The Future of Microsound?

[Rich LePage]

You're right of course about the op amps and the rest.

Amazed though you'd mod a Tascam Model 5 in terms
of the cost of the mods versus the rest of the parts, like
faders, switches, and so much else. But if it works for you,
that's great.

Your logic about diff coloration seems sound to me.
I know several folks who have done diff channels of
a board set up completely diff. in terms of channel
strips, op amps, EQs, pres, and so on. One guy managed
to build a board with Neve, Trident, API and several other
modules in the thing- in blocks of 8 channels I think.

I still have a real ancient Model 5 somewhere in storage, from
way back when I used it sometimes with a Teac 1/2" 8 track
and DBX. I did some location jazz albums in clubs that way, but
the stuff wasn't exactly built for the road and could get pretty dodgy.

I viewed that stuff mostly as "acquisition devices" for work like that.
You could do those jobs taking up only one or two tables in a jazz
club-- which was a big deal to the club owner too...

Big studio boards suffered from the same "go through so much stuff"
you mention. Examples include MCI boards (and mult passes through
the VCAs especially), and Audio Designs, which were real popular
around NYC for a while. With Audio Designs you were also going
through a zillion transformers. Every stage of the board was
boosted up to +4 or +8 and balanced- then passed on to the next
stage and done all over again, whether it was needed or not.

Result was a TON of coloration. I'm sure not against
transformers (many folks were/are)-- but that many-- geez-
between that and the early op amps it was a battle every time.
Phase shift, and the slewing problems of the early op amps--
you could def. hear all that stuff big time- not to mention
noise buildup from all those gain stages.

Luckily that vintage usually had a lot of patching and so you
could bypass some stages of the board if you had a zillion
patchcords and got there plenty early before the session start!
I used to carry around a bag of extra patch cords back then...

With the MCI's (later Sony) a lot of people modded them,
I know a few who still use 'em. One in particular is still used
for a lot of high-profile acoustic jazz work and sounds very
good -- but HEAVY mods.

Neve did things differently. You sure can't say Rupert's
stuff didn't color things, but a lot of folks still prize that
partic. coloration. A lot of those boards were parted out
because the modules etc became worth more $ individually
than as an entire console.

Cleanest (in terms of coloration) preamp we have is an
early one by John La Grou (Millennia) who was an Medit
user as you likely know. Probably a result of his extensive
classical recording work.

I like the old Soundcraft, we still run it in one mostly analog
production/mix room which also has 2 old Medit systems
with Microsync (486 CPUs, m/boards with an ISA slot!!-gosh..)
At some point that room will get repurposed probably,
but we still do some restore-from-tape work and other things
that it's useful for, though less every year. Oh yeah, a convection
OVEN is also a feature of that room! (for shake and bake that tape!)

And like Geezer noted, every time you use that stuff, you are
SO reminded of all the alignment and tweaking issues that used
to be part of every day work. Often hard to just sit down and mix
without first having to put on the tech hat for a while.

[Gary Boggess]

Originally Posted by Rich LePage

You're right of course about the op amps and the rest.

Amazed though you'd mod a Tascam Model 5 in terms
of the cost of the mods versus the rest of the parts, like
faders, switches, and so much else. But if it works for you,
that's great.
.

Well... the faders, pots and switches aren't causing issues.
BTW... I've got the 12 channel Expander, for 20 channels total.
Since I don't actually mix or eq very with it very often, it's
mostly a monitoring mixer, sub mixer for MIDI, and 90% of the
time, I use one channel with an AKG 414 for the vocal booth.
I have a couple tube mic pre's but since using the OP2604's,
op-amps I have found the modified mixer to be cleaner!

I will admit that I chose to mod the Model 5 instead of buy
a new board... due to cost and time. Remaking 20 or more
channels of harness to the patchday, with inserts, direct outs,
tape in, monitoring outs, effects returns and all... I was looking
at spending approx $5500 in closts plus a month or so down time,
verses piece meal caps, IC's and metal film resistors,
one channel at a time.

The upgrade costs total approx. $245. And since I don't use the
board to MIX, (doing that on the MicroEditor) it was the easier
road to improvement. And fortunately, the improvement was
stellar. Along with a religiously implemented start grounding scheme,
I have no noise, hum, or buz.

When I worked at Electric Melody Studios, on the 2nd floor of
the Lantana Center in Santa Monica overtop Lucas' Skywalker Sound...
we had a 48 channel Neve with flying faders in our main mixing stage.

In the pre-lay room where I was set up, I had a 32 channel
Soundcraft board that maybe needed overhauled.
It was noisier than my TEAC Model 5B BEFORE my recent mods!
It really had some major hiss. I was amazed how our $$$ Neve console
was so under used! We barely had time to employ the flying faders.
I remember we rarely bother to use to EQ. With two to three session
per day, for movie trailers, TV commercials and general voice overs,
we didn't have time to LOG eq's and etc. Even with flying faders,
we hardly had time tap the Neve's offerings. There was always
the fear that today's project may come back for a change,
and if we had used eq, we wouldn't be able to match.
We used a 32 track Mitsubishi, a 24 track MCI, and a 16 track Post Pro.

Paying for all of this stuff was also a major burden...
pushing us to take on as much work as possible.
We had nearly $3M in leased audio gear! So although we were
well equipt, we really didn't use it to the fullest benefit.
However, it looked impressive as heck!!

So, when I look at my modified TEAC Model 5 mixer, I see a tool
that does what I need it to do, and it's paid for. And since the mods...
I wonder if this piece of crap thing isn't BETTER than some of the newer
stuff. I get plenty of tracks in here from other studios. Tracks recorded
through Mackies, SSL's, Yamaha's and others... and just recently, drum tracks
recorded into PT HD3. All I can say is, track to track,
I'm recording tracks CLEANER with my old antique.

[Rich LePage]

Yep to all of it-- it works for you and you're getting the
results you want, and to me that's always what it's been
all about.

My Model 5 days usually involved the expander too,
though for some of those live-in-a-club gigs there
wasn't room for it. In some jazz clubs how much space you
were gonna take up was a big deal to the club owners,
and could make or break whether they would allow
the artists to record live in their place, despite the
publicity etc it would generate for them.

I still use a few diff analog boards here, like you mostly
for monitoring, though one style of working I've done
a lot of is to build in Medit using a 4 channel system,
then mix down analog. Big thing for me with that style is
the ability to use various vintage things like LA2s and Pultecs
on the mixdown w/o locking them in using Medit.
Then back to a 2nd Medit system, going back to digital
via a TC Finalizer or other stuff.

Lately I seem to do that less, though I will also do
it at times when using Audition as a multi-track, often
after pre-editing elements in Medit first. But with Audition
2, it functions much more intuitively in the multi-track
mode, more like a board with sends, bussing etc. And the
UA emulations of the LA2, 1176, Pultec and some other
stuff are good, so I'll use them.

It can max out a Pent 4 2.5 gig machine quickly though,
even though the UA stuff runs on its own card.

[Gary Boggess]

How did you get through my previous post with all the typos?
I just read it again... all I can say is...
I must have been more worried about the Cleveland Indians losing to the
Boston Red Sox than I thought!

[Gary Boggess]

A final note concerning my heavily modified
"antique" TEAC TASCAM MODEL 5:

Socketed IC's are a wonderful thing.
(As long as you use the gold plated ones
to ensure optimum contact.)

Having looked over many of the newer mixing
boards at various audio retailers... I see
a maintenance issue I don't have with my
old module based Model 5:
the larger scale circuit boards used currently
make repairs a major ordeal.

When I have a problem, I have two choices:
a) Remove two skrews, pop the front panel, remove one *****
I meant skrew, *geesh Dave*
and PULL the channel module, pop in a few new op-amps,
and re-install. The process takes less than 15 minutes.

b) Change out a module... but how could I improve on (a) ?

I stock at least 50 spares of each chip type thanks to Ebay.
A while ago, I bought a 3rd Model 5 board as a spare
and for remote use. So, I've always got SOMETHING
to get through the moment.

If I had a newer mixing board... repairs would THEN mean...
UNPLUGGING THE ENTIRE CHASSIS and unscrewing a
major portion of the casing, just to replace an op-amp!

And in my case, where I've harnessed the entire board's rear
I/O's to the PATCH BAY, it just looks like a newer mixer would be
the more trouble than it's worth!

RE: screws, ***** or skrew...
(Pitty to the forum if Dave or "the web meister" get their
hands on a Thesarus of Rap and Heavy Metal words!!!!)

[Rich LePage]

Yeah, these days are def a "when it acts up,
replace it" type of thing - another symptom of much else that's
not as fixable as once was.

It has made some stuff very cheap and reasonably
quiet... but fixable- not! Everyone uses "surface mounted
components" which are almost impossible to repair --if
you can even get parts that will fit. (Mouser and Digikey
are a couple places I've often bought from)

I had left a pair of Audio Technica 4033's at an outside
studio for a few days, someone used them w/o my OK,
and dropped one hard. I sent it to A/T but not repairable
in the end. They tried and sent it back, but it sounded so
diff we refused to keep it.

Just about everything else is same- from your wall oven
to (in my case) a Jeep SUV. Squirrels from hell munched
on its wiring and fried its 2 computers- resulting in not
running at all, big tow bill, and bigger $ to replace both
"modules" and rework the main harness.

When we did the work on the Soundcraft and also on some other
old stuff, we indeed socketed many things, same reasoning as
yours w/the Mod 5. I also had done that for ages on Ampex cards
and on some old UREI pieces - in partic. the "little dipper" filter
set they made, which I used to use a lot.

[Gary Boggess]

I used to but newer "state of the art" stuff.
These days, I don't. Not unless there's a client
asking for it or a project I KNOW will be significantly
better if I upgrade something. As I did last year
with the WAVES plugins. I've watched too many
studios COME UP and GO DOWN because of debt...
while trying to BUY ALL THE LATEST AES hype gear.
The sentiment of "buy it and THEY will come"
is too risky in our current economy.

Once, I paid $9800 for the Emulator I.
(Synclavier was WAY WAY WAY too expensive for me).
I was the first (I know of) studio in Ohio to have a sampler.
For six months, I did have calls to the Cleveland area ad
agencies to do effects sampling and musical application of
hamburgers frying, chopping sfx and etc for GD RITZY commercials.
And there were a few others.

While I was paying monthly for the Emu I... for 3 years...
Sequential Circuits came out with the Prophet 2000
with 10 times the features for $2500 the next year!!!
I bought one ASAP... and eventually two!
I still have them... the filters are ONE OF A KIND!
I also have FOUR Emulator samplers (two e6400 Ultras/E4X/e6400)
which I bought off of Ebay for a total of $1350...
plus I've spent $$$$ on sample libraries too.
These samplers are incredible musical tools... and
sound BEEFY, MUSICAL and have real KNOBS!
I know that many who traded their Emu samplers
for the newer software versions have retreated!
So I love advancements these days... the "crowds"
dump their great stuff for newer junk...
and I can buy great tools for pennies on the dollar!

Unless it's a monitor speaker, or a sensitive device
that's easily damaged, I say buy it off of Ebay
and take your wife to dinner with the savings.
The newer junk isn't THAT much better these days...
and the savings from buying TWO or more years
OLDER gear is just too smart from every aspect.
If you want it today and it's $950, wait a year or
two and you'll buy it for $300 or less.

Not to mention that people are trading off their
stuff way too early to know if the new stuff is actually better!
And in numerous cases, I've determined the NEW
STUFF is often the future CLASSIC STUFF people
salivate for. Case in point, my Moog MINIMOOG Model D.
I bought it in 1972 for $1250 and it's worth over $3700
now if not more. And many of my music clients ask
me to use it on their music.

Old isn't necessarily old... and new isn't necessarily better.
MicroSound is also such a case (for the most part.)

For me to spend money... my decision to BUY is
based on one or more of the following points:

it has to make my work:
a) more profitable and be requested by clients
b) faster and easier without causing more issues

and it has to:
c) be something I need or at least WANT
d) be manufactured with integrity so I can rely on it
e) fit within the design concept of my facility
f) significantly IMPROVE the audio quality to a noticeable extent

And with all that in mind... you'd think I'd already have ProTools!
Truth is, I get about two calls a year that ask for ProTools.
However, I know of several Tampa area ProTools studios
who are no longer in business. The rest of the inquiring people
just want to record and produce their projects.
My hourly rate seems to be the major deciding factor... to
the point I often ask: "does it matter if the person who records
your sound has any experience or knowledge that would make
your recording good enough to actually SELL & MAKE money?"