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[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