Southern Outpost

image via Hans Veneman

One of the “silent” legends of Detroit Techno, the behind the scenes guy who made it possible for all of Detroit’s early pioneers to make those records you know and love, Ron Murphy passed away Saturday 12th January at 4pm.

He was one of unsung heros of Detroit Techno. When one thinks of the legends, you immediately think, Juan, Derrick and Kevin. But Ron was the one who helped propel these guys into the limelight, with no fuss, no claims to fame, he just loved what he did. You often don’t think of the mastering engineer when thinking about these artists, but his audio mastery made those records so special and so “Detroit”. He cut pretty much all the Detroit labels for many years, UR, Metroplex, Transmat, KMS, Planet E, even all the early Southern Outpost records were cut by Ron. He really had a knack of making those DATS/CD’s/Tapes into something really special.

There was nothing like going to visit Ron when he was cutting your record. His studio was old school, no digital equipment, computer or “plugins” all hands on analog gear he tweaked on the fly. That’s what made the records sound so good, the analog warmth of that amp he had in the rack really made it something special. Watching Ron at work was amazing, it schooled me on how records are made and how they should sound. Once his work was done, he always took delight in chatting about the state of music today, reminiscing on the old days of techno and was always a great resource of funny stories about various producers who came through his studio. Ron told it like it was and that’s why he was so respected… and he’ll always be respected by those who knew him and even to those who only knew of him by seeing his “NSC” etching in the runout grooves of the records he cut.

Ron, you’ll be missed greatly, you may never really know what an impact you made to the music that so many people all around the world respect so much.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 2:28 pm and is filed under General News.