McCune Sound Service

McCune Audio Video Lighting

Type	Audio/Video/Lighting Rental and Production
Industry	Professional Audio
Founded	1932
Headquarters	San Francisco, CA, United States
Key people	Harry McCune, Founder
Number of employees	200
Website	www.mccune.com

McCune Audio Video Lighting (previously known as Harry McCune Sound Service, McCune Audio Visual and McCune Audio Visual Video) is an American company based in South San Francisco, California, with offices in Monterey and Anaheim. It is one of the oldest and largest audio visual rental and sound services in the U.S. McCune was founded in 1932 by Harry McCune Sr, McCune AVL provides audio, lighting and high-definition video services to events as varied as outdoor festivals such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the Bohemian Grove, and to arena conferences such as TED.

Harry McCune, Sr. was working as an auto mechanic when he built a sound system and founded McCune Sound Service in 1932. He built several systems before he completed one large enough to handle a dance band. He would rent out his system and personally operate it for $1 on a Saturday night and then give it away for free on a Friday night. Harry McCune, Sr. began renting sound systems to big bands in the 1930s and 1940s, and with his son, Harry McCune, Jr. (1930–1996), would broadcast the concerts live over the radio from ballrooms in San Francisco.

In the 1940s, the company operated out of 10 Brady Street in San Francisco which was centrally located near the Civic Center. In 1963, McCune adopted the name "Channel X" for its video production services. In the 1960s, McCune operated from 960 Folsom Street in the South of Market (SOMA) area. In 1969, the company moved to 951 Howard Street and built an audio and video recording studio within the structure. McCune later expanded to both sides of Howard Street. Still expanding, the company moved to a single large building on 2200 Army Street, later named Cesar Chavez Street, before moving to their current location at 101 Utah Avenue in South San Francisco.

McCune has been credited with inventing many of the concepts of the modern day live performance, and was one of the very first companies to provide touring sound systems, beginning in 1965 with Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and progressing to such diversity as Andy Williams, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steely Dan, John Davidson, Crystal Gayle, and many others. The first time that a stage monitor was used for a live show it was provided by McCune and was for Judy Garland, at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. The rehearsal was not going well, and Harry McCune Jr. came up with the idea of pointing a speaker at her. He jumped in the truck and dashed back to the office, grabbed a speaker, brought it back, put it on the corner of the stage, took a feed off the main system, turned up the amp and, like magic Miss Garland was happy. In the late 1960s music was flourishing in San Francisco, and so was sound design itself, Monterey Pop Festival and, even before that, The Beatles' last-ever live concert performance, held at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, during which the small sound system could not be heard over the screaming of the fans. Mort Feld mixed the sound for the Beatles. In the late 1960s, engineer Dan Healy drew from McCune equipment to amplify the Grateful Dead; Healy said he often blew up the gear trying to get it louder.