Ron Murphy (Obituary)


Ron Murphy — record cutter, mastering engineer and record producer at Sound Enterprises (formerly National Sound Corporation) in Detroit, MI — has passed away.

From Cliff Thomas on Discogs:

"Ron Murphy is probably one of the most instrumental figures in the history Detroit electronic music. All you have to do is take a good look in your record collection and look for the little NSC logo on the run-out groove on the inside of the record. Ron has shaped the sound of Detroit Techno more than just about anybody. There were allot of records back in the beginning that were brought in by people that knew next to nothing about production or mixing down properly and Ron has saved the sound of those records and many of them have went down in history as some of the finest examples of techno ever made.

Ron has been one of the biggest opponents of over-compression in the industry as people have rushed to bring techno music into the ridiculous loudness war that the rest of the record industry is engaged in currently. His mastering is both dynamic and warm and has been praised for it's definition in the low end. A kick drum on an NSC mastered record is a beautiful thing to behold. He's a real living legend in this industry yet he remains humble and is still one of the most interesting figures in this industry that i have ever talked to. A true classic character.
"

Ron died of a heart attack on 13th January 2008.

Sound Entreprises, "home" of Ron Murphy

Some other links:

An old but interesting article at MetroTimes

Infinite State Machine web-log

Aaron Carl remembers Ron Murphy

SoulfulDetroit Music remembers Ron Murphy

Ron Murphy Discography

A huge loss for the underground and the (nearly lost) Art of gramophone mastering.

R.I.P.