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Another cool old console.....


Philip Perkins

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  • 2 weeks later...

The first "real" console that I got to really explore... when I started as a student at the college where I now have worked for 25 years, this was what we had, a Cetec Electrodyne 2000, 1972 vintage.

 

61_med.jpeg

 

After she left our hands(to this day I kick myself for not getting a pair of each of the 709 and 712 input modules), she eventually ended up in Texas where she is still making records today, 40+ years later!

 

edynelives_med.jpeg

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I wonder how many Pounds of "Hazardous Waste" as surplus electronics are now called, have been added to land-fills in China as a result of Pro Tools.   

Maybe not the PT users as that tends to be high end. The Cubase/Reaper,/Logic users are probably the bigger culprit with lots of home recording studios and changing tech.

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  • 1 year later...

The small console is a 1968 Electrodyne ACC 1204 console (with all 712L graphic EQ's).  Only about 8 of these exist today.   Mine is the only one like this and I'm about to sell it to Soma Studios over in Chicago (I do mastering for a living and she just doesn't get used enough unfortunately).  She will be greatly missed.

 

The tube console is an early 1960 console built out of all Langevin parts (it's a 12x3 track).  It was custom built for UCLA's theater department. The custodian was told to bring it to the dump.  He started searching the internet and found an article I had penned on the History of Electrodyne, Quad Eight and Sphere and contacted me as he saw I was into these old Electrodyne/Langevin 201A tube modules (basically a Langevin 5116B in a smaller "cassette" type style housing).

 

I have old Melcor AE20 mic pre's and EQ's as well as part of the Hollywood Bowl Quad Eight console (MM71 Mic pre's and EQ's) in custom lunch boxes I had made (you can see those in the second picture, they now sit in the live room next to the equipment I'm recording). I have two racks of Langevin and Electrodyne 201A tube mic pre's (12 in total) that feed most of my front end when recording (one rack stays permanently attached to my 1964 Gretsch drum kit). The Q8's, Melcor, Edynes and Helios modules make up the rest.

 

I wish I did more recording as this is my favorite chain ever. I at one time or another owned Neve, Flcikinger, Quad Eight and Trident consoles.  The older I got the further back in time I went till I discovered the sound I was looking for.  That said, all my mastering equipment is modern bleeding edge gear for the most part.  Best of both world IMHO.

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that is some sweet stuff.  Via my contacts @ and around UCLA, it doesn't surprise me that some admin there would tell a janitor to take that custom console to the dump.  I heard of another fine old console from there that was basically left out on the loading dock until it was stolen, as a way of getting rid of it.

 

philp

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I'd love to hear and use the gear. Jealous. I enjoy any kind of recording, but music recording is more fun for me because I love making music with others and making it a recording we all like. I've done far less of that than sound/voice recording for film (and digital these days) and it is more exciting to me...   Thanks for sharing.    

CrewC

ps.  is your mic collection this cool?

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Well, what the heck, here's the one from my first job.

 post-2900-0-78103000-1395160349_thumb.jp

 

Tubed amp and preamps were all in the box. It generated a -lot- of heat.

 

--  The preamp cards were early printed circuit, with solder mounted mini 9 pin tube sockets. After a few years of being on 24/7, those cards would get kind of warm… starting to melt the solder. A couple of power cycles and normal operating vibration after that, and the sockets would get incredibly microphonic because of the crystalized cold solder. We had to reflow the sockets on a regular basis.

 

 

--  On the other hand… one listener would stop by early Friday evenings, on his way home from work, with a bag of fried clams from one of the better Boston harbor food shacks. (Quincy Market was a working produce/fish market in those days.)

    The front of the console hinged down for maintenance. 

    So I could open the console, put a bag of clams next to the power amp...

   and have a nice hot meal around 11 PM.

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  • 11 months later...

Old post but I'm starting to restore the Langevin tube console right now and was just wondering if there are any UCLA theater, film and television alumni here that might remember this board from the 1960's and 70's.

I'm trying to find out more about the history of this console and the cast and jazz albums that were Recorded through this.

Any help would be great appreciated. Thank you.

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You want home-brew, next-to-no-budget? Advertising boutique studio, 1972.

 

171consoleSm.jpg

 

Allen & Heath Quasi mixer, Orban spring, 2 API compressors, 2 Quad-eight noise gates, 2 "Multi-track" brand(!) parametrics, 2 Modutec VUs, and an awful lot of home-brew switching and control. With furniture I built on my father-in-law's table saw. 

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I saw this short on TCM called "The Soundman"  Produced in the day of Optical Sound Recording.

There are a lot of shots of Vintage Equipment before the advent of Magnetic recording.

One curious thing though.  In the scene where they show the Re-Recording Mixers, there is a shot over the shoulder of the Mixers At about 5:40 that show a "Digital VU meter"  (really a row of incandescent lamps lighting up indicating instantaneous level)  Identical to the LED meters found on all our Mixers today....  Mind you this is in the day when they were mixing Optical sound tracks and recording on Film.

 

Here is a link to the Video on You Tube...  Worth a look if you haven't seen it before

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZPZHxePvWo

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