Fred Ampel, who worked in the professional audio industry for more than five-decades, has died. The audio engineer and Air Force veteran worked at a number of recording studios and also spent time in radio.
While in high school in Queens, NY he worked at Cue Recording in NYC, was later graduated from college with an English and Music degree; and then joined the Air Force in the 60’s where he was a Bombardier and Navigator on numerous B-52 Missions.
After his discharge from the Air Force in 1972, he went back to college in Boston and earned a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and Public Communications. During his time in Boston he was a recording engineer at Woodland Sound Studios. He also worked at WBUR and WGBH. At WGBH he was audio engineer for Julia Child’s cooking shows. A fringe benefit was he received personal cooking lessons from the famed Chef.
A trip to LA resulted in time at KPFK Radio, Sound City Recording, Dave Kelsey Sound and his own company Audio Concepts. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Fred worked with famed tour-sound pioneer, M.L. Procise at ShowCo. He did FOH and monitor engineering for numerous well-known artists.
He settled down in Kansas City where he was an editor for several sound and video publications, formed his own company, Technology Visions Analytics; and then later worked as an acoustics and audio systems consultant for churches in Kansas City.
Fred Ampel was 76 years old.
