ceejay wrote:Yes, I always wondered if the BBC audio guys used to stand on their heads to drive faders that were the opposite of every other console I've ever seen or worked on!!
Try it before you knock it!
It's actually a really ergonomic way of working that suits the way the hand moves rather better than the conventional approach.
There are lots of stories about why. The stupidest one is that if the operator falls asleep at the desk, he'll tend to close channels, rather than open them, the former being deemed less embarrassing!
A slightly more likely argument is that if faders are caught by shirt cuffs or script pages, again they are likely to be pushed closed rather than open. The greatest fear is always of having a channel open unknowingly, just in case someone blusters into a studio cursing and swearing, or a tape is spooled against the heads...
However, the real reason for it came about with the introduction of quadrant faders. Before that, BBC consoles (in fact almost all consoles up until the early 60s) used rotary knobs. In BBC work, getting levels right is paramount, and so operators noted on their programme scripts the required volume settings for each mic or playing, derived from a 0-30 scale on the pot or fader.
With the quadrant fader, you can only read the scale on the side facing towards you, because the far side curves away. Consequently, it made sense to have the 'open' side of the fader towards the operator.
It then transpired that this arrangement actually worked with the hand superbly well. You simply place your thumb on the scale where you want the fader to come up to, and then pull it towards you with your fingers. It's a very natural and comfortable hand action, and it allows for very fast but accurate fader operation -- and bear in mind that broadcasting is more about fast-switching between sources than gently easing faders up and down slightly to polish a music balance.
It's much harder and less comfortable to place a finger where the fader needs to be and then push it up with the thumb!
There was a wonderful write-up a few years ago about how Later with Jools Holland was produced and they used a combo of BBC consoles and hire-in units, so they used to have to completely rethink which way they were pushing (or pulling) the faders for each different band!
Yep -- probably one of my articles on Later -- I've written a few of them now! I've also been in that position, with a conventional commercial add-on console mounted alongside a traditional BBC console. It is a but of a mind-f**k for the first few moves, but it's amazing how quickly you get used to it.
I was assisting a lovely old-school BBC TV-OBs sound supervisor when a chap from the BBC's research department came in to the OB truck to demonstrate a new digital fader he had developed which was potentially to become part of the BBC's first digital mixing console. Much of the discussion centred on the fader law, but one of it's clever tricks was a switch that allowed it to work BBC-style or conventionally.
The boffin was extremely proud of this revolutionary feature, but was utterly crest fallen when the sound supervisor dismissed it as irrelevant, saying he's never found it hard to work faders in either direction and didn't see the point!
H
