Radio heavyweight lightens his load with HHB Flashmic
By Peter Champman, HHB Communications Canada Ltd.
Doug Thompson is a legendary fixture at CHUM radio in Toronto, Canada. Having first stepped through their doors in 1965, he’s been recording reels for 42 years.
In thattime, he has won 150 awards for creative excellence and worked with Ringo Starr, Phil Collins, Natalie Cole, Randy Bachman and John Candy -- for whom he was head writer and creative director for his weekly series “Radio Kandy.”
Mostly known for his long form radio productions such as an award winning, two-part radio retrospective on John Lennon,and more recently his involvement in the CHUM and National Broadcast Museum Foundation archives, he’s worked in pretty much every recording format short of magnetic wire.
Having started on a Nagra, moving to portable DAT machines and finally to the HHB DRM-85 Flashmic, Doug reflects on sore shoulders, airport security and sprained ankles. Who said rock & roll journalism was easy?
“Nagra tape recorders were heavy, heavy machines. I mean literally 25 pounds. And those were just bears to carry.I remember I was doing some interviews in LA and I had a short amount of time to do them. I’d somehow sprained my ankle and was on crutches. So I had this huge Nagra tape recorder on my crutches trying to get down the street in Beverly Hills. So the crutches would go, then the Nagra case would go, then the other way with the crutches… It took me half an hour to go a block. Believe me; I’m glad the Flashmic is around now, it would have been so much easier back then.”
Portable DAT machines, however, offered a little relief in terms of size and weight.
“When I was using a DAT machine you’d have to put it in a carrying case, and… it’s still heavy! It might only be five or 10 pounds but it’s sitting on your shoulder. With [the Flashmic] I can carry it in the little carrying case or in my hand or I could just shove it in my briefcase.”
When asked how the Flashmic’s small size and light weight changed the way he worked, he had this to say:
“I just came back from England and I used the Flashmic over there because I didn’t want to bring the DAT machine and the adapter and all that.The Flashmic was just absolutely perfect because I could go in the dressing room, I could go outside. You can plug in the earphones so you can hear what it sounds like if you’re in a hotel room and find the best spot to sit. I’m quite happy with it.It’s the most portable mic recorder ever! It’s great!
“I was surprised; when I took it [on the plane] security didn’t even ask to open it. With the DAT machine they always want to open the case and look at it. With the flashmic they obviously saw it was a microphone shape, but they didn’t even open it up.
For the Chum Radio Archives we’ve been interviewing a lot of the former disc jockeys and staff and we’ve been using the HHB Flashmic; taking it where ever, as there’s often not a lot of places to plug-in. In some of these older homes that people live in, the wiring causes buzzes and clicks, even when it’s grounded, so the Flashmic is phenomenal for that.”
The CHUM Radio Archives finds Doug on a five to six year project sorting through the mammoth collection of audio tapes that have been collected since CHUM’s inception in 1959, then transferring them to compact disc. What does Doug rely on with such an arduous task?
“I have an HHB Burn-it and I burn all my material on a Burn It with the HHB Thermal Blanks. It’s been a treasured piece of equipment for seven or eight years now!”
Check out the online Rock Radio Scrapbook () to hear some of the great tapes Doug has saved from the dusty vaults of Rock and Roll History.