I’m sad to mention the death of my oldest audio industry friend, and possibly the person responsible for the survival—if not necessarily the success—of Eventide. Ham Brosious died a few days ago at 93, as I found out today from multiple posts and heartfelt obituaries from his son Matt and others.
I first met Ham when I got involved in the audio industry, around 1970. As I recall, he was representing Scully, a manufacturer of tape recorders and record cutting lathes. But we already had all the recorders and lathes we needed, so Ham’s visits were more or less social. When he found out we were starting a recording equipment manufacturer in the same space as the Sound Exchange studio, he took off his sales hat and installed a far more capacious one as a mentor. He gave us invaluable advice as to how the industry worked, what might make our gear more appealing, and most critically, how to get paid. I was so naive then that I had to be told that it was necessary to send an invoice, not just a product! (Naive but not totally stupid – I probably would have figured that out eventually when I called our first few customers asking about payment.) The other gem of wisdom had to do with payment terms, which I credit for our survival in what was then a totally flaky business.
Ham continued dropping by for 14 years until we moved across the Hudson to New Jersey. Even after that we kept in touch, albeit casually. The System finally got him, after, fortunately, a “very brief illness.” Other than the usual “giant of the industry” and personal cliches, I’ll add a critical one of my own. Ham: THANK YOU.
Visit Richard’s Blog for more articles and check out NAMM’s tribute page on Ham Brosious.
