Products covered, with text, some specs, and photos, include: Brush Magnetic tape recorders BK414, 710B, 810, and 808 Twin-trak; hi-fi tube amps from Brooks (10C3, 12A3), Meissner 9-1093 tuner amp and 9-1091C, RJ-12A tuners; tuners from Browning, Many Stephens Tru-sonic speaker systems and drivers including P-63HF, P-52A, P-52LX, P-52HF; Hi fi amps including Scott 210-A, Fisher SA-1, Altec Lansing 323B, Newcomb HLP-14A, Bogen PX-15, Thordarson 31W10AX; Bell 2122, Masco MA-12EZand Rauland 1825; FM tuners from Espey, Meissner, Craftsmen, Howard; Customode hi-fi furniture and cabinetry; Altec drivers including the 603B, 600B, 400B; Jensen drivers incl. JRP40, HNP-51, JAP-60; Cinaudagraph speakers CIN-12A, 15B, 15C; and so, so, so much more.
Earlier this year Nathan Halpern and I scored Nanfu Wang’s new film “I am another you.” The film debuts at the SXSW film festival this weekend, and INDIEWIRE just named it “one of 13 must-see films” at the fest. We previously worked with Nanfu on her Oscar-shortlisted doc Hooligan Sparrow, and I am another you will only strengthen her reputation as one of the freshest, boldest new filmmakers out there. I am v v proud of my work on this project; it’s a beautiful and fascinating film and i was able to use a lot of new techniques and sounds for the first time in a production.
Apologies for the poor image quiality; these came from the research department of a long-gone British broadcast-gear-manufacturer via some dampish papers that I purchased recently from a rare-books-dealer in London. I had never heard of the Fairchild 627 ‘Variable Equalizer,’ even though I recently sold an example of its (even-more-rare) predecessor the model 540, which in retrospect seems to be the ‘boost’ sections of the 627 plus a mic preamp plus a 20-watt cutter-head power amp. Well shit. Now i wish I had measured the values of the triple-ganged frequency-select pots. Why? We will get to that in a minute.
A quick google search suggests that there are thought to be only 5 Fairchild 627 equalizers in existence. One seems to have sold on eBay recently in the $7000 region. The 627 is a line-level EQ with continuously variable low and high bell boost sections as well as high and low roll offs. Unlike a Pultec, though, it is an active EQ, and it uses some pretty unusual circuitry – especially the high-cut section, which I don’t comprehend at all.
One point to note: T2 should be wired to reverse phase. I was v excited to find this schematic, because it seems like a pretty easy piece to build – there is no mention of the proper B+ voltage, but 250 is generally a safe bet; there are no weird inductors (the UTC S-23 plate-load choke is an off-the shelf part, so we know its specs -5000ohm DC, 300 henries); the audio transformers don’t need to handle DC and the turns ratios are spec’d: BUT: But. Those triple-ganged pots. WTF do we do about them?
Can anyone crack this case? Any insights, pls let us know in the comments section.
On the plus-side: at very minimum, this schematic does reveal an excellent and easy way to implement a 6E5 seeing-eye tube simply paralleled to a grid in the audio path. So at very least, now i know how to use those v excellent things in my mic preamps. Way more evil than a VU meter.
Also: the 6SN7 output section is a neat little self-contained module; def worth trying it with a Hammond 156C choke and an Edcor 15K:600 1/2 watt. The 156C is the closest modern part to the S23 spec; it is rated 150h and 3.7K ohm, seems close enough? I used onna these on a hunch in my OP6-semi-clone and it worked just fine in that application, so I am guessing it may work fine here as well.
SOUNDBREAKING is on air in the US now! Nathan Halpern and I scored this fantastic PBS 8-hour miniseries earlier this year, and it was truly a dream assignment for me. Whether you know a lot or a little about music production, the show is certain to be illuminating. Read a great review that ran today in the Hollywood Reporter. It’s on television in the US now, and available online here.
Yes it’s that time again: Open Studios at the American Fabrics Artists’ space in historic Bridgeport CT. As per usual we will be offering our annual TAG SALE event. Much rad audio / recording /musical stuff for sale at well below typical online / ebay prices. Used and vintage hi fi gear, rack equipment, vintage microphones, NOS audio tubes, transformers, blah di d blah blah blah
Our ongoing series of cassette multi-track experiments rolls on with the Sansui MR6.
This ADAT-sized multitrack machine dates from 1990 or thereabouts. It records 6 tracks on a standard type 2 audio tape at double speed, with defeatable Dolby C and zero return. And that’s pretty much it. No gain trims, no autolocate, nothing. It really is strictly a tape machine and requires a mixer in order to use it in any sensible way. I picked it up for about $100 on ebay; a quick clean and demag and that’s it. Seems to work fine. High end response seems to trail off around 14k on a first-pass, which is A O K w/me. Here’s how it sounds, and thank u Jenny Holzer:
As with the earlier tracks in this series: the rules for tracking and bouncing are simple: no midi. no editing. Nothing u couldn”t do in the 80s. The only effects used for tracking are the Yamaha E1010 that you see there, a cheap boss reverb pedal, console EQ, and acoustic sources were tracked with some compression via that Symetrix 528E you see there. Marimba and shaker/tambo were mic’d with a Neumann KM184; vocals are an EV RE15 for no other reason that it is what I had on the desk at the moment.
Tracking was:
1: Korg volca beats kk/snare pulse sync’d to korg SQ1 driving that repeating 8-note figure on… 2: korg MS20, 3: one-note low pad on Minbrute, 4. Yamaha MR10 toms/CH SN dbl hand-played, 5. elec bass DI’d thru a cheap gtr preamp
(bounce to track 6)
8th note shaker/tambo played w foot, 2. Marimba (doubling and/or harmonizing MS20 part, 3. Basic polyphonic sampler of me singing an ‘A’ note ahhh, 4. analog choir synth sound
(bounce to track 5)
1, 2, 4: vocals (hi is doubled),
3: ch synth pad
My goal as with the previous productions was to mix this all on my lil Mackie Onyx 1220 el cheapo mixer into a single pair in Pro Tools, but I couldn’t find a way to route it while still using two FX returns (my patchbay on this lil desktop rig is very limited). So I played all six final tape tracks into P/T, and once in PT it was hard to resist applying a bit of EQ and compression to each stem. Also mix FX on vocals were via P/T (Echo Boy and Valhalla Verb). But that was it – no editing, no tuning, no fixin’. That weird noise at the head is probably some kinda bias abomination that resulted when I did the first bounce, but it’s really part of the charm, ain’t it. Whole mix is low passed at about 12K, which really ties it together IMO.
Download the entire 16pp TERMINAL RADIO Recording and Hi-Fidelity Equipment catalog:
