The great recording engineer Dan Wallin has died at 97. Please see this excellent obituary by Jon Burlingame at Variety. The above pic is courtesy Dan Goldwasser from ScoringSessions.com.
Wallin was an absolute genius at recording the orchestra and we had the great privilege to work with many of his masters, particularly during his tenure (late 1960s, 1970s) at Warner Bros.: THX-1138, The Omega Man, The Yakuza, Big Wednesday, all of those.
He defined, for me anyway, what a great film recording sounds like: crisp, clear, beautiful stereo separation, incredible orchestral detail. When we released a CD of one of his scores from a three-track stereo master, it was easy money, if you’ll pardon the expression. As he told me, “Just drop the center channel 3 db”—we did and it was glorious.
I wasn’t privileged to have any substantive conversations with him, but he and his wife Gay were always super kind and helpful when I reached out about something.
I think I’ll put on Dirty Harry...