Dave Hill

Dave Hill, a world-renowned audio equipment designer and founder of Crane Song Ltd., was a dear friend of ACDA Minnesota and a recent recipient of the ACE Inspiration Award from the Northeast District. Over the past 25 years, Dave recorded hundreds of choir concerts for Duluth East High School, the College of Saint Scholastica, the Lake Superior Youth Chorus, and the Twin Ports Choral project. Dave passed away on February 22, 2023 of complications from cancer. Dave was 68 years old.

The following obituary excerpts were written by the staff at Front of House Magazine.

Born on November 19, 1954, David Edward Hill was a self-taught electronics whiz kid, who went from messing around with radios and analog synths, to repairing guitar amps, keyboards, P.A. and recording gear in a local music store.

Hill later started doing live sound, toured for a while and then enrolled in a tech school, later teaching there for eight years. He applied his passion for tube electronics when he designed an entire line of best-selling processors for Summit Audio. Setting out on his own, Hill founded Crane Song to create pristine-quality electronics for recording, mastering and live sound engineers.

Hill first ventured into software in 2002 with his Phoenix TDM plug-in suite for Pro Tools HD, which was designed to put analog color into the digital domain by increasing apparent loudness without increasing gain (e.g., by modeling analog tape compression).

Audio journalist George Petersen inducted Hill into the TEC Award’s TECnology Hall of Fame in 2020. He will long be remembered as a one-of-a-kind inventor and designer who will have a profound impact on the way sound is recorded for many years to come.

Farewell and rest well, old friend. You will not be forgotten.