New Monday #49
Happy Monday,
We are days away from NAMM. There is high excitement in the Korneff Audio Sphere of Influence.
Are you planning on going to NAMM? Please stop by our booth (#16124) and say hi.
Ok. Twenty days into 2025, and it's not too late to decide what you're going to do with this year. After all, the year is still making up its mind about what it's going to do to you!
I have two inspirations on my radar, and since they're both audio-related, I'll share them.
SHURE - Capitalism Done Right
My first mic was a Shure. Everything in my life that has to do with recording music started with that mic.
I had the pleasure of visiting Shure's headquarters in Niles, Illinois, (call it Chicago) back in October. What an eye-opener.
We all know Shure as a maker of microphones and headphones, wireless mics, perhaps phonograph cartridges, some ancient hardware that was in the PA rack in the high school gym, etc. The microphones are great, as are the headphones, but really, the whole company is great.
Shure is basically a military defense contractor that doesn't make weapons. In the early 1940s, Shure was contracted by the US Military to produce microphones for the war effort. Equipment produced for use in a tank or a dive bomber has to be built to an incredibly high standard of reliability and ruggedness. Hitting MIL-SPEC standards is a huge investment in research and development, quality control, testing — it requires a total rethinking of the way things are done. For Shure, it was an inflection point.
Sidney N. Shure, the founder of the company back in the 1920s, decided that rather than make consumer-grade and military-grade electronics, Shure was only going to make military-grade. EVERYTHING was going to be military-grade, whether it went in a tank or a kick drum. That has been the philosophy of Shure ever since.
These people are over the top. They have robots bending cables a million times, they have machines specifically designed to drop mics on their grills. There's bottles of artificially made human sweat they spray all over lavaliers and in-ear monitors. They try to break everything. They have a space full of Shure products that were horrifically damaged but still work. Mics broken by Roger Daltry. Mics run over by bulldozers. SM-57s recovered from swimming pools and fires that still work. They also have a world-class recording studio, anechoic chambers, and all sorts of testing equipment because not only should Shure stuff last forever, it should sound great. The Shure gang are quality-obsessed.
It goes beyond that. The company is full of lovely people. The turnover rate is really low—people stay at Shure for decades and never leave because it has a great corporate culture. But it's beyond that.
There's a plaque in the "Shure Museum," which is an extended, wide hallway in their headquarters, which is itself a futuristic building out of a StarTrek episode. The plaque is a quote from Sydney Shure, affectionately referred to as Mr Shure:
It's that "Community" aspect I want to focus on. Shure flows money into a network of charities in and around their physical plants and around the world. Its employees are encouraged (and given days off) to participate in charitable activities like the Chicago Children's Choir, Special Olympics, Christmas gift drives. Shure is not a company myopically making money for faceless shareholders. Shure is awesome.
Proof of Shure's awesomeness: they don't talk about the altruistic stuff they do. It's not a talking point in their marketing plan. It's just who the company is at a deep level. I've been in the industry 40 years and had no idea what Shure was really about until I took the tour at their headquarters. And if you're ever in Chicagoland, try to get a tour of their headquarters. You'll leave blown away and inspired.
So, for how to conduct business, let's all be like Shure in 2025. Let's make great stuff and be good to everyone. Let's do capitalism right.
When I grow up I want to be as young as Tchad Blake
The engineer/producer/mixer Tchad Blake has been popping up in a number of New Monday episodes. I've always thought highly of his records, but the dude is a very inspiring guy.
Tchad is around 70, but he experiences the world with fresh, child-like ears and eyes. He's constantly looking for something new, something he hasn't seen or heard yet. Everything is an exciting experiment in progress. I'm bitching about how Ai will change everything and Tchad's thinking about the cool stuff people might do with the technology.
He also appears to be egoless. Here's a guy who knows tons, has tons of credits, but never assumes for a moment he's the smartest guy in the room, or the studio. He asks the assistants questions and listens to the answers. He's always learning.
And of course, he's wildly creative, ruthlessly experimental, and he makes great sounding, interesting, substantial records. We put together a Tchad Blake playlist for you all, and we'll keep adding to it, because Tchad is still making stuff really worth hearing.
So, for 2025, let's approach art, music and creativity like Tchad Blake does, as something new that's there for our inspiration and education.
I don't often fanboy, but I'm definitely a fan of Shure and of Tchad. It's not often you meet your heroes and they're better than what you've imagined.
Shoot me a message if you're going to be at NAMM.
Happy New Year - last time I'll wish this to you all until... next year.
Warm regards,
Luke
