian children's authors Paul Jennings and Morris ...
soundtrack on the Wolff Audio 48-Channel analog console.


References


External links

* * * * https://player.fm/series/series-2407934/ep-42-drivin-the-train-with-paul-wolff * https://bobbyowsinskiblog.com/2017/04/21/episode-157-paul-wolff/
Sunset Sound Audio Engineer Paul Wolff "The Greatest Audio Podcast Ever"
on
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Paul Manufacturers of professional audio equipment Immersive audio engineers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American audio engineers