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Author Topic: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs  (Read 13843 times)

JGauthier

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Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« on: October 19, 2008, 02:50:47 AM »

So I finally have had enought time with these to not think they sound good on everything....hehehe

I recently purchased a pair of Quad Eight EQ 712 panel eqs. Ive seen them called cinema eqs and motown eqs and magic umpa lumpa eqs but Ill stick with inductor based graphic eqs. They are supposedly from the Warner Bros board used by Frank Jones Jr. who now owns castle oaks recording (and sold them to the gentleman I purchased them from). The interesting thing to me is they have the high EQ marked 6400 (voice setting) vs the 8200 (music setting)- though this pair was modified for the music setting at 8200. All of the other pairs Ive seen are marked 8200. Since these sound ESPECIALLY good in the mids and on vox, I wonder if theres a correlation or if the ONLY difference is the one band. Plus there is NO marking on the panel for quad eight or electrodyne. The only place you see quad eight is on the circuit board and it looks like it was written with solder... Mine are gold and NOT the orange color you often see- I wonder how many colors these came in! Also one is marked 1 and one is marked 10- I know the seller originally had more than one pair... Did they have 10 of these monsters on a single board at Warner Bros?

The specifics-

Eq- graphic inductor based
712- 7 bands with +/- 12 db
EQ points-
65 160 400 1000  2200 4500 6400/8200

The sound- wierd. Amazing but wierd. I say wierd because of the way things sound if the eq is active but zero'ed. It does the coolest smooth emphasis thing to the mids and upper mids while tightening up the bottom. I love it on vox and drum OH/bus, but then again I have a thing about quad eight and drums. Actually I love it on anything with need for mid emphasis. The top is nice but a little smooth- great for flavor but not much else, but thats a good thing for the upper mids. The bottom is solid and tight and awesome for a dip at 65 to clear things out. But its all about the mids for me.

As for stereo- Ive been using it on the drum bus, acoustic guitar bus ( its awesome on those when you actually need a bus for that)and the mastering bus (not the master bus for mix). I master as I am asked but I am not a mastering engineer. If I put it on the master bus I prefer it zero'ed, inline followed by a GML 8200 for actual correction. Its just flavor at that point but I really like it and its replaced my MM61s for bus flavor 90% of the time. On drum OH and acoustic its all about cutting below 1000 and plus 2-3 dbs on 1000 and above- you can push it pretty hard without it getting too squeely/ringy- easily 6 to 9 dbs. And the GML can be a little hard but after the EQ 712 its just brilliant.

Overall Im very impressed with its sound. Its extremely usefull in the way it sculpts the sound the minute its in line. I can't wait for my next VO! I bet these will sound AWESOME on VO- its those damn mids!

Initially, I over eq'ed everything to hear the eq's signature as much as possible. I did eventually find my happy zone in the +/-3db range but easily have pushed to 6 db and love it. Of course after pushing everything I decided to try cutting and its of course even better... I like to push eveything hot then drop all the points down relatively, some cut and some boost, which sounds great- and way smoother as expected. Its also a great glue for any bus!

I wouldn't track anything but drum OH with this eq and even then it would be zero'ed- maybe a slight push in the highs. This EQ has been on the drum bus constantly but Ive come to get more picky about that. Sometimes its just too wide. I had an acoustic guitar track thats bothered me for 2 years ( never ending project from hell ) and it cured the issue completely. Think about it- smooth top and mid emphasis without mud on the bottom- hell that IS an acoustic guitar! Or a nice sounding one anyway! And the last thing is on vox- I love it on vox. LA2A to EQ 712 to 1176 is just awesome. The LA2A gives a big signal to cut away at with the EQ then 1176 for peaks and balance- perfect.

Of course its not perfect everytime but it does fill a wonderful slot in my studio and is the antithesis of the GML. It has transformer I/O (UTCs) and its definitely a color piece but in a very usefull way. Between the EQ 712, the GML and MDW in PT I am done with eqs- I'd love more but I don't need more. Of course there always the 1073s and the MM61 as well but they are always linked to the preamp! (eqs listed for relativity)

Sorry for the long babble but Im lovin these EQs! I posted this mainly because I couldn't find a damn thing about these on the interweb! I would LOVE to hear from anyone else who has used these specific models before- not the edyne/Q8 712 pre/eqs. And feel free to say they suck! Any info especially from the old schoolers when this stuff was new!

I just bought an RCA 44bx and I can't WAIT to hear the eq 712 carving that RCA meat! Its been a good couple months for the studio! Now if the f'ing stock market would just let go of my balls...
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Steve Hudson

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2008, 05:35:38 PM »

Nice review, and timely. I'm considering a pair myself and just haven't had the time to fire them up. Now I'm motivated.
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JGauthier

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2008, 07:22:31 PM »

I would absolutely recommend a pair- without question. I paid quite a bit for mine... And I do NOT regret it.

They have that vintage mojo like you expect and a functionality that has widespread applications.

I wish I was more technical, so I could go into the electronics, but Im just an ears guy.

But PLEASE fire them up and post your own take! I would LOVE to hear what another set of ears thinks!

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Gold

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2008, 09:34:04 AM »

Changing the HF frequency point is just a capacitor value change. On the schematic there is a chart that gives the values.

They sound good. I wanted to set a pair up for mastering but I couldn't get the gain range, which are set by trimmers to match even gain steps with identically constructed rotary switches. It could have been my incompetence though.
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Steve Hudson

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2008, 10:09:18 AM »

Yesterday I checked out the QE broadcast console that had the pair of 712s and couldn't justify the seller's price for the expense and hassle of reracking all of its useful components. I'll just have to wait for another pair to show up on the open market. The other pair here in Austin (with a pair of 227 preamps) sold on ebay for a song last week (half what the seller had offered them to me last month). I'm ticked that he didn't come back to me first!
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"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.  There's also a negative side."

- Hunter S. Thompson should have said this, but didn't

http://www.myspace.com/steventoddhudson

JGauthier

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2008, 05:11:27 PM »

Steve Hudson wrote on Wed, 22 October 2008 07:09

Yesterday I checked out the QE broadcast console that had the pair of 712s and couldn't justify the seller's price for the expense and hassle of reracking all of its useful components. I'll just have to wait for another pair to show up on the open market. The other pair here in Austin (with a pair of 227 preamps) sold on ebay for a song last week (half what the seller had offered them to me last month). I'm ticked that he didn't come back to me first!


I know which board you are talking about and that guy has had it overpriced for a while. He wanted 20 grand at first..... riiiiiiiight...


And thanks Gold for the freq change info. I assumed it was a standard switch of just that freq but wasn't sure! Mine was recapped and serviced before I ever got my hands on it- which is good since I can't do it!
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Steve Hudson

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2008, 08:16:34 PM »

He came down to $7K but I couldn't make the numbers work even at that price.
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"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.  There's also a negative side."

- Hunter S. Thompson should have said this, but didn't

http://www.myspace.com/steventoddhudson

JGauthier

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2008, 12:38:34 AM »

Steve Hudson wrote on Wed, 22 October 2008 17:16

He came down to $7K but I couldn't make the numbers work even at that price.


I think you made the right decision. To part out and rack all that stuff isn't cheap plus its time consuming for sure.

Plus Q8 really doesn't sell like API, Neve etc...

The guy selling that board is slightly confused as to the real value of its parts. Even the bits and pieces hes tried to sell are way overpriced.

I paid 650 a channel for my MM61s and I thought that was a little high (but they had be 100% serviced and recapped). I think his original asking price of 20 grand says it all... And with all the complaints about the master bus on old Q8s- its hard to want to keep the board as a whole ESPECIALLY considering the seller admits the master section is screwed. The only good option for that is to part it out and he still wants too much... Can you imagine how much servicing that stuff would need...
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Silvertone

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #8 on: October 23, 2008, 07:27:17 AM »

JGauthier wrote on Wed, 22 October 2008 23:38

Steve Hudson wrote on Wed, 22 October 2008 17:16

He came down to $7K but I couldn't make the numbers work even at that price.


I think you made the right decision. To part out and rack all that stuff isn't cheap plus its time consuming for sure.

Plus Q8 really doesn't sell like API, Neve etc...

The guy selling that board is slightly confused as to the real value of its parts. Even the bits and pieces hes tried to sell are way overpriced.

I paid 650 a channel for my MM61s and I thought that was a little high (but they had be 100% serviced and recapped). I think his original asking price of 20 grand says it all... And with all the complaints about the master bus on old Q8s- its hard to want to keep the board as a whole ESPECIALLY considering the seller admits the master section is screwed. The only good option for that is to part it out and he still wants too much... Can you imagine how much servicing that stuff would need...



Funny as it's the cost of less than 2 raw Neve 1073 modules and yet people think this is expensive???

For the history alone that board should be kept together.

Also funny that people with pay 20 times that for a Helios console to preserve it but these have no value...  well at least to some as I've been offered 25K for ACC1204 console (one of only five in the world that I know of).

What most people don't realize is that Quad Eight, Electrodyne, Langevin, WE and RCA are our electronic musical heritage here in the states.

The classic movie scores and albums done on these consoles aren't even realized by most and yet they've heard them all their lives... amazing.
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Larry DeVivo
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To see some of our work please click on any of the visual trailer montages located at... http://robertetoll.com/  (all music and sound effects were mastered by Silvertone Mastering).

Steve Hudson

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2008, 08:24:23 AM »

I hear you, Larry, but this particular board has limited value in its present condition and configuration for my uses. It's a nice museum piece and might be salvageable by someone who would invest in more preamps (this one only has four) and repairing all the bad components (like the master section and nonworking EQ). The seller did remove it from ebay before the auction ended and I think he realizes he'd put far too much into it and would never recover his investment. I'm definitely going to buy some QE stuff (and perhaps a Pacifica or Coronado if I can find one) but going with this particular desk would have been expensive and a big hassle compared with just buying racked modules on the open market.
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"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.  There's also a negative side."

- Hunter S. Thompson should have said this, but didn't

http://www.myspace.com/steventoddhudson

Fletcher

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2008, 01:11:35 PM »

JGauthier wrote on Sun, 19 October 2008 02:50

Ive seen them called cinema eqs and motown eqs


Not to piss on the lawn... but the "Motown EQ"s were Langevins... not Quad Eights or Electrodynes.

Carry on.

Peace.
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CN Fletcher

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If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
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JGauthier

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2008, 01:48:54 PM »

Fletcher wrote on Thu, 23 October 2008 10:11

JGauthier wrote on Sun, 19 October 2008 02:50

Ive seen them called cinema eqs and motown eqs


Not to piss on the lawn... but the "Motown EQ"s were Langevins... not Quad Eights or Electrodynes.

Carry on.

Peace.



Thats always been my understanding as well but Ive read otherwise on the net- which is also why I called them umpa lumpa eqs. I don't buy that these had a special reputation, and if they did it was probably bad because of their limitations by nature.

I probably didn't make that point clear- theres so little info on the net (and bad info as well) I would love to hear from the old schoolers who may have used the Warner Bros board or these eqs back in the day to clear things up!

But agreed- these are NOT the infamous "motown EQs". And I think Orphan Audio is the one I read who called them cinema eqs on their forum- though I had never heard that phrase before.




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Silvertone

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2008, 07:32:12 AM »

Fletcher wrote on Thu, 23 October 2008 12:11

JGauthier wrote on Sun, 19 October 2008 02:50

Ive seen them called cinema eqs and motown eqs


Not to piss on the lawn... but the "Motown EQ"s were Langevins... not Quad Eights or Electrodynes.

Carry on.

Peace.




Not to piss back but I believe at the time Electrodyne owned Langevin and very well probably built them.

I have many many langevin pre's all the way back to an original tube console and even though the components have Langevin stickers on them the Electrodyne logo is engraved on everything... I also have Langevin 253 EQ's (part of the same console) that are engraved with the Langevin L but were built and have all original Electrodyne parts in them.

This is the sticky part of the history... Electrodyne purchased Langevin back (around 1959 is what I've been told) when they were still building tube components.

There is a somewhat easy way to tell with some components.  The Electrodyne logo was a double E (an E with a shadow E).  When Electrodyne owned Langevin, they got rid of the Western Electric "Gothic" font (that's what the Langevin logo was like when they were the secondary supplier for WE during WWII) and went to an L with a shadow L.

So they can say whatever they want on the outside but who knows what was really on the inside?
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Larry DeVivo
Silvertone Mastering, Inc.
PO Box 4582
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
www.silvertonemastering.com
To see some of our work please click on any of the visual trailer montages located at... http://robertetoll.com/  (all music and sound effects were mastered by Silvertone Mastering).

Silvertone

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2008, 07:41:51 AM »

JGauthier wrote on Thu, 23 October 2008 12:48

Fletcher wrote on Thu, 23 October 2008 10:11

JGauthier wrote on Sun, 19 October 2008 02:50

Ive seen them called cinema eqs and motown eqs


Not to piss on the lawn... but the "Motown EQ"s were Langevins... not Quad Eights or Electrodynes.

Carry on.

Peace.



Thats always been my understanding as well but Ive read otherwise on the net- which is also why I called them umpa lumpa eqs. I don't buy that these had a special reputation, and if they did it was probably bad because of their limitations by nature.

I probably didn't make that point clear- theres so little info on the net (and bad info as well) I would love to hear from the old schoolers who may have used the Warner Bros board or these eqs back in the day to clear things up!

But agreed- these are NOT the infamous "motown EQs". And I think Orphan Audio is the one I read who called them cinema eqs on their forum- though I had never heard that phrase before.








That's also because Cinema Engineering owned Electrodyne at one point in time.

I've done 5 years of study on this stuff, I've talked to all the old time engineers (the ones that are still alive). I wrote the article after a year and a half of research and trying to straighten out misinformation. I've talked to the people who owned these companies and even the ones who brokered the deals to sell these companies. I think I have a pretty good handle on this information.

And more than likely they are "just like" the Motown EQ's because they were built by the same company.

btw I own four of the original channels from the old Warner console as it was Danny at Requisite Audio who bought the console and parted it out 20 years ago. He kept 4 modules and sold them to me 6 years ago and got me started down this whole path...
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Larry DeVivo
Silvertone Mastering, Inc.
PO Box 4582
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
www.silvertonemastering.com
To see some of our work please click on any of the visual trailer montages located at... http://robertetoll.com/  (all music and sound effects were mastered by Silvertone Mastering).

JGauthier

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Re: Quad Eight EQ 712 -large panel graphic eqs
« Reply #14 on: October 24, 2008, 05:34:20 PM »

Silvertone wrote on Fri, 24 October 2008 04:41



btw I own four of the original channels from the old Warner console as it was Danny at Requisite Audio who bought the console and parted it out 20 years ago. He kept 4 modules and sold them to me 6 years ago and got me started down this whole path...


So the Warner board did have 10 of these large panel graphic eqs? I have #1 and #10 and they don't say ANYTHING on the outside- no Q8 or Edyne. Only the soldered name "quad eight eq 712" on the back so I would agree that they were not built by q8. Which numbers do you have then Larry? Or did you mean the pre/eq modules.

Regardless of how similar the build was, I would never call them motown EQs cause they really aren't. And I doubt anybody seriously in the market for the infamous "motown eqs" would consider these the same regardless of sonics.


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