Abstract :
You love music, yet you\´re also drawn to engineering, and you can\´t decide which to pursue. What to do? Why, become a tonmeister, of course. That\´s what Geoff Martin did. No kidding: His official title is tonmeister of Bang & Olufsen, the Danish company that since 1925 has been showing the world that well-engineered audio and video equipment can also be beautiful. The German word tonmeister, Martin explains, refers to someone who straddles music and engineering. "Once upon a time, if you wanted to do a recording, you needed to hire two people. One was a recording engineer, the geek who knew about acoustics, microphones, and electronics. The other was a producer who understands music and knew how to talk to the conductor and the musicians. A tonmeister is both of those people rolled into one."