A little story

About Us.

Lead Designer Jeff Hedback is an acoustician, a professional musician (bass player), and a trained recording engineer. It is this blend of experiences and skills from both sides of the control room glass that anchors every HdA project.

Jeff graduated Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music (’87) majoring in Music Production and Engineering with a minor in bass performance.

Jeff spent seven years honing his acoustical design craft at industry leading Auralex Acoustics. It was during a certain snapshot in time, an acoustics master-class under the mentorship of world respected Acoustical Engineer, Jeff D Szymanski (PE). During much of his tenure at Auralx, Jeff was utilized not only as a technical consultant for Auralex customers, but also as a Regional Sales Manager, where he steered consistent double digit annual growth.

Jeff Hedback co-holds a US Patent for being the primary developer of the Auralex GRAMMA speaker isolation riser. This product is found worldwide under guitar amps, bass rigs and home theater subwoofers.

As a session and touring bass player, Jeff has credits on several national releases (Arista Records, CBS Records, Rounder/Philo Records). He has performed as a headliner, support act, and background chatter in all types of spaces; the largest stadiums, worship spaces, and smokiest clubs. To this day he continues to study, practice, gig and gets inspired by all things that are bass.

Here are some select mentors and life events that are important to today’s HdAcoustics.

First bass mentor (at age 9), Jack Phelan. His playing was “organic” but educated and all about connection of bass to the feeling of music. plus, he played a Hofner!
While at Berklee, Jeff studied bass for two years under The Bass Whisperer himself, Ed Friedland.
Tom Dowd. Although Jeff never met Mr. Dowd, there was the old Studio D at Berklee that Mr. Dowd had designed. All the other rooms were recently built at that time to be state of the art. However, the small but mighty Studio D (1″ 8-Track) kept giving back the best sounding projects.
First job out of Berklee was as an assistant engineer at a studio designed by Russ Berger (more lessons learned).
1987 to 2000 pro bass player and fortunate enough to record in top studios throughout the Midwest, LA and Toronto.
A list of select engineers who have recorded my bass include: Ross Hogarth, David Leonard, Mark Williams and Paul Mahern.
Playing bass guitar in nearly every type of ensemble, situation and room type.
Major Label Releases include Jimmy Ryser (self-titled) on Arista Records, several records of folk artist Carrie Newcomer on Rounder/Philo, and the first Lisa Germano record.
Leroy “Lefty” Bates was a first-generation Delta Blues great. Lefty was musicians’ musician as the phrase goes. He played for years with Jimmy Reed among others. He was a dear friend and mentor in music and life.
Acoustical mentorship of Jeff D Szymanski at Auralex Acoustics. He was and is a true thought leader world-wide in all aspects of acoustical engineering.
Awarded US Patent for creating the Auralex GRAMMA Source Isolation Pad. Led by the quest for tone, Jeff developed the GRAMMA to reduce how different stages would drastically change the sound of my bass rig (while improving the basic tone). This product has done very well for close to twenty years, solving not only live amplifier issues, but subwoofers in studios and HiFi rooms.
Regional Sales Manager at Auralex Acoustics
Duke LeJuene of www.Audiokinesis.com – Duke is special. He’s not just brilliant and humble but seriously NICE. Duke is one of the world’s best speaker crossover/network designers. He offers boutique bass guitar cabinets, wonderful HiFi speakers and he and Jeff have worked on features and specs for several custom recording studio main speakers.
Harold Baker is an AIA award winning architect with work featured on HGTV. Firstly, he has a voice like a Hollywood star from the 60’s. A single conversation with Harold is equal to a semester’s worth of Architectural Studio Classes.
Dr Floyd Toole…if you’ve read this far…ask me about the Dr. Toole handshake…maybe I’ll share this story…maybe
All the fantastic clients I have had the honor to work with in these years running HdAcoustics.
Quest and obsession for perfect TONE…we will have to see what’s up next.