Buying microphone cable, 100m drums.

[Arpangel]

Back in the day? Look into the studio and you can see Ed Sheeran! This is cutting edge technology.

We’ve got frosted glass on our studio door, the control room is in the basement, and the live room is upstairs, what I need is CCTV.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'm nearly out of Brylcreem....

[Wonks]

I'm nearly out of Brylcreem....

A little goes a long way with you these days.

[Drew Stephenson]

And then there are other practical benefits, like not accidentally knocking a faders open with your jacket sleeve...

For the benefit of any younger readers who may have wandered in. This is how we used to lay down those sick beats back in the day.

So presumably all these microphones are fully open? (Other than channel 8)

[Hugh Robjohns]

Nope. That's a commercial music studio (Abbey Road?) using the faders in what has become the 'conventional way', not a BBC studio.

The real reason the BBC used faders opening towards the operator is entirely logical.

The early broadcast consoles, like this Type B desk, used rotary faders -- big knobs that you operated by rotating your wrist. They were fast and accurate, but you could only operate a maximum of two at a time.

Then someone came up with the idea of a 'linear fader' with a pivoted arm which dragged contacts across an arc of studs, each connected to a chain of resistors to make an adjustable balanced attenuator. (Note the two microswitches which operate at each end of the fader travel.)



This arrangement allows a lot of faders to be placed next to each other so that several could be operated with separate fingers, allowing multiple channels to be balanced simultaneously, and allowing far more channels to be controlled in a compact desk.

However, the fader knob obviously travels on an arc -- it goes up and over. Here is a Painton quadrant fader looking end on, with a BBC fader scale.


If that is installed into a flat console desktop, then the scale numbers on the side away from the operator (0-10) become invisible and so it's impossible to open the fader accurately to a particular mark because you can't see it.

But if the fader is configured to open towards the operator, it becomes very easy to open to a particular setting because that's marked on the side facing the operator.

Standard BBC practice was to use 23 (the scale goes up to 30) as the unity gain point on the fader. During rehearsals the operator would 'take levels' and note down the required fader setting on the script -- 20, 23, 27 or whatever it might need. During the recording/broadcast they would note the required value from their script for an upcoming source, place their thumb on the scale in the appropriate position, and be confident that they would open the fader to exactly the right mark every time. The up-and-over action also worked very well with the human wrist -- it is a very natural movement.

EMI also used Painton quadrant faders, but with a different scale and in the opposite direction. The scale had 'Out' at the near end (off) and went up to (I think) +20 at the far end, with ) at the unity mark.



Another nice feature of those Painton quadrant faders was that they could be fitted with lightbulbs at each end to illuminate the perspex cover. That could be used to indicate active channels or, when different colour bulbs were used, to indicate channel group routing (or other functions).



This was over forty years before Studer decided to 'invent' the idea of coloured fader slots to indicate channel routing etc, and patent it as 'FaderGlow'... (Now also seen on some Soundcraft digital consoles too)

[Arpangel]

For the benefit of any younger readers who may have wandered in. This is how we used to lay down those sick beats back in the day.

I’m trying to pin down those large monitors, I see a Quad 33/50e under the right hand speaker, but can’t work out what those monitors are.

[nathanscribe]

Fascinating! Something new every day etc

[Dan LB]

Thanks for the info Hugh. Fascinating stuff indeed.

I’m definitely going to have to try it out.

As for the ‘fader glow’ you can also find it on some newer Calrecs too…

[Hugh Robjohns]

I’m trying to pin down those large monitors, I see a Quad 33/50e under the right hand speaker, but can’t work out what those monitors are.

My guess would be Altec Lansing 605A 'Duplex' monitors

Here's the 'hi-fi' version:



Comprised a 15-inch woofer with a mid/treble horn. Used at Abbey Road in the pop music studios (2/3 -- and that picture looks to me like it's Studio 3) from the 1960s.

[Hugh Robjohns]

As for the ‘fader glow’ you can also find it on some newer Calrecs too…

Ah... well... there's an interesting story there.

I don't know what the current situation is with Calrec, but I believe Studer tried to prevent Calrec from using their coloured ID strips alongside the faders by claiming the patent they somehow were granted on their own 'FaderGlow' system covered Calrec's system too because it was conceptually similar (but physically completely different).

Studer's engineering of the FaderGlow system is quite clever and typically Swiss. But I still struggle to understand how they could claim FaderGlow as a unique invention when the concept of electronically selectable coloured, back-lit faders or fader slots or fader escutcheons, as an aid function identification, pre-dates their design by nearly fifty years, and with at least four practical implementations of similar schemes in existence in the UK alone!

The first implementation of the idea that I know of was with the Painton faders, as already discussed. The next I know of was when SADiE introduced coloured virtual fader slots to indicate different fader automation modes in V3.0 of their DAW, which was around 1996.

One of the nicest implementations of the concept of changing fader colour to indicate function was from Audix Broadcast (UK). They showed a really clever and fully functional prototype system in 2001 where the actual fader knob changed colour. Sadly, AFAIK no commercial product was ever made with their technology.

Calrec's system on the Apollo desk (as in the image above) was around the early 2000s, as in your picture and it used a strip of multicoloured LEDs running alongside the fader slot.

In contrast Studer's FaderGlow system uses an end-lit perspex strip mounted inside the fader slot.

[Drew Stephenson]

I now want an old BBC console.

Just because.

(I don't want to have to maintain it though! )

[Hugh Robjohns]

Actually, not that hard to maintain. All discrete components on relatively spacious circuit boards in well-engineered chassis, and wonderfully detailed comprehensive service manuals still exist.

This is a section of a BBC Type D console -- the type I did my first live broadcasts on:

And here's a typical* channel module:


*This particular module is supposed to be from an EMI console, but it is uncannily similar to the BBC Type D...

[Luke W]

One of the nicest implementations of the concept of changing fader colour to indicate function was from Audix Broadcast (UK). They showed a really clever and fully functional prototype system in 2001 where the actual fader knob changed colour. Sadly, AFAIK no commercial product was ever made with their technology.

That looks great. I did a few shows on a Soundcraft console with the FaderGlow system and was amazed at how effective it was. I initially thought it was a bit of a gimmick, and it's probably not for everyone, but my brain loves a bit of colour coding and it really helped find my way around when changing between banks/scenes etc.

[Arpangel]

I’m trying to pin down those large monitors, I see a Quad 33/50e under the right hand speaker, but can’t work out what those monitors are.

My guess would be Altec Lansing 605A 'Duplex' monitors

Here's the 'hi-fi' version:



Comprised a 15-inch woofer with a mid/treble horn. Used at Abbey Road in the pop music studios (2/3 -- and that picture looks to me like it's Studio 3) from the 1960s.

Thanks Hugh, they look very much "the part" where’s my herringbone jacket?

[Hugh Robjohns]

I initially thought it was a bit of a gimmick, and it's probably not for everyone, but my brain loves a bit of colour coding and it really helped find my way around when changing between banks/scenes etc.

Absolutely. It can really make a huge difference when working a complicated live show on a digital console with fader banking. I've lost count of the times I've become confused as to what a particular fader is doing on my old Dm1000 console when switching between channel fader banks, Aux sends, and masters... Some colour-coding would make that so much easier!

On the old BBC Type Ds the fader scales changed colour depending on which group or main output they were selected to feed, and that was really helpful in grabbing the right fader as the director was making it up as he went along!

[Kwackman]

Standard BBC practice was to use 23

Oh- I'd forgotten that.
And to think 23 (well actually -23) became the magic number for integrated loudness for broadcast.
Coincidence or foil hat time?

[Hugh Robjohns]

ooh! Spooky!

[ef37a]

"Painton faders" Ah, Paintons, one of a myriad industries gone from Northampton.
I made two good mates at Npton Tech' in my teens, Peter and Ivan who worked there. I was never short of carbon film high stab resistors or 27V relays!

Fun fact: Paintons printed the values on their resistors and I recall Pete & Co always struggling with the colour code.

Dave.

[Arpangel]

"Painton faders" Ah, Paintons, one of a myriad industries gone from Northampton.
I made two good mates at Npton Tech' in my teens, Peter and Ivan who worked there. I was never short of carbon film high stab resistors or 27V relays!

Fun fact: Paintons printed the values on their resistors and I recall Pete & Co always struggling with the colour code.

Dave.

Dave, it is sad, just looking through old pages of Studio Sound, at all the little business working out of back street workshops, London etc, tape machines, sound equipment, all gone, when I first moved to London, I almost got a job with Vitavox, but it was in the postage department, didn’t fancy it.
We had a thriving small manufacturing industry back then, in sound equipment, personal service, you could just turn up and see your stuff being made, we had a Leevers Rich tape machine, that was made in Hampstead.

[Hugh Robjohns]

We had a thriving small manufacturing industry back then, in sound equipment, personal service...

We still do... but it is different to what was around 60 years ago because today's sound industry is very different too!

But there are lots of people writing plug-ins and apps for audio, people running low-cost mastering, recording and rehearsal rooms, people making boutique microphones, gain-boosters, niche hardware, custom cables... all sorts of stuff.

I use a SADiE editor... that was made in Streatham near Cambridge...