I was saddened to learn that Jack Renner, renowned recording engineer and cofounder with producer Robert Woods of Telarc Records, died on June 19, 2019, age 84, at his home in Rhode Island. Mr. Renner is survived by his wife, Barbara, three children, and six grandchildren.
Renner trained as a trumpet player and received a BSc in Music Education from The Ohio State University. In 1990, he was recognized as an outstanding alumnus. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he taught for 30 years.
I first saw Jack’s name on Telarc’s debut album, the direct-to-disc Direct from Cleveland with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel, which was featured on Stereophile‘s very first four-color cover, in March 1977. Telarc rapidly became a major force in the classical recording world, not least because of Renner’s skill with microphone placement and purist attitude to recording. Of the 1200 recordings released by the label, more than 50 won Grammy Awards. Jack was nominated 25 times for Classical Engineering and won 11 Grammys before he retired in 2006.
I asked Renner about Direct From Cleveland when I interviewed him for an article published in the January 1983 issue of Hi-Fi News & Record Review. “Direct-cut was a very popular thing to do at that time,” he told me, “and we needed a way for a small record company in Cleveland, Ohio, to make a major impact on the business. We had to rely on the audiophile market as a foundation for our business, but we hoped that by making a record with a major orchestra, we would earn some recognition from the more serious classical buyer.
“We only did one more direct-cut, an organ recording with Michael Murray, and then we got out of the direct-cut business—which is a very risky business. Digital offers so many advantages—you can edit, you can recut the master if you have a bad lacquer—and . . . I think it gives an equal sound quality to direct-cutting.”
Jack was an early adopter of what in the early 1980s was the best-sounding digital recorder, Thomas Stockham’s Soundstream system, which featured a then–ground-breaking sample rate of 50kHz. Jonathan Scull asked Renner about the Soundstream recorder in an interview for Stereophile (footnote 1): “We went to the [October 1977] AES convention in New York with a financial backer who had paid for the direct-to-disc recordings and listened to Tom Stockham’s Soundstream system. We were . . . impressed but still had the audacity to ask Tom to improve the high-frequency response. . . . Now there I was, somebody who’d issued two direct-to-disc recordings—our main claim to fame—and we were demanding of Tom Stockham, the father of digital recording, that he make his machine sound better!”
That meeting led to the first digitally recorded classical LP in the United States, the Cleveland Symphonic Winds performing Holst’s Suites 1 and 2 for Military Band with Frederick Fennell. Renner had brainstormed with label co-founder Robert Woods: What would be the right first project? “It had to be something really spectacular, with great dynamic range: organ, organ and brass, [or] organ, brass, and percussion,” he told Scull. “And then one of us said, ‘What’s turning audiophiles on these days?’ It took us about three seconds to realize it was Mercury Living Presence. I called Frederick Fennell . . . and he practically jumped through the phone when I asked him about re-recording some of his greatest Eastman Wind Ensemble hits with the wind, brass, and percussion of the Cleveland Orchestra.”
Robert Fine had recorded those famed Mercury Living Presence LPs with three spaced omnidirectional microphones, and Renner was a major advocate for that minimalist approach. “I like to use omnidirectional microphones because they give a wide frequency response, which you just don’t get with crossed figure-of-eights,” Renner told me in 1982. “The spaced, single-capsule omnis are capable of a flat response down to 20Hz and below; they have less distortion. I just happen to feel that I can recreate the illusion of the music being performed on stage better with spaced omnis than with figure eights.”
I witnessed Renner’s skill first-hand when I attended a Telarc session at London’s Walthamstow Assembly Hall in March 1985. He was recording the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by André Previn, performing Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No.2 in E-minor. The primary pickup was three spaced omnis, and I was impressed by Renner’s ability to quietly and quickly make small changes in the positions of the mikes until he, producer James Mallinson, and Previn were satisfied that the sound represented the orchestra and music at its best. It was a moment of satori. From that moment on, this erstwhile figure-eight purist started using spaced omnis as the primary pickup for my own recordings, including almost all those released on the Stereophile label.
A full list of Jack Renner’s engineering credits can be found at AllMusic.com and an oral history video he made for the Audio Engeering Society here. Here is my personal Top Five of his recordings, in no particular order:
Fauré: Requiem, Op.48; and Duruflé: Requiem, Op.9; with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Robert Shaw. CD, Telarc 80135. This was the 1988 Grammy winner for classical engineering.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique; and Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite; with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel. SACD transcoded to DSD from the original Soundstream recording, Telarc 60650.
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No.3 (“Organ”) and Encores à la française, Michael Murray, organ, with the Philadephia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. SACD, Telarc 60634 SACD transcoded to DSD from the original Soundstream recording.
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture & other orchestral works, with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel. SACD transcoded to DSD from the original Soundstream recording, Telarc 60541.
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.2 in E minor, Op.27; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by André Previn. CD, Telarc 80113.
Footnote 1: The late Peter W. Mitchell also interviewed Jack Renner for Stereophile, in January 1990.
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