Bruce Bartlett, owner/engineer
"One of the best parts of my job is talking one-on-one with a customer -- whether it's a fiddle player, guitarist, drummer, sound engineer, or music director, it's great to help them with their audio problems."
We started this family-owned business in 2009 to design and make high-quality products at a fair price, and to offer excellent customer service and support -- direct from the designer. Wherever possible, we use local suppliers and USA-made parts.
Designer Bruce Bartlett has a life-long fascination with all things audio. Bruce has 30 years of engineering experience with Shure and with Crown International. Bruce developed Crown's line of microphones including the industry-standard PCCTM-160 stage-floor mic and the industry-standard CM-311A headworn mic. At Shure, Bruce developed their Automatic Microphone System and did research. He has lectured on microphones and mic techniques for the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and for music-technology students. Bruce holds a degree in physics and has a number of patents on microphone designs.
A member of AES and Syn Aud Con, Bruce handles a wide range of freelance audio activities as a recording engineer (studio and live), sound system designer, microphone designer, sound mixer, audio technical writer, mic application engineer and audio consultant. Bruce is a composer and musician (drums, bass and guitar). As an audio journalist, Bruce has written about 1000 articles and 8 books on audio topics.
Click here to see descriptions of Bruce's Audio Engineering Society preprints and journal articles.
Tom Lininger, my mentor
Another big microphone developed by Tom was the EV 643, the world's largest shotgun mic, used in Presidential news conferences. Tom also was responsible for the RE-55 omni dynamic mic.
Other microphones he helped to develop at EV include the RE-50 (shock-mounted 635A), and the Variable-D line of dynamic mics. Tom also was involved in starting EV's line of electret condenser mics, such as the CS-15.
While at EV, Tom wrote an AES paper on microphone transient response. With Lou Burroughs, Tom studied the acoustical comb filtering caused by phase interference between multiple microphones, or caused by the combination of direct and reflected sound at a microphone. This research resulted in the Mic Mouse, a microphone foam mount for stage floors. Its principle is used today in directional boundary microphones such as the Crown PCC series.
He later worked in Microphone Marketing at EV. In 1983 Tom came to Crown International to serve as Microphone Department Manager.
The microphone group at Crown felt like family with Tom at the helm. He took great pride in his company, its products, and its employees. While he gave me freedom to work on my own, he let me know what had to be done. I've never had such a congenial yet competent manager. He had a hand in every microphone in Crown's extensive line, and made working there fun. I appreciated Tom's wide experience and considerable skill in shepherding product designs through engineering and production into the marketplace.
Tom enjoyed working closely with superstars such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Garth Brooks to create microphones that satisfied them. Yet Tom could, and did, befriend anyone who crossed his path. He was a warm, big-hearted man with a zest for life.