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[Stephen Andrew Bright]

From time to time you can still see mics from the Indigo Ranch collection come up for sale, like a pair of KM256s that recently sold on eBay. I have read that Indigo Road got many of their mics from an Abbey Road "Sale of the Century" back in 1980:

   http://soniccircus.com/Sonic-Circus-Acquires-The-Indigo-Ranc h-Collection_2

I have a nice KM253 that came from the Indigo Ranch collection, that had a new PSU made for it by Stephen Paul in 1983. Is there any way of knowing if this mic came from the Abbey Road purchase -- and if it might have been used by the Beatles? It would be amazing there is log book that says which mics (by serial #) were used on each Beatles session!!!

Also, does anybody know why Abbey Road sold so many vintage and historic mics in 1980? And did they buy them all back again sometime later??? Looking at their current locker it seems they have the vintage mic area pretty well covered.

Many thanks in advance for any info or thoughts on this,
Stephen

[Oliver Archut]

Hello Stephen,
In my experience nearly all vintage gear pimps will boost the price if they can make the smallest connection to any famous, studio/artist, etc. that is provable.

The Sonic Circuis guys are pretty loose with their historical facts. About 12 years ago I supplied them with the U73 adjusting manual and the information to open up the low end,  they then marketed it as "EMI mod" for the U73.

There were probably a few mics that were bought from Indigo at an EMI sale, those sales were quite normal in the 80s, but the ones I saw from EMI Colonge had a stock/inventory sticker on the bottom of the PSU and as far as I know the rest of the EMI studios used the same or a similar sticker.

There is still a small chance that it is an EMI mic, you might want to contact the Beatles Recording Book guy.

Best regards,