For the holiday 2025 season the PNW Section’s December meeting (Zoom only) was an “evening with” chat among four of the PNW’s most grizzled veterans of the local audio scene: Rick Chinn, Charlie Morgan and Mac Perkins, with Matthew Sutton acting as moderator. He coaxed out the intertwined lives and anecdotes of these people through the last half century and more of the PNW audio business. 39 people attended, with 28 being AES members.
After remarks by PNW Chair Jess Berg and self-introductions by all attendees, the four amigos got down to the business of relating their early lives getting in to audio, and their starts in the PNW. Perhaps not unexpectedly, the best stories are the disasters and near disasters with the famous (and not so famous), back in the day when there were no cell phones or internet, or even line arrays and digital processors. Runner-up could be the gag microphone with a tube to squirt water at the singer.
For those not PNW old-timers, many venues and people mentioned are now gone.
About our Presenters:
Rick Chinn
Rick assembled his first Heathkit amplifier when he was in 6th grade. The local YMCA sponsored a class in Electronic Kit Building, which was a sales vehicle for Seattle Radio Supply, the local Heathkit Dealer. That amplifier led to a lifelong career in things audio, electronic, or related to them.
Between high school and 1971, Rick did 2 years of community college electronics, and served in the US Air Force as a ground radio communications repair person. He left the Air Force in 1971.
Across the next 30 years or so, Rick designed rock-n-roll sound systems, circuits, and software. 20 years operating sound at the Seattle Center resulted in doing live sound for everything from Amway meetings to 2 US presidents, and a host of musical stars as well. Along the way, he worked in a variety of capacities for all three of Greg Mackie’s companies, Fluke Manufacturing, Microsoft, Symetrix, and Benaroya Hall. He co-founded Morgan Sound.
In 1976, Mac Perkins, Rick, and Charlie Morgan supplied the live sound for the grand opening ceremonies of the Kingdome stadium. Not so many years later, Rick watched and smiled when the Dome’s sonic karma caught up with it and it was imploded.
Charlie Morgan
Charlie is the Founder/Owner of Morgan Sound, Inc. Morgan Sound was born out of Charlie Morgan’s musical background and insistence on the best possible sound quality for his own shows. A chance encounter affirmed that his early system designs had merit, and this career choice led him to form the modest beginnings in 1970 from which the company has constantly expanded. Operating in the Pacific Northwest, the demand for quality, purpose-designed systems continued to increase, allowing the company to grow to become the largest sound contractor in the Pacific Northwest.
Morgan Sound’s PA systems are used in venues as diverse as Safeco Field to Tulalip Casino to smaller halls throughout the Northwest.
Morgan Sound also installs custom audio, video systems and lighting systems as well in restaurants, clubs, community centers, churches and even city halls.
Charlie is an accomplished musician playing with a wide variety of bands over the last many decades and recently released a solo CD “Thru My Window”
Mac Perkins
Mac Perkins has been a keen observer of how virtually everything electrical or mechanical works from a young age. Mac bought a box of surplus relays at the age of 10 and built a four bit binary adder using 25 of them. The fact that the relays operated on 110 Volts DC made it that much more exciting!
As a teenager, Mac worked in a foreign auto dealership in the small town where he lived. They were delighted to learn he could repair Lucas electrical systems, resulting in a substantial raise.
After a brief college career, he wound up working in broadcast radio, having the good fortune to record at Boston Symphony Hall, among other locations around Boston.
Mac served time in the Navy, and after a tour of the Western Pacific and a stint at a Navy training school in Vallejo, California, he was assigned to a reserve training ship homeported in Seattle. After his time in the Navy, Mac moved permanently to Seattle and started his first business, Perkins Audio, repairing stereo and pro audio equipment. He was on staff at the University of Washington Drama Department for four years before starting Pacific Northwest Theater Associates (PNTA) with two of his UW co-workers. Pacific Studio, a museum exhibit fabricator, was started as a division of PNTA and then was spun off as a separate business.
Obviously, theater has been a significant focus of Mac’s life and he has been known throughout the region as a person who can fix any lighting or sound system. Mac has also provided sound design and implemented systems for a wide variety of theater productions as well as music performances.
Mac is now retired and spends his days at his place on Whidbey Island, often in the shop resurrecting audio equipment as well as test equipment.
Matthew Sutton
Matthew started Audissey Sound with partner Dave Williams in July of 1975. Located above Uptown Music, Audissey fixed anything electronic that came through the door. Fortunately, a lot of stuff did. Around that time Matthew started repairing gear for Kearney Barton of Audio Recording, Inc and soon after, at other studios.
Through the late 1970’s and all of the 1980’s, Matthew worked in dozens of studios around the Northwest, in Alaska and Hawaii and provided warranty service for Ampex, MCI, Otari and Tascam.
In 1990, he stepped away from the world of audio almost entirely, the exception was engineering live broadcasts of Seattle Opera through 2014. His tenure with Seattle Opera included recording a live version of their final production of “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with Rick Fisher, available on Avie records.
Over the next 30 years, he started businesses in IT, Internet and software and eventually ended up with a real job in Product Management. When that ended in 2021, Matthew came back to the world of audio and is now back to fixing studio and high-end stereo gear.
Reported by Gary Louie, PNW Secretary.
