It's been rough lately. Chick Corea and Rupert Neve, different sides of the same, remarkable coin. All of us here are quite familiar with their contributions, and while Neve may not be a household name I think many know the name.
And I do not mean to take away from either of them, but the world lost another fine audio engineer last week. Ray Rayburn was on the cutting edge of audio technology his entire career. He authored standards. He designed and installed the sound system in the US Senate. He upgraded the Saturday Night Live stage to stereo. He did a lot of really cool things!
And he was as generous with his time and knowledge as he was brilliant. Can't count the times I bugged him about test and measurement techniques and tools. He always answered.
The last time I saw him was at and AES convention a couple years ago. I ran into him as he was on his way out to catch his flight home. He missed that flight, largely because we got to talking, and visiting booths, and time got away from him. He as not phased, he rebooked a later flight and we wandered some more. This time around I kept an eye on the time, and he made that flight.
Ray encouraged me to join in the AES standards efforts - a role for which I am not really worthy. But I am learning a lot just sitting on the sidelines, lurking if you will.
If you are curious he has a
wiki page.