Daniels, an audio hobbyist, amplifier, preamp and FM tuner electronic kit builder from age six, began professional audio at nine, installing 45-rpm record players in neighbor teens' cars, inevitably leading to a career in audio, which has paralleled his 40 year career as a professional musician.
Singing from age 4, Daniels studied Bel Canto vocal technique and was an operatic baritone in high school and college. Daniels played and sang top-40 cover music in one Marina Del Rey, CA night club for over 61,000 hours. From 1971 to 1974, he was Musical Director, singer and bass player in The New Christy Minstrels with whom he sang the National Anthem at an Oakland World Series game and sang a broadcast-opening solo on the NBC-nationally televised President's celebration for returned Viet Nam P.O.W.s at the White House.
Daniels moved from the road to the studio in 1974 hired as Chief Engineer at the famous Sound Factory Recording studios, building electronics, maintaining and calibrating studio equipment, designing acoustic echo chambers and engineering for recording artists including Donald Byrd, Donovan, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor and Nancy Wilson.
His association with JBL began in 1976, with three years in the transducer laboratory doing laser holographic interferometry, acoustical modeling, prototyping and pattern making, and training laboratory technicians in electronic testing, instrumentation, test calibration and scientific loudspeaker measurement methods.
Between 1979 and 1983 Daniels was Applications Engineer and Technical Specialist for the Tascam division of Teac Corporation, the world leader in magnetic recording, military, scientific and computer data instrumentation.
In 1983 he began writing audio equipment manuals for Gary Davis Associates, including a power amplifier manual for Fender Musical Instruments which led to his recruitment as Technical Training Manager for Fender Musical Instruments Professional Sound division in 1984, to provide technical training for Fender dealers and business representatives.
In 1985, JBL recruited him back where he served five years as the Applications Engineer for JBL Professional, which became the largest manufacturer of professional sound equipment. At JBL he consulted on sound system designs and designed audio systems or custom speaker systems for hundreds of clients including television networks, performing arts auditoriums, municipal stadiums, amusement parks, and hundreds of large and small churches across the U.S.
Daniels was recruited to Walt Disney Imagineering’s Research & Development think tank and skunk-works in 1989 with the ludicrous movie plot device incentive of doubled salary. After two years as the official audio wizard in Imagineering R&D, he was shanghaied and appointed Principal Electroacoustic Engineer in the Imagineering A/V department, where he subsequently filed five patents on electroacoustic, DSP and optical technologies, while designing complex park-wide audio systems for and working at EuroDisney in Paris.
Daniels has been twice elected Audio Engineering Society Los Angeles section Chairman, in 1983 and again in 1991. He has given numerous AES Convention technical papers, has been the invited guest speaker at Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno, Albuquerque, Palo Alto, Chicago, New York and Tucson AES Section meetings and has produced and presented several AES technical workshops, served as Convention Chair of Tech Tours and Convention Workshop Chair on Loudspeakers.
He has taught performance sound system design and audio engineering at the Aspen Recording Institute of Johns-Hopkins University Peabody Music School as an invited visiting lecturer, was a staff instructor of loudspeaker and acoustics technologies and critical listening at the University of Southern California, is currently on staff for the 14th year teaching Physics, Electronics, Audio Engineering and Recording Engineering Theory at UCLA Extension, and occasionally contributes articles to audio trade magazines.
In late 1992, Daniels formed his own consulting firm, Sound Path Labs, specializing in electroacoustical component and system design, test and measurement, having three patents to his credit including a stereo-in-a-box technology he licenses to Fender and Groove Tubes, and a loudspeaker super-woofer that can replace three the same size, the subject of patents for Aura Systems.
He has designed a new user-serviceable ribbon microphone and has collected microphones for 30 years and now runs a busy recording and mastering studio and post facility having released or mastered hundreds of CDs in the past few years. Recent recording clients include jazz greats Roger Kellaway and Dave Frishberg for whom Daniels’ CDs released on IPO Records and Arbors Records. Other recent jazz clients include Denny Zeitlin, Eddie Daniels, Fred Hersch, Gerry Wiggins, Dave Mackay, Kenny Burrell, John Clayton, Bill Cunliffe, Ron Eschete, Benny Green, Bobby Rodriguez, Eric Reed, John Hammond, Cyrus Chestnut, Steve Hufsteter, Rob Mullins and Rebecca Paris. Kellaway’s trio CD “Remembering Bobby Darin” was a 2005 7-Grammy nominee, including “Best Recording.” On January 7th 2008, Roger Kellaway flew to Paris to accept the prestigious French Jazz Academy “Best Record Of The Year” award for IPO Records' "Heroes" CD tribute to the late Oscar Peterson, recorded mixed and mastered by Daniels at Sound Path Labs. ( rogerkellaway.com ) "Heroes" is the follow on to the Trio's earlier 7-Grammy nominated IPO CD "Remembering Bobby Darin."
In early 2005, Daniels installed surround sound recording setups in all his studio and location rigs, and has incorporated his own “isomorphic surround sound recording” for both studio and location clients who wish surround options. Isomorphic surround allows simple implementation of enveloping and convincing surround sound for widely spaced audiences in theaters and attractions while eliminating traditional "sweet spot" problems and simplifying both encoding and decoding ends of the audio signal chain.
An extended biography is available on line on the web at: https://drewdaniels.com/cv.htm