Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[oneflightup]

Hi everyone,

Thought some of you might find my new article worth reading....

A History of Allison Research
http://www.oneflightup.com.au/allison-research

How many of you remember the old Gain Brain and Kepex modules.... the Fet ones?!

Cheers

Nick
One Flight Up Recording Studios Sydney Australia
http://www.oneflightup.com.au

[Fletcher]

Sorry to hear about Paul's passing... but very cool overview articles!!  Sadly, yes... I'm old enough to remember the products well.

Peace

[Bob Olhsson]

I'm old enough to remember the Kepex was by no means the first noise gate! We had several different Fairchild "auto-ten" gates at Motown. I think I tried each once. They, like all of the Fairchild transistor gear, were amazingly bad.

We had a panel discussion about early console automation at an AES meeting here in Nashville with Paul and George Massenburg. They were both remarkably open and blunt about the considerable shortcomings of each system. It was an amazing meeting.

[oneflightup]

Hi Fletcher, Bob,

Thanks for your replies!

And especially thanks to Bob for correcting me on the "first gate" remark. I'll correct the article now.

So were the Fairchilds the first studio gates? I'm curious - we see/hear a lot of discussion about compressors and limiters, but not nearly as much about gates. [Obviously there's less to get excited about (!) but still, handy tools nonetheless.]
Could I ask your opinion on the Allison modules - the Gain Brain and Kepex?

Thanks again for your contributions!

Nick

One Flight Up : Recording Studios Sydney

[Fletcher]

The "Auto-Ten" [I think the model number was 661... but its been a while and I could be mistaken] was mainly thought of as an expander... and like all the stuff in the Fairchild "solid state" series -- pretty much sucked as a tool but could be an interesting effect if "stellar audio" wasn't your end goal.

The Kepex was a definite and vast improvement, but it was indeed not the first dynamics unit of that nature.  Many Kepex's were replaced by Roger Meyer [Mayer?] gates that fit in the same frame which were a bit more flexible in their use, and arguably, a bit more "audiophile".

In my twisted little world, when I first ran into the Drawmer DS-201, that was the game changer that had me using gates way more often [and frankly, probably more than I should have... but it seemed like a good idea at the time].

Peace

[oneflightup]

Hey,

Thanks for the info Fletcher!

Yeah, it's easy to over-do the gating/expanding... a little is generally plenty!

Thanks again for your reply.

Nick
One Flight Up Recording Studio Sydney