Memorial Day: Remembering Audio Warriors

May 29th, 2017 by David Weiss

It’s easy to forget what we’re supposed to remember on Memorial Day – the fallen heroes who bravely stood up for America.

Everyone I know works hard, and when the calendar gives an opportunity to sleep in, eat a little extra, and put the brain on ice, everything else tends to drop out of sight. Take the extra day, reload, and hit it hard all over again on Tuesday.

But setting your mind on a mental memorial this day is worth doing. The incredible sacrifices of our armed service women and men, and the unimaginable courage so many of them have showed in combat over the centuries is inspirational, to say the least. To say the most, they’ve continued to make this country possible.

This Memorial Day, recall the real connection between music and military service.

At SonicScoop, we’re proud to have bridged the gap between military service and the studio with an uplifting column by Alex Dengler, an ex-Marine who penned “Music As Survival: A Marine’s Military Spec Studio Checklist” for us in August, 2014. Considering the bravado many studio owners, producers, mixers and engineers must have to commit to a life in audio, the connection between the two fields is apt, and Alex pursued them both with a passion, following up his combat deployment in Iraq with a life dedicated to studio excellence.

But he faced a deadlier foe than gunfire back at home. Alex was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma soon after he returned, and cancer would rear its head to dog him again and again. Finally, earlier this year, the disease won out — Alex passed away on January 19, 2017.

He was one of the first people I remembered this morning: A warrior who put service and sound on equal footing. To Alex Dengler, and the many other veterans in our industry who prove that the armed forces and audio were one, thank you.

Visit here to read “Music As Survival: A Marine’s Military Spec Studio Checklist“.

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