Audio veteran Toby Scott.
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, May 9, 2016 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts, fosters close relationships with many of the music industry’s top artists and their engineers, producers, management and other key staff. One of these individuals is audio veteran Toby Scott, whose resume includes credits on records from such varied acts as Bob Dylan, Robert Palmer, Blue Öyster Cult, The Replacements, Booker T. & the MG’s, and dozens more – mostly as an engineer or mixer, but also as a production coordinator, musician, or tending to any number of other details. His most notable association, since the late 1970s or so, has been as part of Bruce Springsteen’s inner circle – Scott has a credit on nearly every one of Bruce’s releases (and there have been many) since The River and also on the re-masters of the earlier classic albums.
Although his official title in the organization is hard to pin down (“‘Primary Recording Engineer,’ or ‘Production Supervisor,’ or something else entirely, depending on the project. I’m a man of many hats,” he notes), his status as Springsteen’s chief archivist has been emphasized in recent years, with the release of retrospective box sets The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story and The Ties That Bind: The River Collection; re-masters of the first seven albums; and the ongoing Bruce Springsteen Archives live album series – all projects released to nearly universal acclaim from fans and critics alike. The Archives series has become a particular treat for fans – considering Springsteen’s legendary status as one of the greatest performers of all time, relatively few official live releases existed until a few years ago when the series kicked off in 2014 with Apollo Theater 3/09/12, available as a download or a CD set from Springsteen’s website. Since then, Scott has prepared releases from 1975, 1978, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2005, 2013.
In the studio with Springsteen, Scott’s job is “whatever’s necessary to keep the ball rolling. I make sure the studio is working and everything’s up to snuff, and all the equipment and the guitars and everything are in order.” For decades, he has relied on Guitar Center and GC Pro for a variety of things. He recalls a particular story where GC Pro went above and beyond: “There was a beautiful Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar that I owned for many years, and I gave it to Bruce for Christmas in 1988, and he used it a lot. That guitar eventually ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum. Well, when it came time to record again, we were really missing that guitar. I contacted GC Pro, and an Account Manager hooked us up with two or three replacement guitars to try out – two J-45s and a J-50. We actually ended up liking the J-50 more than the J-45, so we got it, and now that’s one of our go-to guitars for recording. GC Pro’s service was so customized that they knew what we wanted better than we did! And I’ve gotten so many other vintage instruments from Guitar Center over the years. GC Pro is a great tool for delegating certain tasks – I mean, I could personally track down vintage instruments across the country, but I don’t have time for that; it’s so much simpler to have an Account Manager handle it for us, and that’s the kind of customer service they’re there for.”
For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.
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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.
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