Early Digital Audio – Preservation Sound

Eventide Pro Audio Gear circa 1980

Download 17 pages of Eventide promotional material / data sheets and price lists circa 1979 – 1981:

DOWNLOAD: Eventide_1980

Products covered, with text, photos, and some specs, include: Harmonizer HM80, H949 and H910; LU618 de-glitch board (ooops); HK940 keyboard, FL 201 instant flanger and BPC 101 phaser card; 2830 omnipressor; BD955 Broadcast delay line 1745M delay line; JJ193 delay line; TIMESQUEEZE system with PTC 945 precision tape controller; RD770 Monstermat mon/stereo matrioxing unit; and the Eventide Real Time Analyzer systems THS 224 and VTU02.

I am a big Eventide fan. We have their classic H3000 Harmonizer at our studio Goldcoast Recorders (one of only two digital processors we’ve kept in the main mix room). At home (where I don’t have room for a big outboard rack)I heavily depend on my Eventide Space reverb pedal, which is pretty likely the greatest effect pedal ever made. I use it on literally every electric guitar and electric piano I record at home, and most synths as well.

I’ve had my eye on these early ‘compact’ HM80 harmonizers for a while; seems tough to find but would def tie the vintage synth ‘rig’ together.

One of my favorite patches in the SPACE (#19 ‘NEBULA’) models the above OMNIPRESSOR – it reverses the attack envelope of any sound. Simple in principle, but the crazy part is it actually works. I’d love a ‘real’ Omnipressor for the mix room at GoldCoast but these seem pretty much impossible to find for a reasonable sum.

Commodore PET anyone? Of little interest to most, the download package contains a ton of info on Eventide’s PET-based RTA system.

Using vintage Eventide in your system? Drop a line a weigh in.

The JVC 900 Digital Audio Mastering System of the early 1980s

Download the complete sales materials for the circa 1982 JVC 900 series of digital-audio-mastering products:

DOWNLOAD: JVC_900_Digital_Audio_System

Products covered, with text, specs, and photos, include: the JVC AE-900V Digital Audio Editor, the DS-DM900 Digital Audio Mixer, the VP-900 Digital Audio Processor (AFAICT, a duplex stereo A/D, D/A), the TC-900V timecode unit, RM-900 remote, CR-850U 3/4″ ‘umatic’ tape machine, DS-FC901 Digital Interface Unit, DS-SU900 Sync unit, and BR-8600 1/2″ tape machine AKA a real expensive VCR.

Contributor Tom Fine told us, “this was a competitor to the Sony 1600 system.” We’ve covered the early Sony units bit in the past (see here and here) – they were available early as 1978 – but I have never come across this JVC system before. As Richard Hess writes in his very thorough blog,

“JVC had a competing (with SONY -ed) and incompatible mastering system called the DAS-90 and later the DAS-900. …The processor in the DAS-90 system was called (at least at one point) the BP-90 while the processor in the DAS-900 series was the VP-900. The first version (DAS-90) used 3/4″ U-Matic video cassettes while the second version (DAS-900) used either U-Matic of VHS video cassettes (the latter to obtain longer playing time). I have not been able to confirm if tapes made on the DAS-90 can play on the DAS-900 or not. Early input says they are compatible and should interchange.”

But damn look at this lil 4×2 digital mixer! It’s like a lil baby SSL! And this is an actual digital mixer, btw – it’s just styled to look/feel like an analogue desk. Crazy.

Anyone out there still using this system for anything? Thoughts? Let us know!