Randy Kling (Mastering)

Randy F. Kling

American sound engineer, specialized in mastering and lacquer cutting. Father of Chad Kling.

Vinyl releases cut by him can be recognized by his initials "RfK" (very hard to read and sometimes rendered "⁄|⁄ǀ⁄|⁄ǀ⁄|⁄K") etched in the runouts. Alternatively, he can also sometimes be identified by a cursive "Randy" etched in the runouts as well.

As a youth did recording jobs in his native Milwaukee, Wisconsin for local brass bands and congregations with an Ampex 351-2 tape recorder, which he would play in his own radio program. From this activity grew a homestudio used for recording local bands. During his army service in 1963-'65 he was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, and took the opportunity to travel in Europe and visit studios. After his return in 1965 he joined RCA Studios, Chicago, first working as a vault attendant before advancing to mastering engineer. In 1971, with the closing of the Chicago office, he moved to RCA Victor Studios, Nashville. Thereafter, he founded Randy's Roost in Nashville, where he worked throughout the 1970s. In 1982 the studio's name was changed to Disc Mastering, Inc. His studio was among the first in the country to own a Neve digital console (which he helped design in Cambridge, England) and a Studer digital tape machine.

Later in his career Kling did archiving for the Smithsonian Institution and was a consultant for the restoration of the RCA Studio in Nashville. In 2015 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of audio engineering in 2015 from the Nashville chapter of the Audio Engineering Society. He retired in 2015.