I’ve perused the forum looking for a conversation about mixing consoles, mixing desks, etc. I occasionally frequent groupdiy and diyaudio, but would love to bring this discussion to the lines world. I would love to hear what people use, what preamp/eq people particularly like, and any secrets people want to share with the community. Also, I have a fascination with old audio product ads (they feel less scummy, almost comical, for some reason?), so I’d also love to see any of those that you have.
I own three analogue consoles at my studio.
Our main desk is an upgraded TAC Scorpion, which is a modders delight. Lots of information about these online. The other engineers and I consider this a big educational project and are trying out different components to get the noise floor down (these are quite noisy, comparatively).
Our second desk is rad and from the 70s, a 24 channel Cetec 20a, (at this point, completely non-operational). We purchased it from a film studio warehouse liquidation for next to nothing. My research tells me this likely has Electrodyne/Langevin designed pres and eqs, as Cetec purchased both of those companies in 1972, as well as having some of the original Cinemag transformers when Cinemag was Reichenbach. I’ll have to dig a little deeper, but I’m really jazzed to get this up and running. Sidebar: damn, I love the Electrodyne style slider caps
Last, I have a weird modular DJ mixer from Ecler, the 8 channel Sclat 100. I’m adding it in because it has channel strips, phantom power and quiet, very transparent preamps. It’s been my go to for synth based music since I purchased it. My one complaint is there isn’t individual outs, but I may try to add some 1/4 outs for the channels so I can use it as a standalone preamp. For now, I keep it with my turntables and my eurorack setup.
I don’t have any photos of mine, but here’s one from the web.