About  Craig (Hutch) Hutchison      Hutch was Manley's Chief Designer from 1994 to 2008   He now works for Rupert Neve Designs in Texas. Read more about that new job here.   And we're still pals.         Hutch at NAMM 2007

Hutch first became involved in electronics and music in Canada while in his mid teens. His first full time jobs in the music business were in musical instrument stores repairing and modifying guitars, amplifiers and keyboards. This was in the early 70's when there was a pretty even split between tubes and solid state. Known for his mods on Hiwatt amps, he was recruited from one store to "go out on the road" with at that time Canada's most successful band "The Guess Who" and then "Burton Cummings". He started as a guitar roadie and ended up mixing. Between tours he mixed club bands with his own PA system and was a consultant for the movie "The Rose" and for "Alice Cooper". The elusive goal was to be a recording engineer and after 7 years the break finally happened.

While visiting in Vancouver BC, he was offered a job wiring a new studio, "Water Street Sound and Filmworks". Within two months of opening, he was promoted to Chief Engineer, Chief Technician, and Head Instructor of the company's recording school. Then again, there was only about five employees including the receptionist. It did provide an unusually rich opportunity for learning with two Neve 80 series consoles, the first SMPTE sync system in Canada (EECO), two 24 track Ampex machines and a very modern video post facility tied in just a floor below. He engineered everything from album projects to TV spots and produced a few local bands. A few Canadian gold records and more than a few friends came from those years but it wasn't The Big Time.

Next stop New York City. Ten years in the Big Apple, most of them as "Chief" at Electric Lady Studios. There, he worked with very many of the world's top international artists, producers and engineers through the 80's. He also became involved with Rupert Neve's Focusrite company installing the justifiably famous "Forte #002". When that company folded he was hired as the USA Chief Engineer and consultant for the new Focusrite company and was "shared" with Electric Lady. As a customer with two SSL consoles, he suggested a number of ideas that later became standard features or options.

Read about this unusual shot

Here's a picture of Hutch in the 1980's:

An Electric Lady client requested 12 Pultec EQs for a "Guns and Roses" project and this resulted in his first phone call to David Manley back at VTL. A few months later David called him with a proposal to try a pair of his power amps. After comparing them to most everything available, there was no contest. Electric Lady bought 3 pairs of 350's and finally had the reputation of "best sounding main monitors in the country" with the Augsperger / TAD speakers. A few months later Hutch conducted a big "A to D", "D to A" shoot-out. (The Manley converters tied first place in both categories with the 200 engineers who participated.) Hutch had previously written for "MIX" and wrote up the shootout for "EQ". Hutch started to act as NY rep for Manley, setting up demos and introducing NYC to the new tube gear.

He left Electric Lady a few years later to concentrate on selling Manley's products and to do some design and freelance technical work. This was Uptime Audio. SSL became a steady freelance client and Hutch performed a number of functions from telephone support to commissioning consoles. He continues to do occasional work for SSL.

Hutch's other freelance client over the last few years is the DSP Plug-In and digital technology company from Israel, WAVES. Hutch contributed to the Renaissance Series EQs and compressors, and also designed the analog stages for the L2 limiter. Hutch also used his writing talents to help out with the WAVES owners manuals, presets, and website text.

Remember the Hendrix On Tour truck? Hutch built the Electric Church. They flew Hutch to California to tune up the Church and Manley Labs let him use a corner of the new factory to do the work. While there, got talked into helping restore an 1969 Neve console and that led to him packing up and moving to Chino and working in the Manley factory. The Neve console moved to New York and is still busy at East Side Sound.

Hutch and Rupert in the early 1990's

 

Hutch testing Bob Ludwig's mastering module.

At the Manley factory from 1994 to 2008 Hutch split his time between the big custom mastering projects, electronic design work, and the computer duties of user manuals, schematics, panel cosmetics and customer support. One of his specialties was in using his ears (and years) to fine tune parameters that relate to real world studio conditions and the broad set of professional needs. He brought to us the fresh ideas and modern technologies that complement TubeLand here at Manley Labs. Hutch always had one foot in the future and the other foot in the past and danced - when his ears were happy.

 

Hutch received a Buddah statue for Christmas 2004. Hutch considers Thailand his favorite place in the world.

 

 

Hutch May 2007