Big beautiful analogue mixing consoles

[The Red Bladder]

Our studio desk - Amek Media, channels designed by R.Neve, routing by Graham Langley. Only four full-sized desks were made with 60 mic/line inputs, plus four stereo returns and 24 groups. Of the four built, only one went to the UK, the others went to Australia, Japan and Hawaii.

So far, it has given us 24 years of nearly faultless service. The two power supplies recently upgraded (thanks to Colin at Audio Maintenance Limited) and monitor card and a few bits and bobs to be replaced soon.





We also run a 24/10 Soundcraft in our post-prod, mastering and video editing room. There is also a 24:16 Peavy prototype knocking around that was earmarked to star in a comedy film that was shut down by the C19 thing.

The Tape Recorder - I used to read that mag when I was at school and running the tape recording society! It became the mag 'Studio Sound' and I wrote a series of articles for them. All those desks you guys mention - I remember when they came out and were new and the latest thing! MM desks - soldered together in a windmill somewhere. I had their 12:2 - it was a better white noise generator than a desk, so I sold it after using it just once!

My first job in a studio was running a used Soundcraft Series II and a 16-track , 1" reel-2-reel from Soundcraft.

[The Red Bladder]

It was odd... people never complained that half the sound was entirely made up... but use the wrong car or lorry engine sound, or the wrong bird song for the season/location/time of day and the letters and phone calls of complaint just flooded in!

Nowadays, it is all emails about grammar mistakes by presenters! 'Disgruntled' of Cheltenham will let you know if someone said "less", when they should have said "fewer"!

[Albatross]

I did the music for a helicopter company trade fair stand years ago. I used a sample of a helicopter in the tune. At the sign off with all the directors, one said to me, "that's a 212, unmistakable." So going along and smiling I said, "yep" not actually knowing. He said, "we don't fly 212s, we only fly 412s." They got me to change it.

[Sam Spoons]

My first decent desk, mentioned up thread was one of these https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/so ... eries-200b

[Hugh Robjohns]

I loved that desk. So versatile and so well designed.

I played a very small role in helping to develop the 200BVE model which had VCAs on the channels remotely controlled from a broadcast video editing system to create automatic crossfades at edit points. It worked really well.

[Sam Spoons]

I wish I'd never sold mine but, TBF it didn't really have enough channels after I moved into the basement studio and found myself recording bands more frequently.

[cashhewn]

My first decent desk, mentioned up thread was one of these https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/so ... eries-200b

Wow, nice one Sam…is there an archive SoS review for the SC 600 series by chance?

I’m unclear on what’s available, at one point I posted looking for a review archive and I thought I was informed that the archives didn’t go back that far…or is it just hit and miss?

Many thanks.

[cashhewn]

Our studio desk - Amek Media, channels designed by R.Neve, routing by Graham Langley…So far, it has given us 24 years of nearly faultless service. The two power supplies recently upgraded (thanks to Colin at Audio Maintenance Limited) and monitor card and a few bits and bobs to be replaced soon.

Incredible, what a fantastic provenance and a trouble free workhorse, the dream!

[Sam Spoons]

Back in the day 'trouble free' meant if you maintained it it would keep on working, these day we expect it to mean 'neglected and it still doesn't break'...

[Arpangel]

My car has gone, it looks like we may be into a new "studio re-build" thread.

[Sam Spoons]

Having rebuilt my studio a few years ago and recently I seem to be getting my rock/blues gigging mojo back again I'm going the pother way and thinking that when I get too old and knackered to ride a mountain bike I might get another motorcycle, probably a classic '70s Triumph Tiger or Bonneville.

[James Perrett]

My first decent desk, mentioned up thread was one of these https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/so ... eries-200b

Wow, nice one Sam…is there an archive SoS review for the SC 600 series by chance?

I’m unclear on what’s available, at one point I posted looking for a review archive and I thought I was informed that the archives didn’t go back that far…or is it just hit and miss?

I think that the Soundcraft 600 came out before SOS was around. I can't even see it in the Muzines archive but they do have a review of the slightly later 6000

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/soun ... mixer/5826

I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was a review in Studio Sound although when I last looked for this thread

https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... hp?t=83459

nothing seemed to turn up.

[MOF]

A lot of these consoles were produced before I was even born, so I'm loving seeing all this history!

It looks like I’m officially history.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Welcome to the club. Nostalgia nights are every Tuesday (weather permitting).

[MOF]

When the edit was finished they'd bring down the 16mm cutting film copy and typically 6-8 reels of sep-mag with two or three of sync sound, one of voice-over, one or two of music, and two or three of effects etc, and we'd mix it in the dubbing theatre. The finished mix was recorded on sep-mag which was then re-synced to a graded copy of the film and then either broadcast direct from telecine or transferred to video (C-format) for broadcast.

I remember reading an article about Pinewood’s dubbing/mixdown theatre, they were reminiscing about when it was sep-mag, they would rehearse the fader moves in sections at normal ‘play’ and then ‘reverse’ speed, instead of fast rewinding then ‘play’.

[MOF]

Welcome to the club. Nostalgia nights are every Tuesday (weather permitting).

[cashhewn]

think that the Soundcraft 600 came out before SOS was around. I can't even see it in the Muzines archive but they do have a review of the slightly later 6000

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/soun ... mixer/5826

I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was a review in Studio Sound although when I last looked for this thread

https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... hp?t=83459

nothing seemed to turn up.

Thanks so much James, I’m interested to read these for certain.

I’m confused on the Soundcraft timeline, I thought that the 600 came out in ‘85, but I’m not certain at all…

Thanks again!

[ef37a]

It was odd... people never complained that half the sound was entirely made up... but use the wrong car or lorry engine sound, or the wrong bird song for the season/location/time of day and the letters and phone calls of complaint just flooded in!

Possibly the most nerdy screen blooper that was picked up was on a recent Sky at Night Q&A programme? One of the panel said they were annoyed because the "Arctic" night sky in Titanic was actually tropical Pacific and not in fact 1912!

Now! WTF else is gonna know that?!!

Dave.

[FrankF]

Well, you know, if they can't get that right, we're all sunk.

[Arpangel]

I used to help a friend with his small PA company, he had a Soundcraft 200B, it was fine, it did the job, most importantly it was reliable, the sound? difficult to say in a PA situation, but we never had any complaints from the performers.

[ajay_m]

Posted this in another thread but if you are building out a new studio and want a state of the art desk I just came across someone selling a DM7 compact on eBay UK who seems reputable, for £8K. That has to be one of the bargains of the year. It would exceed the capacity in terms of channel count of any of the old desks in this thread for sure.

[ef37a]

Posted this in another thread but if you are building out a new studio and want a state of the art desk I just came across someone selling a DM7 compact on eBay UK who seems reputable, for £8K. That has to be one of the bargains of the year. It would exceed the capacity in terms of channel count of any of the old desks in this thread for sure.

How very dare you!?? Have you not read the title of this thread?

Dave.

[Arpangel]

Posted this in another thread but if you are building out a new studio and want a state of the art desk I just came across someone selling a DM7 compact on eBay UK who seems reputable, for £8K. That has to be one of the bargains of the year. It would exceed the capacity in terms of channel count of any of the old desks in this thread for sure.

How very dare you!?? Have you not read the title of this thread?

Dave.

Don’t worry Dave, this new fangled digital stuff is just a fad, it’ll soon fade away.

[Sam Spoons]

The pics are of a DM7C with only 16 x 16 local I/O and 12 + 4 faders though the description describes it as a DM7 with 24 + 4 faders, he sells jewellery with this being the only tech item amongst his listings so it's odd if not dodgy. A new one is around £15k and I think the only way to access the extra I/O is to use expensive (~£2k and up) Dante stage boxes.

https://www.leisuretec.co.uk/product/dm ... ebyam00653

[ajay_m]

It is odd but he's managed to photograph himself pretty well by the screen reflection and his photos include the serial number etc. As a seller he's also acquired a pretty good reputation and has sold a reasonable number of items. So who knows, could have come from a company in liquidation.
Appears to be in Northolt so normally I would message the seller and meet up in person also ask directly via messaging about the item provenance.
eBay are pretty good on buyer protection in my experience too so yeah I would certainly do due diligence but the photos do look genuine as the seller is as you can see reflected in the screenshot.