A REPORT FROM THE FRONT

Our new board here at Smoke and Mirrors is a Soundcraft Series 600. I remember an ad for this console in a Keyboard magazine I had back in 1988. OK, I still have the magazine. The one with Howard Jones and Keith Emerson on the cover, you remember it. Anyhow, the ad's tagline was "No Hiss. No Hum. No Half Measures."

Soundcraft is a British company; I told Ted he can now refuse to mix on anything that doesn't have "British EQ." Our console has "British EQ," in that it's British and has EQ. Perhaps we shall call it Nigel.

It is very quiet, and we're testing everything out. I've pulled about 10 modules from the frame already, as there are lots of little jumpers that need to be moved around to change all of the interface levels.... yawn....

I could go on and on, but for now let's say we've got a 32 channel console, fully modular, with 8 groups and 16 tape returns. (that would be 56 channels on input on mixdown). Next step-mor outs from the computer (we're at 8 so we'll mix with subgroups). The studio looks and feels very different, and the console sounds pretty good. Definitely better.