steveeastend wrote on Sun, 27 March 2005 14:06 |
Bill, so which one did you actually like best?
cheers steveeastend
|
Steve,
It appears that you were asking me my preferences as there is no other Bill on this thread. So..
All of my experiences were affected by the artists I recorded on each console. Some consoles I used for many years, others I did only a few sessions on. So take my word with a grain of salt, as another engineer and another artist could very well get better or worse results.
I did not like the MCI and the Auditronics Memphis Machine at all. I used both of them for hundreds of sessions and they constantly required that I take extra ordinary measures like repatching around line inputs and such to try to squeak the last bit of fidelity out of them.
I liked the Flickinger but I had only a few sessions on it so I am not an expert. However I do remember it to have a special presence. I don't remember even having to use an eq on that board.
I used the API for about a year, 60 hours a week and for a tracking console it was right there with the NEVE. Contrary to many however, I am not a fan of the API eq. I always wanted some degree of boost or frequency that was in between what was offered on that console. We had the NEVE 8068 in our remote truck for years and I recorded Aretha Franklin and Smokie Robinson among many others on that console. It had a very sweet, open sound and lots of punch. However, I had to pull every module out of its bay and re-seat it when we got to every gig. That is unnerving.
I did only three sessions on the Spectrasonics. It was my wife's band so I knew the music very well, but to be fair, Sigma was very very dead and I was trying to get a rock sound. Elton John's Philadelphia Freedom was tracked on that console so we all know it can get a great sound. I was just disappointed with the two band eq.
I worked for a few years with both the Trident and the Neotec. I pushed my boss to buy the Neotec and was burned by the bad pot thing. As I understand it they had to replace about 100,000 pots for free. We just were unlucky. The Trident was solid to hard and the Neotec was airy and crisp but no punch at all. Great for acoustic recording, but not rock and roll. IMO.
Both the ITI and Sontec consoles were high fidelity marvels. Quiet and open. Not hype, just clean. However, the potted modules on the Sontec fell off the PC boards and the ITI console did funny things with assignments popping in and out. However, to be fair again, the ITI console was installed on a barge in Baltimore's inner harbor at the time and so I think the humidity could have affected it, and we drug those Sontec modules around in a truck which just beat them to death.
This brings me to the SSL, and where my opinion may differ from some. I loved the SSL. I considered myself an SSL engineer for many years, because of the control that I could get with that console. I originally wanted to move to the SSL not for its sound however. It was not superior to the Sontec in any way. It was a business decision. There were only about a dozen SSL's in the US at the time and it was regarded as the best. It brought business immediately. We had added Aphex automation to the Sontec, but I was constantly trying to explain that console to clients. Not with the SSL.
So, I liked the Sontec and the NEVE for tracking and the SSL for mixing. In the end, not much of a revelation I'm afraid.
Best Regards,
Bill