Jürgen Schröder, born in 1959, has surrounded himself with music for as long as he can remember. Largely unaffected by the Beatlemania of the 1960s, soulful Motown productions à la Phil Spector left a deep mark on him, as did Genesis (the art rock phase), Gentle Giant and the fusion jazz of John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report. His passion for music playback was sparked in 1970 by the mobile tape recorder Uher Report 4400 Stereo. Since then, he has been constantly experimenting with various hi-fi components. Jürgen was similarly fascinated by drums from an early age: his start as a drummer in the rock band Ohrwärts in 1979 opened up new worlds for him, both musically and technically. Then as now, two maxims apply to him: “Real music is on tape” and “Let there be drums”. Good sound was always a must – even when recording, live, in the rehearsal room, in the studio: the young idealist sacrificed his entire hi-fi system without hesitation in favor of a Uher CR 240 mobile cassette deck. In 1986, Jürgen Schröder began studying sound engineering at the newly founded SAE Frankfurt. He worked as a live sound engineer with renowned artists such as Franz Josef Degenhardt, Hannes Wader, Lydie Auvray and Abdullah Ibrahim and finally found his real “home” at the studio mixing desk – as a musician in front of it AND as a sound engineer behind it. The following “historic” audio document bears eloquent witness to his work: Jürgen’s first 16-track recording as sound engineer and drummer of his session band from 1988, produced entirely by himself (click here).
After graduating, Jürgen spent two and a half years as a lecturer at the SAE Frankfurt for all technical training areas as well as a service technician for the maintenance of the two studios and the editing suites. So much expertise did not go undiscovered: in 1991, the offer to work for the Stereoplay to work for Stereoplay. He accepted and stayed for nine years – until 2000, when he moved to the video for a few years.
Jürgen is (together with Holger Biermann and Raphael Vogt) and is a founding member of LowBeats, where he really lets off steam in his favorite areas: He prefers to test components from the pro-fi (professional fidelity) sector, but is also the chief sound engineer, measurement lab manager and YouTube filmmaker.
