Originally Posted by
RMC
Hi toddalin,
You seem pretty lonely here. This is surprising as there was so much interesting gear back then. I'll try filling some of the gaps left by others re the 70s home recording studio. It assumes lots of $$$. The most challenging aspect here is to remember what was available or not equipment wise in the 70s. Maybe I'll trip on a few years, but I think I'll do ok.
MIXER: most recording studios are designed/built around a mixer and monitors, not necessarilly the case here. Can't remember if Solid State Logic and Amek existed in the 70s, Digico didn't, then I would go with something like a Trident, Neve, API or DDA mixer. Nice Cooper Sound ones, too small for the purpose here.
MONITORS: for mains,the 1979 Bowers & Wilkins 801, a long time reference, time aligned, phase correct, matched pairs, limited production, etc. Still need others though. Room acoustics is a separate issue here.
In the 70s a studio also needed the small Auratone cube type to know how the mix would sound on car or table radio or from AM. They're still available but may be useless today.
As for nearfield monitors, I'm pretty undecided at this time not remembering years, still trying to figure out some. For the time being I'll simply enter the 1978 purchased Polk Audio Monitor 5 I still have, though somewhat larger. At the time a trade magazine test compared its sound to the Spendor BC-? but the latter was said to be short on highs (13-14 khz max), while the Polk doesn't suffer from that having the widely used hi-fi Peerless "Evergreen" tweeter. The British Mission nearfield type I also use don't qualify since they're 1991 or so.
AMPS: Bryston 4B Pro/XLRs or the original Crest Audio P-3500 for the B&W 801s, and BGW 100B for the nearfields.
Tape recorder: a DBXed Revox, Tascam for multitrack recording.
Mic kits: Neumann, AKG (e.g. C414), E-V (e.g. RE20), Sennheiser (e.g. MD 421, MD 441), etc.
Headphones: good old Sennheiser 414X I still use, others more recent don't qualify year wise.
Turntable: Technics SL 1200, SME tonearm (Shure V15 IV owner manual says 1980, one year too late...)
Real Time Analyzer: Neptune (Crown RTA-2 is 1981, can't remember the year for Audio Control's SA-3050-2)
BTW I've been looking around to purchase a new hardware RTA, not software, and there ain't many of these left: now the well known Audio Control has also been discontinued, and the only other affordable ones seen (not B&K or Tektronics) were the Behringer you have and a TC Electronics model, part of the Behringer family. Don't really like the TC unit so that leaves only the Behringer DEQ 2496 for now. Never owned nor ever been a big fan of Behringer for various reasons, but who knows I may have to swallow that back (lol). I noted you seem to be comfortable/satisfied with that RTA in your posts? One rack space means a quite small readout to look at, any issues? Using the ECM 8000 mic or another? Thanks, Regards,
Richard