Little sleeper mixers

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inverseroom
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Little sleeper mixers

Post by inverseroom » Fri Mar 30, 2007 4:45 pm

Old, weird mixers with noisy characterful pres. 4 to 8 channels. Go!

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0-it-hz
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Post by 0-it-hz » Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:01 pm

Anything Bi-amp ever made
Everything louder than everything else.

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Post by inverseroom » Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:30 pm

Aha, with the spring reverb? I always wondered about those...what do they sound like?

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Post by 0-it-hz » Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:43 pm

Well.... those old bi-amps sound like alot of things... mainly dusty knobs and ripped off ground plugs in my experience.

They break-up in a nice square wave sort of way. I've used it to create some lofi PA vocal efeects along with these "Voice of the Theatre" altec cabs.

I've never encountered the spring reverbed model, however I'm in love with the "ECHO" effect on old yamaha mixers, it's a really cheap analog delay with a More/less knob.
Everything louder than everything else.

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Post by E Baxter Put » Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:50 pm

Tapco 6 channel... can't remember model number. Lo-fi spring reverb. Can use it as a nice vocal effect with punk rock singers.

It used to be my front end for my 4 track cassette back in the day.

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Post by djimbe » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:00 pm

Altec 1220. 10 Channels. Mono out. Transformer input, unbalanced direct outs on each channel. Spring. A goofy compressor thing on the master channel.

major drawback is they're big. They're almost completely empty inside. It's a weird construction, but fun to play with. Some of the new Chris Connelly record was tracked with one...
I thought this club was for musicians. Who let the drummer in here??

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Post by honkyjonk » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:47 pm

I have one of those Biamp boards too. I should drag it out because it does sound lo fi awesome. It HAS the spring reverb in it, but it doesn't work gall darn it.

Anyway, not that it's MORE usable, but in a wierd way the eq is more fun than the eq on my PM1000 console. But it's crappy. Crappy good. Or I don't know, maybe it's good good. What the hell does it matter anyway?

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Post by inverseroom » Sat Mar 31, 2007 5:12 am

Are there any small-format Yamaha mixers with EQ and PM-era pres? There's a little Yamaha PA mixer I've always wanted one of that has a drum machine built into it....

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Post by creature.of.habit » Sat Mar 31, 2007 5:27 am

john i loved my time with the yamaha RM804..more likely than not, it'll do everything you want, except the built in fx...

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Post by inverseroom » Sat Mar 31, 2007 5:36 am

This old Sony looks cool but no XLR...

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Post by creature.of.habit » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:04 am

inverseroom wrote:This old Sony looks cool but no XLR...
cool! maybe you can balance it afterwards? looks really cool.

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Post by inverseroom » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:09 am

Yeah I just may go for it..why not, geez, it's so damn cheap. I found some guy on another messageboard posting about it four years ago...
It's a 1973 Sony MX-16 8 channel board. It's very simple, it has 4 outputs, each with a VU, each channel has 3 stepped controls: Output select (for channels 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1 and 2 combined), 4 step Input attenuation and a mic/line/off switch, plus faders, of course. If anybody out there has heard the old Sony tube condenser microphones, you'll know how high that company's standards were back in the day. Many Japanese companies in the 60's and 70's just copied the high end western circuit designs and used components of equal caliber, they were extremely competitive at that time. This board has all discrete class A circuitry. The 1980's incarnation of these boards used V-Fet preamps, I don't know whether or not this one does.
I conducted extensive listening tests, though, unfortunately none were blind since I was alone.
I must have run my CD player through it for an hour A/B'ing it with a direct line to my amp, and whenever I thought one sounded better (which took a long time to hear ANY difference), it turned out that that one was slightly louder than the other, I would correct it and again, not be able to hear a difference until I had really concentrated for a long time and it would always turn out that any perceived difference was caused by one channel being just a hair louder than the other, so I have to conclude that this board is pretty transparent! I was running my CD player through some very cheap cables, so maybe the signal was dulled down enough that subtle differences wouldn't be noticed. Don't know.
I then A/B'd the preamps with my stupid little Behringer and my old Magnasync (a tube pre with triad transformers). The Magnasync has such distinct and colored tone that it was not really comparable, just too different- beautifully detailed high end, but very low bass. Compared to the Behringer the Sony pre's sounded bigger and better defined, especially in the mids and in regards to dynamics, with a smoother bass response. But the Sony only has unbalanced inputs, so when I ran the mic into the pre it was first going through a 15 year old Radio Shack (gasp!) XLR to TS adapter plug that very noticeably dulls down and Lo-Fi-isizes the signal, but despite this the MX-16 still beat out the Behringer!
Then I tried it with my DAW- an RME Multiface running into DP4. It seemed to maybe have a very subtle warming effect when I ran a single channel through it, maybe this was my imagination. But when I tried mixing a few tracks down on it I was very impressed. I had been frustrated by the way that my mixes always seemed to be trapped inside the computer- kind of muddy or blurry, distant feeling and just inescapebly yucky and 2-dimensional. But through that new board they sound punchy, crisp and up front. I got a mix I'd been working on for months to sound better than it ever did in about 5 minutes. Who knows why. I know that there's a debate going on over digital and analog summing. Well, I've heard an A/B on a Neve and the digi mix just did not compare to the analog in terms of presence and depth. And now I've found the same to be true in my own studio, to a much greater extent than I imagined.
It's got its problems though- I need some sort of reverse direct box to use the pre's without the stupid adapter - Any Suggestions?And you can hear it humming if you really, really crank it. It's got a 2-prong plug and I don't know if that's affecting it, maybe it needs new filter caps, I don't know.
All in all, though, it's got to be one of the best $36 I spent!

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Post by inverseroom » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:22 am

Sony MX-P21...but he's got it priced stupid high

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Post by inverseroom » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:31 am

MXP-290

Anyone ever use these sonys?

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Post by fremitus » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:32 am

i've got a six channel mccurdy discrete mixer that's pretty sick...
i would put the pres closer to API than neve in my ears, punchy as hell but still with plenty of clarity.

that mxp looks cool enough for short money, so long as nobody from here poaches your listing, it'l go for less than a new mackie and sound way better (probably).

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