I’ve been really enjoying the Tascam M-3500 console I mentioned in my previous post. Currently, it’s sitting on a kitchen table in a back room of my house and I’m enjoying it so much it may never leave! Who knew having a console in the house would be so much fun! I’ve been slowly moving through each channel, exercising  the pots and faders and making sure each button works. It’s been painstaking, but a lot of fun. So far I’m on channels 15 and 16. I test them in stereo pairs while listening to music and so far so good.

I have found a lot of scratchy pots and buttons but functionally things are working perfectly with the exception of a few LEDs. Without exception I have so far been able to ‘exercise’ the button or knob by just pressing it over and over or twisting around fully a few times and the problem goes away. It’s going to be a great board to have in the studio!

In addition to adding that console to my list of gear I’ve been looking to bolster my limited array of outboard gear. I have a few budget minded but solid pieces at the moment that I’m still happy with but I’d like a few more options. To that end I’ve been keeping an eye out for respected but  out of production or older models of gear people are selling.

I’ve found a cool rackmount mixer, the Tascam M-1b, that has a unique pass through function I’ve not seen in a mixer before that will make it very valuable as a studio problem solver. I’ve also been pulling together a number of modules for DBX’s long retired ‘900 Series’ rack unit. It holds 9 modules that do various things, like EQs, compressors, De-essers, noise reduction, ect.

My searches on the internet seem to indicate that the module ‘to have’ in this unit is the 902, the De-Esser (A De-Esser does exactly what it sounds like it does, it helps to tame those sibilant ‘s’ sounds). Those modules tend to be a little bit pricy, pushing up towards $200/each, and I may in time choose to pick one up. My focus, however, is on the 903 module, the compressor.

I should admit at this point that compressors are my weakness in terms of audio gear. To people on the periphery in the audio world they have gotten a bit of a black eye of late. I often hear from musicians that they don’t want to use compression on their songs because they’ve heard that they sound bad and hurt the music. It’s a bit of specious angle angle to take but one I fully understand. A quick Google search on the ‘Loudness Wars’ will explain the issue. Proper compression, however, is a wonderful thing and really adds a lot. Maybe I’ll do a post on good compression at some point…

DBX as a company has long been known for their compressors. They are most famous for a line of compressors called the 160. They have been making that compressor in some variation since the mid 1970s and you can still buy a 160A today for around $430 or used for about $100 less. What makes their compressors unique is a feature they call ‘Over Easy’ which is their trademarked name for basically modifying certain compressor settings as the amount of compression increases to make it more transparent sounding.

When they released the 900 series rack they created the 903 module which is very similar to the 160 stand alone unit that was in production at the time. Some changes were sure to have been made if only to accommodate the quite different form factor of the 900 series and nothing else. Reviews for the 903 though remain good even today and its reported to have at least the same sonic signature as the 160.

With this knowledge in hand I have been scouring the web for 903s and have been surprisingly successful. Ebay alone seems to always have a few on offer and with a final auction price right around $150, it’s a stunning deal. It’s a 50% savings on a used 160 and, should you fill all 9 slots of a 900 series rack with them, quite an efficient way to fill the racks. In addition to the single channel, or mono, 903, DBX also made a module called the 907 which paired to a 903 to make a stereo compressor. I was lucky enough to find one and an 905 EQ module for a great deal and I can’t wait to test them out!

Construction hasn’t yet begun on the new space and will likely be put off until the spring. These things cost money. Perhaps I’ll try and curb my gear spending a bit to hurry that along but, to be honest, I don’t know know what I want the design to look like yet. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to integrate the M3500, tape machines and digital gear into my studio and I’m not yet sure I’ve found my final floor plan. More measurements need to be made, more input considered. When I’ve picked a layout though, I’ll be sure to make a post about it here.

Robert