In this episode, Doug Ford of Doug Ford Analog Design recounts his career and how he became an analog electronic design engineer. Doug has worked for Australian companies Jands, Rode Microphones, and now his own company DFAD.

The interview provides for some fascinating insight into how he got started, early learning, education in electronics and finally work experience. Having worked for about 19 years at Jands, where he worked on everything from rock and roll lighting dimmers & consoles, large PA’s, audio mixers, he got to experience a wide range of products. At Rode it was far more targeted towards a single product range - microphones, where he designed (as part of a small team) the Classic Two, a valve-based microphone with a sneaky transistor embedded. This caused a sensation amongst the die-hard valve enthusiasts. Luckily Doug went on to design other microphones with Rode including NT3, the NT1000 and the NTK Microphones.

The interview was recorded at his home workshop on the 20/10/2010 in Sydney for State of Electronics.

Apologies for the audio quality in this interview. I should have used one of Doug’s designs but alas I did not & the location was a bit noisy :-)