Roger Nichols

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For the songwriter, please see Roger Nichols (songwriter)

Roger Nichols was a nuclear engineer until he turned his hobby of audio recording into a career as a recording engineer and producer. He is most known for his work with Steely Dan, but his client list includes the Beach Boys, John Denver, Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa, Crosby Stills & Nash, Al Di Meola, Roy Orbison, Cass Elliot, Plácido Domingo, Gloria Estefan, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Rickie Lee Jones, Kenny Loggins, Mark Knopfler, Eddie Murphy, Michael McDonald, James Taylor, Toots Thielemans, and many more. His work has been nominated for Grammy Awards many times, of which he won seven.

In 1978, Nichols pioneered the technique of "digital drum replacement" by inventing the Wendel sampling drum machine, which was used to provide drum and percussion sounds on Steely Dan's acclaimed Gaucho album. This technology is now commonplace in music production around the world.

Nichols is also an airplane pilot, and was close friends and flying buddies with singer/songwriter John Denver. He helped Denver pick out the new airplane in which he later died. Nichols was on his way to California to meet with Denver (to help him to learn how to fly said plane) when he learned of the crash that took Denver's life.

Roger Nichols also invented and produced a rubidium nuclear clock under his company name Digital Atomics. The purpose of the clock was to provide the accuracy of nuclear timekeeping to better synchronize digital recording equipment in the studio, but at a lower cost than the typical cesium clocks such as those used in military and aviation applications.

Nichols is also an avid amateur astronomer, scuba diver, radio-controlled model airplane enthusiast, and auto racing photographer.

He and his wife, writer/musician Conrad Reeder, [[1]] have two daughters, Cimcie [[2]] and Ashlee [[3]]

[edit] Roger Nichols Digital

Nichols started a company called Roger Nichols Digital [4] in late 2005. With this new company Nichols is introducing his own Plug-In Software for digital audio processing.