jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

Well rackmount is always better. Keeps everything tidy. Sounds like the sweep can be voltage controlled. Neat.

What the hell is an R/S version?

See the above links I posted from GS and a DIY site.

I think it might be. 40mm is the width of both the P200 and Danner modules and here a guy successfully modded his Danner format compressors to mount in his Scamp rack....

Also this is interesting, particularly this part:

ADR sold the A and B boards to Helios and Calrec and possibly Neve to engineer into each companies module dimensions. The Helios version was specific to their consoles - although I think they made more than one version. Helios Electronics is working on a Compex in the V69 form factor. I do not know the expected release date.

I am currently working with ADR on the Compex re-issue. The release date keeps getting pushed back due to other projects; I'm hoping for sometime in 2008.

Edit: Kinda makes me think 40mm was their default but any module was available with alternate mounting upon request as an OEM product. What's weird is that the scamp is +/-28v but if neve ordered modules for the 10 series that's a single 24v supply. I doubt neve had anything to do with A&DR

I thought Raindirk would shed some light if only tangentially... I was looking at a broken down Symphony console and looked into their history before passing due to shipping difficulty and I remembered reading up on the history

for starters, the original supafuzz is a tonebender professional mkII with a snubber cap to tame the spitty treble, unsure if they revised the circuit at any point, I've only seen 1 version... 3 transistors and a handful of caps and resistors

the beebaa is quite a bit different; its 4 transistors, the last stage features a complimentary pair in push pull whereas a tonebender is 3 transistors single ended, it features back to back diodes to ground before the output, it also has a footswitchable tone shift and a bunch of other stuff, its infinitely more complex while still following the classic 3 stage fz1 bones in a certain way.

I think marketing guys are nuts, probably doubly so in Japan. Product names and ad copy don't need to make sense and back in the day seldom tried to. There's an old superlead ad where marshall bills it as the world's loudest distortion free amplifier. That was patently untrue on every level and guys were buying them for the frickin distortion at full power anyway. The marketing guy just said some shit he heard... the ad didn't sell any plexis, they sold themselves because they're a loud amp with tight bass and a very complex overdrive when pushed into saturation.

ADR famously made modules for Helios consoles, (Helio's founder Dick Swettenham was a friend and collaborator with the ADR guys, from what I can tell) but it doesn't seem that any of the formats for those consoles were exactly 40mm wide.

If we knew which consoles supported that format, hunting for deeper info might get a bit easier.

The Audities Foundation has an extensive compilation of Helios console pictures on Facebook, besides a compilation of the “Manor Mobile” Helios console. The latter has photos of a preamp’s guts and the front of a “Lo Cut Phase Filter”, which can give us an idea of the dimensions.

The Facebook page for Audities’ studio has even more. There is a folder of photos of Strawberry Studios (which includes pictures of the Helios phantom308 was talking about) and a “Studio Tour” folder that includes more of that console and a picture of his “Auto Phasor”. It is not an aesthetic match for the P200.

Oh yeah, 10cc recorded at strawberry... and later Joy Division IIRC... the manor belonged to Virgin. Every virgin studio had a custom helios. Olympic and Island also went Helios although Island went MCI once they released the first in-line desk, the JH500 series. Looking at some of these pictures you linked to, it appears that Helios reduced their channel width as channel counts crept up. I even spotted a pic with what appears to be in-line monitoring on short faders. I had no idea there was so much variety. I wanna say that Raindirk had a connection to Heliis. Just remembered that.

EDIT: scroll through the facebook strawberry fokder! Theres one with the caption "8 bus A&DR/helios version of the strawberry control room" which to me reinforces the connection between helios desks and early A&DR modules.

The strawberry helios seems to be in-line monitoring? I always think of them as split desks but I guess they made the change when the jh500 blew up. This is a ton of ancient history!

UPDATE: Raindirk is claiming that by 73 it was one if their desks at De Lane Lea? And Raindirk replaced the classic Heliis at Olympic.... hmmmmm

If its LDR (homebrew vactrol, you seal some sort of variable light source in a tube with an LDR on the other end) based it's likely cribbed from the univibe 4 stage design or something of that lineage. That makes me think maybe Dick cribbed it from a stomp as suggested. Although the first OTA (operational transconductance amplifier) IC was released in 69 and I think that's what's in the phase 90 and small stone. I forget now. It's a CD3080 or something? S9meone jog my memory. Most pedal phasers utilize OTAs, not vactrols... interestingly, it's a vactrol that's behind the Buchla low pass gate. It's the same thing that's in opto compressors and the trem circuit of most blackface fender amps. I don't have the faintest idea how its implemented in a phaser.

There are more photos from that shoit. I'll see if I can dig them up

I'm still no closer to figuring out what console has a 40mm channel width. Its gotta be some euro broadcast standard like @pkennethk mentioned yesterday

I just caught that. Sound techniques belongs to PMI now along with Trident. Trident is back for off the shelf studio use with the 88, 78 and 68 models, sound techniques is custom order only. The current base model desk looks nice, it even has impedance switching on the mic preamps, a rare and desirable feature, particularly on a desk pre. Only the rare Forte and Studio desks by focusrite come to mind when I think of that feature and I only assume they had it because the ISA range does. I digress.

I necro posted a thread about De Lane Lea's custom sound techniques on my rare and vintage consoles group to see who (if anyone) had more detailed info. I also included the ad copy for the 200 phaser asking whether it was maybe meant to retro fit to sound techniques frames.

I can call Dave too. That's more of a longshot.

UPDATE: Dave is stumped. I also searched group DIY's ADR schematic archive but there's nothing that predates the scamp rack. If you need to service a compex though, I can get you schematics for every version.

By the way, why do you keep calling the phasers flangers?

I'm doing a lot of posting from the ICU where I'm sitting with my friend who is fighting what is now officially brain cancer. When the docs are in doing rounds while I'm there I'll hit up equipboard from the waiting room. I'm not at my sharpest. But the instant flaanger fl201 and instant phaser ps101 are 2 different products.

So what's up with Studio Techniques? I've never heard of them. I know Sound Techniques. Studio Techniques is new to me. I'm pretty sure I've seen a shot of Floyd leaning on that desk in the control room from the beat instrumental pg24 shot. It was different than the Getty images you posted, but the same control room. Someone posted it in my large format consoles group. Where did he get that pic? I wonder if any oldsters in that group could help us? Let me explore that. Or maybe my friend Dave Lesage. He was starting out in Europe and the UK at that time just prior to settling in NY. Hmmm

@pkennethk too

So a neve 10 series strip is 45mm... nope

What about a Trident? How wide were the A range and B range? I thought they were wider than a neve. The TSM isn't until 1978 or 79 and the 80 isn't until, you guessed it, 1980.

The allison research 700 series was meant to be compatible with some other frame standard. They're specced at 1 and 5/8" a little over 41mm. 500 series and all api modules actually are 1.5" which clocks in low at 38.1mm. 800 and 900 didn't exist yet.

What about cadac and calrec? And did BBC have a required channel width? They were really fussy back then.

There's the aforementioned Helios desks, I have no idea how wide thise modules were. You almost never see them. I've seen one and didn't get to use it. Looked Neve 1073 sized. 45mm and 40mm areclose. Take a look at picture 5 in this completed reverb listing:

Vintage Helios Console https://reverb.com/item/17883085?utm_source=android-app&utm_medium=android-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=17883085

Note the price tag that could buy a modest home in a mediocre school district on the east coast... or a palace in the midwest.

I think eyesee is right. 40mm is probably helios channel strip width and the height of the 200 is probably the same as the mic pre and eq module, probably the routing module too. None of us are ever going to be a ble to confirm this. Does anyone know Eddie Kramer? He might know.

So do these flangers predate the eventide instant phaser? I think the instant flanger came before the flanger, right? I don't have those dates down. I could Google it but that doesn't prolong an interesting conversation.

Get rid of the video. The item is meant to be a mk2 200 watter. Not headphones. Look at the artists and the sole comment.

Who HASN'T used power tools to make music?

It was winning the war in the 90s and when API was acquired by ATI (the company that made the awesome Paragon live desk) in the early 2000s I remember them throwing the format open... at first there were kit companies, I seem to remember seventh circle was early on the scene with riffs on the 312 preamp that used different opamps and iron but basically the api topology at +/-15v. API is a direct descendant of quad8 and sphere... and I think Saul Walker had something to do with Melcor too. Quad8 is also highly tied up with Jensen and Cinemag. Cinemag used to be Reichenbach who supplied all the transformers to Q8 and Dean Jensen worked at quad8 and their later op amps are baby steps toward the world famous jensen 990. He also got into the transformer game obviously and we all know how good Jensens are. 500 series was originally for eq and compression only, the 300 series was for preamps, line amps and what they called boost amps. The current 512c is a 312 preamp in a 500 form factor with some additional features like a ballistic meter and jfet direct input filling up the larger faceplate. At various points api has tried to market 300 racks since they still make the original cards, but they never seem to catch on i guess since there aren't any 3rd party products. For awhile there was a 200 series, just for 212 preamps. All x12 preamps are essentially the same circuit consisting of a 1:7 transformer feeding a 2520 opamp balanced by a quad-or-bifiliar output transformer that allows you to select for a little passive gain bump on most variations via a switch that puts extra windings in line. Some 500 versions have a trim control and the aforementioned boost amp between the actual mic preamp and transformer. They all sound basically the same unless you overload them which is what the 1:1output switch or trim are for. Modern folks like dirt. Different versions allow you to coax saturation from different places, 2520 or output transformer.

For what it's worth, I own valley 800 gear and dbx 900 and they're both solid formats with nice modules. 900 was pretty ubiquitous in live sound rigs when I was young. Both have higher voltage rails than 500, although I don't know how much difference 2 or 3volts a rail makes. A 990 on the other hand is a +/-24v affair (you can go lower but why?) and exudes imaging and headroom while the quad8 am series amps all ran at a whopping +/-28!!!! Almost double the api 2520, although I think the Jensen will still win in a headroom shootout due to the ability of its output pair to drive virtually any load up to a solid 20dBu IIRC

EDIT: With a super matched monolithic n channel jfet pair, a complementary p channel single, a handful of resistors, 2 caps and a current source diode you can build a surprisingly great op amp on perf board that will kick out around +20 into a 10k or higher load, like a standard fader. Its not unity gain stable configured non inverting but it can be used as an inverting buffer. You can get mk ore gain with a larger feedback resistor but distortion will increase. You can run it on up to 30v bipolar regulated. It's an interesting little circuit I saw in a hifi magazine if anyone is interested in rolling a basic op amp. Its suitable for summing, basic line amp duties, could be made into a very classy boost pedal or with another single ended amp after it you could make a snazzy mic preamp. A pair could be turned into a discrete high voltage version of Ted Fletcher's super balanced input circuit as long as you want more than a gain of 1... actually just 1 could be used to unbalance and amplify balanced lines.

Sorry, back on topic. So the 200 phasers were 3rd party console modules? That sounds odd.

There are so many of these formats from the 70s and 80s. In america alone you had spectrasonics 100 which was adopted by multiple console makers who used 101 and 110 cards, whatever quad 8 and sphere used, api 500, allison 700 based on the console paul buff made for zappa, valley 800 which was also Paul buff, dbx 900 that wss also adopted by aphex.... I'm probably missing some

The old vocalstressor and compex are really cool but I've never run into a manual flanger or auto flanger

Maybe it's time for an overhaul of the band creation system.

I think it might've beenbetter if you hadn't created a second entry for him and you had just asked an Admin to correct the misspelling. Oh well, whats done is done, this is beyond my powers to sort out. @Michael @Michael, sort this shiznit out

I'm giving serious thought to making a youtube video. At one point me and my friend Dave Lesage were talking about making a show out of our zoom calls but he got cold feet o guess.

Edit:

Recent production multi fx that sound OK https://www.sweetwater.com/used/listings/193208-used-tc-electronics-tc-electronic-m-300?%2Flistings%2F193208-used-tc-electronics-tc-electronic-m-300=&acctid=21700000001645388&adpos=largenumber&awsearchcpc=1&campaignid=21493289649&channel=online&creative=706697184393&device=m&ds_s_inventory_feed_id=97700000041860162&ds_s_kwgid=58700008750995430&dskeywordid=92700080518145352&dsproductgroupid=2187553398896&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw2Je1BhAgEiwAp3KY79WDIRKsDMmA2MzMg-CCjhMqI8JU8xPZ0-qaJ9MsbYFEhcU-RU3C2xoCrDkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&lid=92700080518145352&locationid=9007228&matchtype=&mrkgadid=&mrkgbflag=&mrkgcat=&mrkgcl=28&mrkgen=&network=g&prodctry=ZZ&prodlang=en&product_id=GX-193208&storeid=&targetid=pla-2187553398896

This guy has all the discontinued TC nova stomp box digital fx and G system stuff in one handy dual engine stereo unit. I mainly use the 2290 ducking delay and the plates on mine, but everything sounds good and it sounds different than an affordable lexicon. Everyone should have an m300 and mx200, that's all your bread and butter fx right there... in 2 flavors.

I have nothing to host rack gear. Besides, I have an EHX Canyon and plenty of reverb plugins.

Lame. Buy a rack already. I think the 1 upshot of this korg reverb us it shares the nice preamp circuitry of the sdd3000 delay which means if you're the type to plug a guitar right into it you get that nice tone as you make up the 25dB of gain for the ad converter

What you don't realize is that Sony bought MCI in the 80s and went all in on the pro audio market culminating in the C8000 and the first convolution reverb, dre s7000. They also acquired the developer who created Acid, the forerunner to ableton and they really pu sdd hed the hell out if time stretch technology.

I totally forgot they acquired Sonic Foundry at the start of the millennium. Sound Forge was so great. You're right, Sony really were crazy enough to really try and go there before all this technology was "democratized".

I'm really brand loyal. All of my consumer AV stuff is Sony and Panasonic. Obviously I like Sony pro audio so I have a sony tv and reciever, but I like Panasonic because they make some of my favorite capacitors... they're a cut above Mallory and are smaller than similar Wimas.

Anyway, I used soundforge until about 2008 i think. Even when i worked at a place that used wavelab i installed soundforge on their machines, although I eventually got with the program, no pun intended. I also really like sequoia now but have yet to purchase it. I really don't want to be mastering my mix work for people. Once I like my mix I can't be objective and my room isn't up to snuff, although the ghetto master I dud on Thom's acoustic track sounds pretty lush to me even 6mos later

What you don't realize is that Sony bought MCI in the 80s and went all in on the pro audio market culminating in the C8000 and the first convolution reverb, dre s7000. They also acquired the developer who created Acid, the forerunner to ableton and they really pu sdd hed the hell out if time stretch technology. And all digital recording apart from DSD comes from the sony/Phillip's PCM format. They were always at the forefront of stabdalone digital recorders. Apart from otari radar which came later, the sony machines we had at my first job were the best sounding CD quality hard disc recorders, probablythefirst ones actually. Those Lord-Alge bros still use their 48 track digital tape deck. Sony wss a big player until Digidesign and Napster sunk the industry. There was also the Oxford digital console that folks rave about and then the DMX mixers that to my ears still sound good today. Their analog mixers had MCI DNA. I've always enjoyed the clean sound if the mxp line, a 3000 with some 3rd party modules is amazing. Sony were smart enough to get while the getting was good though. They just make microphones now. Really good ones.

EDIT: If anyone has a real budget, the klark teknik dn780 is my favorite sleeper reverb of all time. Its mono in, stereo out but the sound really dits in a mix. I've been using mine extensively lately and not for the AMS non-lin setting, the halls are great... on the last thing I did for @ThCraymer I used a small room on his verse vocals and it really sounded spectacular once I raode the return fader a bit. Its shocking that a 40 year old reverb can sound so legit but it does. For rock and retro synth music I'll take it over a lexicon 480 ir960 because its unobtrusive but still lush enough to be present. The only thing I like more is the quantec yardstick, but those are unobtainium. I believe Steve Alvini told me the Klark was the only digital reverb he liked (it may have been a different punk production icon though, I'm getting old and those drunken AES conventionsare a blur) and I was privileged to try one out shortly after he said that. I finally acquired one about 5 years ago.

My 2nd favorite sleeper us the sony mu-r201, the first true stereo verb. It's the Tomtom magic. There's an ibanez branded version. Expect to pay about 200 clams. The sony r7 is also very very nice but the interface isn't great. The dps multi fx units are also great and easier to patch... I've been thinking of acquiring a 55. Speaking of going with a multi fx unit ,the sony models, the yami spx line and of course the lexi 300 and it's more wallet friendly successors are really the only way to go unless you can afford an eventide H3000 or something. Even my lexi mx200 and 400 will humiliate a quadraverb in every department. Those are great bread and butter units for around 100dollars, the sound is there but there's limited parameter control even in the plugin and the plugin is 32 bit and no longer supported by lexi. I would recommend an mx, lxp, alex or reflex over anything alesis as someone's sole hardware processor. But if you can step up to an six or sony? Do it.

But always remember that reverb is a privilege, not a right. If I catch anyone slapping one of the units i mentioned across their master bus or using it as a vocal insert I'm going to come to your bedroom studio and confiscate it!

In the $100-ish dollar rack reverb price range, I would go Alesis Quadraverb or one of the late-80s/early-90s Lexicon LXP products... and after trying a bunch of different low and high-end vintage verbs myself, years ago, this IS how I went... but reverb is a very much a personal-taste thing, obviously.

Over 50 I would go Sony... prices on digital reverbs have inflated lately as people realize their plugins aren't so hot

Lexicon Alex and Reflex are good sub $100 entry level devices and both have various sweet variations on the lexi tight room sound, the most used as well as underrated algorithm of the 80s and 90s

I think its worth 50 shipped. Meh!

I have a hard on for 1/2 and 1/3 rack compressors and EQs... little devices in a proprietary mounting shelf are sexy... I've got an obscene number of racked RNCs because you have 3 channels or 6 channels in stereo pairs in 1u, and the mounting hardware is spit cheap

I've heard an fb01 in action, I thought it sounded pretty decent. They're cheap as hell.

I gotta be honest, I think I first heard of them through a periodical. Same with westerberg and the replacements.

I have found a better photo: https://mcb.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/uploads/awardee_photos/photo/5be099d850e50a042a00000b/valente_03.jpg

That's much better but I'm getting an error when I try to change it. Had to alert the admins. Bare with us.

So you own that piano? Can you make a demo video?

I'm a tx7 man now. All my dx7 keyboards are gone. No space.

Really? Where? All I could find was their Trident 65.

It WAS a trident sorry... it's amazing what thru did with that 65, it's a mediocre desk. Just a soundcraft with an inflated pricetag.

EDIT: Apparently Portugal. The Man is seeking a decommissioned MR4, too.

That's the MR4. Got them mixed up.

but prefer to work with Jeff Lipton

Ah, your buddy! I just saw his name attached to a Daptone record last week: Reigning Sound’s Shattered.

If I have a couple good experiences with a collaborator I'm fiercely loyal to them. Speaking of Daptone, their Harrison MR4 console us on reverb but I have a bad feeling it'll need a lot of work if they decommissioned it. It's not priced all that well for a less popular Harrison model.

BL may have also distinguished from the PA models.

Of course but I think its base and lead like the marshall 20watt lead and bass.

That looks cool, I want one.

https://equipboard.com/items/valente-electric-piano

I always thought the 100 sounded brittle but people have made good use of it. There's also the full size key version, the dx27 and the other consumer model, the dx21. All of them are 12 bit converters IIRC

Is that the owner of Sterling or one of the other mastering engineers? I took a few things up there in my old band when they had a deal with our label but prefer to work with Jeff Lipton. I didn't like what Ue dud with our stuff, nothing against him. Very knowledgeable guy.

Anyway, everything Sterling said is dead on. If I'm not mistaken the LA50 has lower plate voltages and shared cathodes on V1 like a jtm45 or early blackflag jtm50. I think the BL stands for bass and lead because the 2 halves of v1 (each half is a channel with its own volume and they sum at the next stage) is biased up and bypassed totally independently whereas shared cathodes both channels are the same apart from coupling and bright caps which come after the tube and form crude high pass filters. Marshall brought this in around 69 or 70 and it really delineates the Marshall sound from the bassman sound.

The mk1 and tx7 have a place in my heart. Those old DACs have a sound alright. I started on a mk2 and you can replace it with software... or an even more capable synth like an sy series or ex5. The FM in the later yamahas sounds exactly like the mk2 and you get a few other engines and fx.

EDIT: the SYs like the 22, 35 and even the 85 are not comparable, some are like a juiced up tx81z, and the 85 is a 99 without FM. But the 77 and 99 are like a dx7mk2+++++ and the ex5 is their greatest digital synth, made for deep sound design.

Did you just acquire a dx7 mk1

Yeah, I remember Iommi saying he disliked the Klipp. His TT100 is just s juiced up GL100 which is just a tweaked jcm800 2203. They're all just hotrodded tweed bassmans.

I hope I got this right. I know the pre supergroup amps are the same as the supergroup amps, it really is just a plexi knockoff with different components. The first circuit change I know of at laney is the Klip series which is meant to fo iommi without an external boost.

I believe they're the same amp, which is a 100 watt superlead circuit equipped with partridge transformers like hiwatt used. The old ones go by various designations. I think the supergroup tag came in later. I'm not sure about the reissues.

Yeah, there used to be a 3rd party knob-per-function midi box for it. Not sure if it's still in production. Google it.

Dude! That screed about Bob Mould and recording at Pachyderm made me laugh so hard I almost yakked!