His loon recordings are excellent and made him a lot of money. He adopted
digital recording early on, using the Sony F1/Betamax video combination
before DAT became available. (see "My experience of digital recording".
Gibson, D. Bioacoustics journal vol 1 part 1. 1988).
I had lunch and a long chat with Dan a few years ago in Ontario. He was a
good recordist but also pretty shrewd at marketing, loaning free to retail=
outlets his floor-standing display racks with illuminated displays for
stocking his Solitudes CDs. Though the racks were very expensive to
produce, the investment paid off as shops couldn't resist the free loan of =
a
colouful display unit playing attractive soundscapes - and kept restocking=
them as the CDs were snapped up.
When his son Gordon took over the business Dan told me was utterly baffled=
why anyone liked the new style of CDs that his son was producing - music
mixed with Dan's hard-won nature sounds that had been free of man-made
'noise'. But they sold well - and I gather they still do.
Richard Ranft
London, England
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