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[althemusicwizard]

[James Perrett]

Studio Magnetics were at the absolute bottom end of the market for large multitracks so it is no surprise that they use a strange wiring system. The same people made the ACES multitracks in earlier years and I believe they may have had a hand in the Soundcraft machines (but I'm not absolutely sure of this).

I wouldn't advise the wiring scheme that you suggest as there is a big possibility of crosstalk between the channels sharing the same pair. I would use one pair for each channel - you never know when you might want to replace the machine with a properly balanced machine. I would also solder jacks onto the cable at the other end - you'll be thankful you did when you come to change things around.

Cheers

James.

althemusicwizard wrote on Tue, 31 October 2006 10:25

Hi, I've just bought a 1990 Studio Magnetics 2 inch reel to reel. As someone who last used a reel to reel 10 years ago (Fostex R8, G16S) this is all quite new. I'm impressed by the ease you can get to all the parts you might need to service, and the also the pro build qulaity of a machine like this....a bit of a step up from the R8. Anyway,..... I'm trying to wire up the 2inch. The inputs and outputs are on UNBALANCED XLRs, with the following pin configuration. Pin 1 Ground Pin 2 Unconnected Pin 3 Hot (+ve) There is also a 50 way D-type connector (about 55mm in size, I haven't seen one like this before, but it is a 1990 recorder, anybody know what that type of connector is called....it's not an EDAC) which would take all inputs and outputs and is wired in series to the XLR sockets. This would have to be a female connector on the multicore as it is a male connector plate on the back of the machine. The same type of connector is used for the remote for the tape machine, and the diameter of the cable used there is about 12-15mm. Would I be OK in using a 24 way BALANCED multicore using the pair in each for each couple of inputs? So the first 12 lines would feed the 24 inputs, and the next twelve would take the 24 outputs.  I want to terminate the multicore into a jack patchbay....would the best way of doing this be just to solder straight on to the connections of the patchbay rather than trying to solder 48 mono jacks to the multicore. Cheers in advance for any advice, Al

[althemusicwizard]

 

[ssltech]

The Studio Magnetics machines did look a little like the Soundcraft machines, but they had no connection to each other. In fact "Saturn" was the name of the company which spun off from the old Soundcraft machines (taking their name from the "Soundcraft Saturn" which was the follow up to the last Soundcraft machine -the series III?- which was developed shortly before Soundcraft decided that the profit margin in tape machines was simply not good enough and abandoned that product line)... they had some more involved transport servo arrangement called "COLT": -Calculated Open Loop Tension- and they were never a great success... Most people remember the VU meters on the remote as a nice idea... but the meters were about a half-inch in size, and the movements in them were worse than useless, so think "gimmick" rather than "feature".

Studio Magnetics machines were made in Shrewsbury -only about a couple of hundred yards away from where I was born, in fact, by a company originally known as 'ACES'.

ACES console:


ACES got such a bad name for making such complete garbage that they changed their name to 'SECA' for the consoles (Aces backwards... oh yeah... -that'll fool 'em!), and 'Studio Magnetics' for the tape machines. -Same old stuff though. -If you think that's good, then you'd be stunned by Otari... and I think Otari is reasonable but not stellar. -Sounds to me like Studer machines would blow your mind. -That being said, the Fostex R8 was never really more than a toy, so almost anything is a step up.

ACES (later "SECA") consoles were so stunningly bad that the EQ almost couldn't be set flat. Switching in the EQ with the pots set up the middle resuilted in a dramatic response shift of SEVERAL dB...-MEASURED! That stuff really was poor: it made Mackie look like Rolls Royce.

Really, in the early 1980's, ACES were trying to improve their image, and so I answered a 'sits vac' advertisement in the back of "studio Sound" magazine, to see if there was a place for me there... -I was considering my options after a breakup with a fairly longstanding girlfriend and for some reason the notion of returning to where I lived until I was 4 years old seemed worthy of investigation.

However, when I was the factory, and saw how so much of the stuff was "eyeballed-in" in the machine shop, I was a little concerned that this wasn't a very high quality organisation. Rollers were turned on a lathe by an older guy who made only occasional reference to measurement tools, and tolerances were predictably slack. -I might not know any better, had I not also visited the Studer factory, and I can assure you that Regensdorf is a lot different from Shrewsbury!

Unbalanced because it's cheaper. That's the whole story with ACES/Studio Magnetics/SECA. Pin 3 hot for line and pin 2 hot for mic was a British 'standard', also used in Klark-Teknik and Audio & Design gear. -The problem was that until the late 1980's, there was no uniform adoption of any single standard... I used to joke that we Brits liked standards so much tht we had LOTS of them!

If you use twisted pairs with one half of each pair for each channel (i.e. one pair carrying channels 1 and 2, the next pair carrying channels 3 and 4 etc.) you can expect horrendous crosstalk. the inter-conduction capacitance without drain-to-ground in between WILL cause channels it interact in pairs.

-Don't do it.

Incidentally I was offered the job, so I have no ill-will toward the company, but I was so disappointed by the product and the way the company ran, that I couldn't let myself take the job. -As my ife worked out, I'm very glad I didn't... -It's funny what a woman can do to you!

Keith

[althemusicwizard]

[ssltech]

I doubt that they ever made heads. I wouldn't question that they used Otari heads, though I don't know either way.

However, the rollers and guides were turned out on a lathe by a guy in overalls who looked like his next job was making a replacement bolt to hold a starter motor on a tractor...

The metal should polish up if you're careful, but some parts weren't ment to be polished... such as counter rollers etc... they have to have some friction. -If the metal was ferrous (I doubt it) then there could be real rust, but otherwise if it's aluminium alloy based, there'd just be oxidation... Aluminium oxide is actually more stable than aluminium, so leave it alone, unless there's a genuine coarseness to it. Guides and idlers can be polished if you wish, but try not to take any metal off the guide edges... those machines were prone to "weave" in the tape path even before the edges get modified!

I know nothing of the D-sub, but I would suggest using the XLRs. The D-sub may well be cheaper, but you already see the issues associated with using it, and it comes down to a choice between paired crosstalk and a hundred and fifty dollars worth of XLRs... I'd spring for the $150 bucks.

Oh, and by the way... -notice the misspelling of "Professional" in their corporate logo...


Keith

[althemusicwizard]

 

[ssltech]

No provocation taken...

However, at elevated levels, some machines cope better than others.

Heads are reactive components in the signal chain, exhibiting both capacitance and (mainly) inductance. You need a drive circuit which is capable of telling the heads who's boss. If the reflected waveform voltage starts to stray, a low-impedance, high-current output will keep it in check.

Other than that and headroom (particularly if you want to work at higher operating levels such as +9dB/185nWb/m) it's true that the Studer, Otari and other electronics don't stamp much of a thumbprint on the sound. (other than I do remember that the ACES playtback electronics were actually pretty noisy...) -I think (though memory is foggy... this was over 20 years ago) that there may not have been any playback electronics muting... or a couple of other nice touches... Yours may have grown some newer developments since it was a few years later, but overall, the Studers and Otaris had a few nice touches, with Studers having perhaps rather more.

Studer heads are generally accepted to be better at the low end, but be aware that this is speed-dependant, and the dominant aspect of low-end reproduction is ALWAYS the length of the playback head's pole-shoe, unless there's a SERIOUS design flaw elsewhere: -Electronics can and should be linear much lower than  playback head. The high-frequency limit is determined by the playback head gap, again relative to play speed. This is why Repro heads are better-extended at the top end than sync/record heads... smaller gap. -However, you can't record with a repro head, so we live with the compromise.

Transport is important for speed stability, and stuff like azimuth linearity, (both afecting sound performance) as well as tape handling (fast wind packing, speed, accuracy and repeatability of autolocation) etc.

But the biggest thing in any facility, -be it commercial or domestic- is reliability. You don't want to be fixing it every five days, and neither does anyone else.

I'm not really totally "down" on ACES, don't get me wrong. -Actually I'd really love for something from my home town to be proud of... At the moment there's only Carol Decker (from T'Pau) and Charles Darwin that I can think of... and any mention of admiration for either person can start a fight, so I keep schtum about both. -But there really was a difference between ACES and the more expensive manufacturers.

Back in about 1985, there was a studio in Liverpool which bought an ACES console and tape machine combo for about

[althemusicwizard]

[James Perrett]

I did a Google search and happened to come across

http://niceup.com/writers/david_katz/ariwastory.html

If you scroll down you'll see that it mentions Peter Keeling in connection with ACES. Peter also runs a company called The Studio People which you can find at

http://www.studiopeople.com/

I hope that helps.

Cheers

James.

[althemusicwizard]

[ssltech]

Ay yes...

Peter Keeling it indeed was who interviewed me and offered me the job back in 198x...

I'd say if it works, use it. It it's broke, fix it. -Just don't try to make it into what it isn't.

The electronics were at least simple. I seem to remember that the logic was mostly simple gate stuff. Yes it's normal for the machine to use "dynamic braking" by toggling the fast-forward/rewind commands. Studer also used to do this in the A80's and IIRC the A800's by the way, though that practice had ended for Studer by the 1990's, with the A820 and A827. SSLs also control all machines -even those with variable wind speed inputs like the Otaris- through the exact same method. There's nothing to worry about.

I personally never concern myself with VU meter lamps, (I've never heard it make things sound any better, and I can usually read them with or without the bulb) though clients seem to consider them important.

If it concerns you however emove one, measure it. If it has resistive continuity, see if they're all connected in series. If they are, it'll be like fixing christmas tree lights, and -trust me- you're probably better off just leaving them all dark, or you'll be on a weekly quest trying to see which one has burned-out and caused the whole chain to go dark. -It's no fun. High-intensity LEDs might be an option, but we're probably talking ohours and hours of labour making them fit, creating the right DC current conditions, aiming them so they look okay... If you want to do that yourself then fine... if you want to pay a going rate to a tech who makes his money that way, you may well find yourself writing out a bigger check than you thought working meter lamps was worth...

Keith

[althemusicwizard]

[Mixermend - John Godsland]

When I first started in the Pro Audio equipment repair business - I used to look after a Studio that had an Aces machine.......

This would have been around the early 80's - I remember thinking that this machine must have been a prototype, as the mechanics of the transport were quite 'Heath Robinson' (actually that would be unfair to HR!). Changed the actuating solenoids and driver transistors often, as they were always burning out - but didn't have any problems with the audio circuitry. I learnt a lot about tape machines from working on this model - but was not impressed with the overall design.

In the end the machine was traded in for a Soundcraft Saturn - which was actually quite a good machine, well designed and reliable. Another Studio I look after used a Saturn for many years - with only minor problems - the sort of things you would expect in use.

If Keith had taken the job with Aces - things might have been very different - the UK might have had a multitrack machine to be proud of!

I might have some information in my files on the Aces machine - I will check when I open my Workshop tomorrow.

John

[ssltech]

:shudder:

I once worked on a "Cadey" tape machine...

now THAT was the worst machine I ever saw

-It had three revox ¼" pinch-rolers on a non-perpendicular nail...
-the electronics were on veroboard...  

I think that sadly the British tape machine industry would have been no better than the British car industry: Foresigners just got their game together and did it better. -Much as it shames me to confess it, Us Brits didn't really have it together. -Comparing a Ferrograph to a Revox is a bit like comparing an Austin Maestro to a VW Golf... The Foreigners always seemed to do it better.

Keith

[Gurdo]

Hi there,

Hope you don't mind me adding my two pennyworth...

Managed Suite 16 in Rochdale where we replaced a Cadey (electronics on veroboard, valve record electronics, transistor replay etc..) with an ACES 16 track 2" so we started at the bottom and went downwards. Recall many times having to speak to clients to tell them that the whole session must grind to a halt because the multitrack was f*****d again.

Spent a few nights on road from Rochdale to Shewsbury with the thing in the back hoping it could be fixed before we opened the next morning.

Nice people, they really did try (chap called Rob was very helpfull) but thier kit just wasn't up to the job.

It was delivered with the head wired wrong so what was track 12 on the remote was 14 on the tape, remember brake lining material was the PCV used on the endcheeks of thier mixers. Most of the bits were from RS. On visit to factory I was impressed with their "vertical integration" policy - they did everything themselves from punching and bending the metawork, screenprinting, assembly etc. Transport  looked clean on top but when you lifted the lid (watch out for the live bits!) it looked like Meccanno. Papst motors were used - a bit like putting Rolls Royce Merlin in a Lada?

Used Noise reduction can't remember who's but when it worked it was OK. We had the "HQ" High Quality machine where each channel had three  presets to use for line up. Once remember Rob saying it was a "plus four machine" - no that didn't mean it liked golf, it meant that 0 on the channel VU meters was + 4 Db. Remote was OK but when opened did have a veroboard mod tacked onto the main PCB.

Once saw thier stand at the APRS show, they made semi pro gear including a strange affair 16 track 1 inch that staggered tracks between the record and replay head so alternate tracks were out of time - but it was supposed to reduce crosstalk.

Used 456 on it, kept head clean with Isopropanol, wonder where it is now, after I left they upgraded to a 24 track Otari. Did rememeber explainin to a victim - sorry client - that 16 track on 2 inch gave best S/n and bandwith becasue of width of track on tape.

That's really all I rememeber now.

[ssltech]

Gurdo,

You're talkin' about my neck of the woods now! Welcome to the forum.

I was based in the 'Pool, Tech and eventually chief engineer at Amazon Studios. (Later Parr Street Studios after the move in to the city Centre from Kirkby)

I remember Suite Sixteen...I think it was Peter Hook who used to do some stuff there, -right? I'm so vague because it was -what? 25 years ago???

Keith

[Gurdo]

Yeh that's right. It was originaly run under the name Cargo by John Brierley where, despite the Cadey, an impressive rosta of early new wave acts passed through the door including Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Hooky was quite attached to the old place and when JB said he was selling up he and Chris Hewitt who ran Tractor Music next door went into partnership bringing in Chris Jones, poached from Strawberry in Stockport, as head engineer and yours truly as manager.

Remember few names of other studios about that time Strawberry, Yellow Two, Cavalier, Pink Museum, Square One etc.

The Studio business was always a labour of love requiring ongoing investment in new kit, occupancy being the buzz word and as a 16 track we suffered against competition from 24 tracks. When the ACES was confined to its well earned lasting resting place (a skip) they got an Otari and Shan Hira of Factory's Stockholm Monsters took over and I went straight, got married, kids and a job, this would be about 1986.

Still quite emotional about all the old analogue kit we had Drawmer gates, Lexicon reverb (and a plate we inherited) MXR Pitch shifter, Aphex Aural Exciter, Yamaha mutlti effect type thingy etc. Once ritually cleaned all GPO patch leads in HP Sauce which brought the brass bits up a treat... mastered down onto Revox and some customers were asking for 30 ips mastering so a new mastering machine was on the ever growing shopping list.

The ACES though was a complete dog, once the transport wouldn't work, turned out the transistors (?) that drive the motor had blown. Rob from ACES diagnosed this as being due to spikes on the mains (quite possible we were near a factory) so fitted "snubbers" and we added a mains condtioning lead from RS, that specific problem went away to be replaced by different ones.

Had a soundcraft desk, don't remember model, it had P&G faders though, sorry memory's going now...

[ssltech]

Hooky was an absolute bonza gem of a bloke. -I miss him. -I assisted on 'Brotherhood' for New order, and engineered some of the 'Revenge' stuff.

Recently bought the '24-hour party people' DVD... It was fun to watch. -Seeing the actor prtraying Hannett in the first minute or two, and I KNEW who it was supposed to be before he spoke!

Yellow two. -I was there when they had the Helios. I was there when they installed the first EVER Neve V-series. I did some stuff there, and also at Strawberry... Revolution and Pluto were others I remember; Andy Mac at Revo was a hell of an engineer, though he didn't get on with everyone. -I do have to give him mad repsect for his sheer engineering skills though.

Hell, in the mid 1980's all those northern-English bands were taking off like mad. I ended up engineering or assisting for the Smiths, Simply Red, New Order, -Who the hell remembers them all? -It wasn't that I wasthe best... it was just that I was 'da man' at the only SSL studio in the North, at a time when going to London meant selling out. -These were the Thatcher years, and the North was getting the shaft, after all.

Whoah. -What a ride! In addition to all the Manchester bands, there were all the Liverpool & Merseyside acts: OMD, the Bunnymen, Flock of Seagulls... If I could go back and do it all again, the only thing I'd change would be to buy a video camera and a BIG pile of blank tapes... Not only would I have memories, I'd be the world's richest blackmailer!

The Pink Museum... run by Hambi. -The worlds WORST payer. He'd always beg you into fixing something and "evaporate" before you appeared to ask for a cheque.

One time his Neve died, and after I fixed it, I knew he'd have disappeared, despite the fact that he promised me payment for the repair AND all the back-due work I'd done and for which he still owed me... I actually installed a plug-in motor-driven timer (like you plug in and program to turn lights on & off in a vague attempt to fool burglars that a house is occupied...) on the power supply of his Neve. I set it up to run for 23 hours and then just stop, and STAY stopped.

-The next day he called me again swearing that I "didn't fix it right..." -I pointed out that he "didnt pay me right..."

A cheque was eventually signed, and miraculously his Neve started working within a minute... -a funny one that was...

Thanks for bringing it all flooding back!

Keith

[Dave Hecht]

ssltech wrote on Wed, 29 November 2006 19:04

The Pink Museum... run by Hambi. -The worlds WORST payer. He'd always beg you into fixing something and "evaporate" before you appeared to ask for a cheque. One time his Neve died, and after I fixed it, I knew he'd have disappeared, despite the fact that he promised me payment for the repair AND all the back-due work I'd done and for which he still owed me... I actually installed a plug-in motor-driven timer (like you plug in and program to turn lights on & off in a vague attempt to fool burglars that a house is occupied...) on the power supply of his Neve. I set it up to run for 23 hours and then just stop, and STAY stopped. -The next day he called me again swearing that I "didn't fix it right..." -I pointed out that he "didnt pay me right..." A cheque was eventually signed, and miraculously his Neve started working within a minute... -a funny one that was... Thanks for bringing it all flooding back! Keith

 Brilliant, Keith. Sorry I didn't think of that one myself.

Dave Hecht

[Gurdo]

Yeh Hooky was a man of the people, very loyal to his friends one of whom "Terry" - whose grasp of matters technical was let's say minimal - roadied for him, he kept him on despite the work in broken gear he used to generate for Tractor Music next door. He'd go on tour turn up at the studio shouting his head off (all well meaning bluster) and bore us rigid about the recent debauches he'd inflicted upon selected memebers of his audience who met his criteria - two X chromosones and a pulse). Swapped desk for an Amek Angela at some point remember going to visit him in Yellow Two to get a cheque signed and gaping in awe at the Mitsubishi X850 they'd hired for the Shellshock (I think) sessions. Cosy fo hire more than the studio took in a week...

Yeh the north was hot back then though I never viewed Factory as anything more than well meaning amateurs who got very lucky. There was also a Liverpool/Manchester dynamic, a few bands from the Pool enjoyed the day out in exotic Rochdale to record. I once remember showing Pete Burns (pre plastic surgery) where the paper shop was - even though not on stage he still dressed and had the look that would stop traffic.

About the eighties electropop became popular which was frustrating for a lot of Liverpool bands who were excellent musicians - musicianship was out of fashion - the public wanted to hear synthesised drums, tinkles, pops, bleeps...hence the success of New Order.

The studio inhertied the Oberheim, drum machine used to record Blue Monday in Britannia Row. Easy to be wise in hindsight but if I'd accepted that in leui of wages and took it to Sotherbys...

Last scrapings of bottom of empty meemory pool now - we had a nice EV mike RD20? excellent vocal mike could be pressed into service on kick drum as well. Sorry that's at marriage, kids and alcohol had wiped that bit of tape forever..

[James Perrett]

Thanks for sharing those memories. I really liked much of the northern 80's stuff and I always wondered why even the humblest northern band seem to sound so much better when recorded than local bands from down our way. That's one of the reasons I got into running a studio - I figured that I had to be able to make people sound better than the other local studios did.

Cheers

James.

[ssltech]

Pete Burns... yeah, he was a regular. Dead or Alive started off signed to the house record label (Inevitable Records). He was quite a sight, with those black contact lenses. -Looked kinda threatening, but that "queer-eye-for-the-straight-guy" lisp of his ruined the effect whenever he spoke.

-I shit you not, I once saw him walk out of the flat wearing a new necklace that he'd made up on the spot, from what he found in the kitchen. -I mean pots, pans, meat rack...    

That was a golden time, and I found myself right in the middle of it. -I toured the world and elsewhere as a result, having hitched my star to the mast of one of the Liverpool bands that took off.

The 24-hour party people DVD I thought was way-off in terms of its 'beatification' of Tony Wilson. Some of the stuff was so far from what actually happened that even the real people had to be given screen time to acknowlege their disagreements... In fact, I never really liked much of what Tony Wilson championed so fiercely: Happy mondays being a case in point.

But Hannett... wot a character! We got along like a house on fire: both as mad as each other, though I didn't take any drugs, and -well, the amount that HE took was enough for a crackhead soccer team, and almost certainly saw him off in the end. -Again, strangely, some of the stuff that they show in the film -like him out on the hillside recording the 'ambient silence' out there- well, that's something that makes perfect sense to me... specially in film post production. -It's meant to present the man as a mad genius... I think he actually was, but that's just not a very good example of his madness.

Quote:

I always wondered why even the humblest northern band seem to sound so much better when recorded than local bands from down our way.

Well, in the case of the ones that I recorded; I can assure you that the talent was ALL on the other side of the glass. The inspiration largely came from Thatcher, and the fact that the north was becomeing an industrial wasteland with rampant unemploymnent, while the south prospered on the stock market. A parallel was 'Reaganomics' and what happened to the Steel industry in the USA... -think of the lyrics on "Money's too tight to mention" by Simply Red, then think of the whole "Thatcher's Bloody Britain" (Rik Mayall) syndrome...

-Oh, and for the plug-in-timer tip: I accept a 5% commission on whatever payment gets collected using this method!

Keef

[Gurdo]

Ooh I love it when you get all political! coming out of Uni I was (and still am) true blue (hey it takes all sorts!) in the 80's this was my way of standing out. Anti-thacherism? scapegoatism under another name! in the 70's it was the immigrants who were taking all our jobs, in the 80's it was those posh people down south who were talking all our jobs. Right?

What a lot of musicians of that time had was energy, enthusiasm, access to studios such as ours, a "do-it-yourself" punk ethic and an underdeveloped sense of politics. The only way to pull the north out of the shit was to have a well managed vibrant economy - did they really believe Mrs. T was a racist, job-hating oppressor? Apparently many of them were manipulated into thinking so. I think it sad that fine movements and initiatives such as "Rock agaist Racism" which were sold as single issue campaigns were taken over by leftys with a broader hidden agenda.

History vindicated Mrs. T. We prosper in her knowledge based vibrant economy which is the fourth richest on the planet. Professionaliam and academic recognition has entered the industry, we had the digital revolution and a market hungry for the products it creates all due to that evil monster - capitalism!

I never thought northern bands were any better it was just a liberating time in the business which had been up that time dominiated by companies in London.

The North will rise again!

[ssltech]

I don't disagree actually.

-But it was certainly the dominant and in many cases driving- view of most of the bands at the time.

-I couldn't exactly say I was left-wing myself either. -I found myself in the minority most of the time, but was the spirit of the age, and I'm not trying to demonise the Iron Lady.

Nah, it was a great time. -If only ACES had been able to build on the opportunity!



Keef

[Gurdo]

ACES problem was that thier gear was stuck between the gap at the bottom of the pro market and the growing home studio market. Not good enough for pro use they targeted the semi-pro market just at the likes of Tascam & Fostex were entering the market. And you know what happened to those who tried to compete with the Japanese...

They did innovate, they produced and early 32 track 2" analouge machine, their 24 track frame had space for the additional 8 channels and they used a 32 track head. Can't remember name of firm who did the heads but they were UK based and towards the end of the life of the company there was some sort of merger. Think ACES also did subcontract manufacturing - saw another badged semi-pro desk in tradiditioal chocolate coloured metalwork with cream screen printing and wooden endcheeks, on tour of thier factory once saw a desk being assembled struck me as a big clunky thing with oversize knobs and faders. Could be wrong but the factory was called "Victory Works" (sic). Last scrapings of memory bowl now - Peter Keeling was wearing cuban heels - why do I remember that?

[ssltech]

AHhhhh...

Would the head manufacturer have been "Branch & Appleby" by any chance? They were based in Ruislip, and they once sent me a set of Tascam 85-16 heads that were the wrong height.

Not the first to market with a 32-track 2", not by a long shot. AEG (a German company associated with telefunken) produced one in the late 1970's, as I remember. It never sold. ACES seemed to think that it was a good idea to make more of them...



"Victory Works".

It certanly does.

-We want no part of it though.



Keith

[Gurdo]

Branch & Appleby - may well have been. Wierd thing about memory, you need those keyword prompts to re-activate it. I think they were responsible for the Cadey head which ran on a "modified" Revox transport, obviously the capstan was pushed up a little, the pinch roller was on overtime and the tape reels had been "Re-engineered" to use NAB adaptors. Hidden in its formica clad box it may have seemed, to the niave muso catching it in the corner of the eye on the way to the desk in the subdued light of the "control" room this might have seemed legit, anyway...

Sorry but can I bend you ear one more time? UK TV Show, Scotish Drama actually with Robbie Coltraine, forget the explanation of the story but the tubby Tampersiwthian was recording a track in a Glasgow studio, god knows what the studio was called but the Cadey Multitrack in the background was unmistakable, and nightmare inducing, "Are yee goona record all nite or wha?"

JB Of Cargo only had a 1/4 test tape so he used to line up his (valve driven) Cadey by stacking up that test tape on increasingly growing piles on empty 1/4 reels to reach the upper tracks.

Actually I was just thinking! What's wrong with valves?

[ssltech]

Well sadly the Cadey used steam valves!



Yes, the only Cadey I ever saw made the clapped-out ACES machine look like a freshly-minted Studer.

Keef

[charliewhite]

hey all

i have a Cadey!!!
all working except track 16, and the meter bridge has a few issues - i believe its either the one from Cargo in Rochdale or Smile Studios in Chorlton.

anyone wanna buy it - its up for sale

cheers
charlie

[Dick Swaneveld]

"It's up for sale" you say.
That is the best thing ever you can do with a Cadey.
Try not to sell this machine to anyone you consider as a friend.

Richard

[arthurmullardvalve]

How much is the cadey that you have for sale I am interested