I’ve been saying for years that some pro-audio company should hold an event at Turntable Bar in Manhattan during the Audio Engineering Society convention, and finally it happened. The folks at Audio-Technica were a perfect fit, too, since they make mics and turntables. Anyway, I got an invite and we got to hear these three pros expound on analog, audio and more. Left to right, that’s Lenise Bent, who engineered Blondie’s classic “Rapture;” Chris Mara, who owns the Nashville all-analog studio Welcome To 1979, which offers direct-to-disc live vinyl master cutting; and Jimmy Douglass, who has engineered everyone from nobodies like Chemical Wedding to legends like Foreigner and Led Zeppelin. The stories and Korean beer flowed, and it was a great evening. In fact, the only downside was that I didn’t get to browse that wall of vinyl behind them!