Vintage console porn

[NewYorkDave]

I'm having a lot of fun with the $49 Canon scanner I bought last night. Here are some nice 1952 color ads for the RCA BC-2B mixing console:

6.5 Meg PDF

[inverseroom]

Yowza, check out the knobs on that baby!

[hulahalau]

From 1973-1977, when I was at WBRU - Brown's 50 kW commercial FM station in Providence RI - the main board was an RCA stereo board which was the big brother of the one in your advertisement. I believe it had 8 stereo channels in, with additional channels switched in by lever switches (one pair was hardwired to land lines connected to ABC Radio news in NYC). Everythng was re-configurable, and there were a number of switches that could be wired-up to do differnt switching taks, and i believe there was also a patch bay as part of the console. Each pot had those big knobs, and if you turned counterclockwise, past a click, you would be able preview the stereo pair to a small "cue" speaker. This would be handy when doing live remotes, because you could keep the cue speaker on, and monitor it until the announcer (Chris Berman of ESPN fame, when he was doing Brown ice hockey as a student!) would be ready to go live. the main use of the cue, of course, was to preview the album cut that you were thinking of, and "cueing up the cut on the turntable. Also, the cue would automatically be cut off (along with the in-studio monitors), when the announcer mike was switched on (another aspect of the flexibility built into the console). Finally, flipping the lever switch to make the channel live would also, for the turntable channels, start the turntable motor. So, when doing a segue, you would hold the vinyl with your finger, turn on the switch with the pot turned down all the way, and when you wanted to start the music, let the vinyl slip and pot up at the same time. I'm appalled at the lack of technique by current DJs at parties and discos. there were two VU meters, which we used to monitor levels to the compressor. However, we also had a broadcast modulation monitor to ensure that we wer not overmodulating the FM signal (the FCC does not like this, because it really increases the amount of sideband interference, as i understand it).

They certainly don't make up like they used to and even more sadly, they don't design em like they used to.

Thanks for the memories.

[psychicoctopus]

I want to be that board operator in the picure, running sound for a live radio play, back in the day when folks would gather around the radio instead of the TV. I was born too late for that! But I've got some modules from old RCA solid-state consolettes, a pair of BA-43 preamps and a BA-78A preamp/limiter.

The BA-78A is a weird circuit. It has a mic-level input and a +30dBm output. You really can't plug it into a mixer's line-in jack, it's waaay too hot. I guess it was a talkback amp, designed for a 50-ohm speaker that doubles as the microphone.. or something?? It's been neat for vocals when plugged straight into a speaker cabinet - it's rated at 4% THD and it overdrives smoothly, putting out about 4 watts max. There are 5 audio transformers in the signal path and all germanium transistors. Far out, sometimes useful.

[NewYorkDave]

Here's more vintage radio console nostalgia... I present the Gates Studioette!



I actually have one of these sitting in my storage unit. I've scanned the manual and placed it online:

Gates M5381 Studioette (2 Meg PDF)

[joel hamilton]

I use a GATES "bi-mote" all the time. 2 Mic pre's, tube summing buss, one output. Awesome. Originally intended for remote broadcast where two mics were being used. Totally rock solid build quality, and the VU is bigger than the woofer on my NS10's!

I love GATES broadcast equipment.

[NewYorkDave]

They also made a remote amplifier--which is the old broadcast term for the kind of portable field mixer you describe--called the "Dynamote."

When buying "vintage" tube remote amplifiers, be careful because many of them, for reasons of weight and cost, contain but a single preamp and the mics are mixed BEFORE the preamp. Needless to say, this ain't the best from a S/N perspective. Also, these "low level" mixing circuits usually use 150:300 ladder attenuators, which could load down some mics.

I wonder if the guy who bought this realizes that he's only getting one preamp. I noticed when I looked carefully at the pic that there's only one input transformer, which is a dead giveaway.

[wing]

what a hottie... i sure would like to twist her knobs