“Ampex reproduce alignment tape 31321-01.  The
following tone is a reference tone of 700 cycles,
recorded 10dB below operating level.”
 
    Anyone involved in studio recording or broadcast during the 1960s and 1970s has probably heard these words.  They were spoken by Bob Morrison, the “voice” of Ampex, during his tenure as manager of their alignment tape laboratory.  Robert Keith Morrison, a victim of cancer, passed away at the age of 77 on March 10, 2003.  He is survived by his wife, Patricia.

    With a keen interest in audio recording from a very early age, Bob entered the industry at the start of World War II when he was only sixteen.  His first job was at Picto Sound Productions, a San Francisco film and audio studio.  Among his many other duties Bob manned a bank of five Universal disc-recording lathes, delaying network broadcasts, preparing transcriptions for Armed Forces Radio and recording hours of podium audio from a fledgling United Nations.  Despite his gravitation toward the ‘hands-on’ aspects of sound recording, Bob somehow found time to earn a B.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

 Following a year’s service in the early 1950s as a recording engineer and staff announcer with Voice of America in New York, Bob returned to the Bay Area to assume the positions of Chief Engineer and a primary air talent with KRE Radio in Berkeley.  During this same period Bob worked on contract with Ampex Corp in Redwood City and ultimately assumed full time management of their alignment tape facility in 1960.  Bob founded his own firm, Standard Tape Laboratory, in 1969, and continued to manufacture test tapes and magnetic films into the 1990s.

 Bob retired in 1995, but he never ceased being active in recording technology.  He maintained membership in AES, SMPTE and the Golden Gate Sapphire Group, a club with its roots in disc recording.  For Bob the ‘golden years’ of audio were those dominated by the disc, and his love for disc recording and vintage audio equipment kept him occupied with research and experimentation in this arcane, historical area of our industry.

 No one could tell a story better than Bob; his anecdotal recollections and encyclopedic knowledge of earlier times will be forever treasured... and very much missed.

Submitted by:
 Jim Wood
 INOVONICS, INC.
 <jim@inovon.com>
 (714) 990-4443

2003-03-14