Directory: Northwest Studios PR99 MKII PRODUCTION -PERFORMANCE -PERFECTION
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Suzanne Vega •MIDI Studios • GuitaristTommyTedesco U.S. S4.00 CANADA $5.00 JANUARY 1988 Computers in the Studio: Hard Disks & Software On the Road X with Pink Floyd THE RECORDING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE Directory: Northwest Studios PR99 MKII PRODUCTION -PERFORMANCE -PERFECTION There can be mance. From the solid diecast alumi- num transport chas- -0 03 36 no compromise! HR MIN • SEC sis and head block to 7 A-I on PPI 'FT qE! the servo capstan Tour the premier recording studios motor and the of the world — from London to New modular electronics, York to L.A. — and you'll find they have everything is milled, one thing in common: "no compro- PR99 MKII Real Time Counter and Autolocator. drilled and mounted mise" recorders from Studer of with Swiss precision. The parts fit brated "+4" balanced and floating Switzerland. together right — and stay there. inputs and outputs: • 10 /12 " reel Sure. their Studer multitrack The PR99's professional features capacity. mastering decks are a big investment, are perfect for efficient, accurate tape As for sound quality, the Studer but you can make an equally sound production: •Real-Time counter that heritage again allows no compromise. choice for your production needs for a reads both plus and minus hours, We think you'll find the Revox PR99 whole lot less. You can own atwo-track minutes and seconds: •True Auto Loca- MKII to be sonically superior to any- production recorder with the same tor allows precise, automatic search- thing in its price range. Audition the Studer heritage — a machine that has and-cue to any preselected address Revox PR99 MKII at your Studer Revox many of the same production features, point: •Zero Locate to return the tape Professional Products Dealer, or con- the same uncompromising audio per- to the zero counter location — tact: Studer Revox America, Inc., 1425 formance and the same level of manu- EXACTLY! •Auto Repeat to continu- Elm Hill Pike, Nashville, TN 37210: facturing perfection that has made ously replay a tape segment of any (615)254-5651. Studer Revox recorders the world stan- length. dard — THE REVOX PR99 MKII is the Plus: •Built-in, front-panel vari- machine! speed: •Self-Sync: •Input and output Like its "big brothers" in the top mode switching: •Edit mode switch: studios, the PR99 MKII is aprofessional 9 •Tape dump: •Calibrated and Uncali- eUROIDIEL ,3 REVOX machine built for long-term perfor- Circle #001 on Reader Service Card e ,0 I Ill o IM e,* leî4a) * el lee e orreae < 0 eqt. c‘z oe—_w emw • ez- ..... transistors and ICs are surface simple, expedient circuit will any source from — 60 dBu to mounted to that substrate. create apeak in the response at +4 dBu nominal level while The package is then potted for avery high frequency, some- maintaining afull 20 dB head- stability and thermal conduc- where around 2MegaHertz. room throughout this range. tivity. Resistor tolerances in our The designers assume this will The circuit uses discrete tran- not cause problems because, sistors for low noise, and a after all, the audio range is bipolar 25 volt supply for the limited to about 20 kHz, and headroom. this is 100 times higher in frequency. Long-life At Ramsa, we know better. MRPTM controls. Hi-MICs can be held to within We realize that a2 MHz peak is avery low 0.5%, resulting in an invitation to radio fre- MRP (Matsushita Resistive excellent uniformity. Hi-MICs, quency interference. It turns Plastic) describes aproprietary which are essentially self-con- the console into agreat busi- RAMSA process for building tained circuit blocks, also sim- ness radio receiver so that a high quality, high precision, plify troubleshooting. passing taxi cab, for example, is long life controls. For example, likely to contribute to your the faders and input attenu- Good, stable program. For this reason, we ators on the WR-S840 consoles are rated at 300,000 operational circuit design— cycles This is some 20 times the It doesn't cost you life of atypical carbon fader! any more for us Fiberglas-Epoxy 0 Ma to do it right! No HE peak. just —.\ a simple roil-tiffI circuit boards with 6dB extra Consider the buffer amps. margin of stability 1 Consoles invariably have many 2MHz throughout circuits to buffer one stage Ramsa unity gain buffer stage and Fiberglas-epoxy boards may from the next, serving as an its response. cost more, but they offer impedance converter without designed the unity gain buffer numerous advantages They 9- changing the gain. For example, for the WR-S840 series. It now don't warp, they are much 0 Fa PIE 1111 there's always abuffer between has more parts, but the circuit stronger than phenolic boards, each pan pot and its assign is much better behaved, exhib- they can be fabricated with • .1-pical module with hybrid packages. switches so that the 3dB down point of the pan pot does not iting asimple, non-peaked shift, no matter how many single-pole response and pro- double-sided traces and plated Eli le.. assign switches are selected. viding some 6dB greater mar- through holes That's why every Unfortunately, the typical cir- gin of stability than the typical circuit board in the WR-S840 designs in other consoles. consoles is of this design. etc eat What's more, all capacitors in the audio path are Elna' Comprehensive "Carafine" grade low-ESR type 4-band Ideal tor n:\ for superior transient response. miscellaneous RE especially taxi cabs. I equalization. when you least expect it 2MHz The universal Each input module is equip- 5 (WU-S81) 4ical single-IC, unity gain buffer ped with apowerful 4-band, 1 input circuit II stage and its response. state-variable, sweep-frequency II cuit that performs this function Our engineers developed a equalizer with high speed (20 Module unique input preamp circuit. Its 0 ends up creating problems of volt per microsecond) bi-EET Input 41-position control can be con- II another sort That's because the ICs This circuit complements tinuously adjusted, with 1.5 dB II the engineer's acoustic and 1 detented resolution, to accept Mic/Line II Mono ••• Ire " fire tre:einet iree tei eime • _ ......... 1.».- 1.••be .».• ... ..... .. Introducing the Ram saWR-S840 Series Professional Audio Mixing Consoles. Why did in ground potential). Suddenly, crosstalk, or leakage. When much about the real system the performance is orders of you put asignal into the performance from looking at a Ramsa design magnitude less impressive. console, and it comes out typical crosstalk spec! In fact, many consoles everywhere, that's crosstalk. Consider that atypical this console? become unusable under these Crosstalk is usually present crosstalk figure of —55 dB at How many times have you conditions. This is one of the even in the finest consoles. For 1kHz can degrade to —40 dB compared the specifications for areas we sought to correct in example, the "infinity" mark- at 10 kHz due to the capacitive two different sound mixing designing the WR-S840 series. ing on afader really doesn't nature of high frequency cross- consoles and wondered why, Our market research indi- turn the signal off—it just talk. It doesn't do much good though their specs were very cated there was agenuine attenuates it Crosstalk also to achieve alow distortion fig- similar, they sounded so dif- need for atruly professional applies to all volume controls ure, like 0.01% (which is 80 dB ferently? It happens all the time. sound mixing console without (aux sends, pan pots, etc.) and below signal level), when the One of the primary causes alot of costly gimmicks. The to switches (pre/post, assign, crosstalk is —40 dB at 10 kHz. for this apparent discrepancy basic function of such acon- on/off, etc.). In other words, it That level of crosstalk is between specs and actual per- sole was already well-defined, affects everything in the roughly the equivalent of 1% formance is related to the way yet we wanted to design acon- console. The real question distortion at 10 kHz! in which specifications are sole that would become the becomes, "how much has the Ramsa uses several measured. lypically, aspec is benchmark which future con- crosstalk been attenuated, and approaches to reducing cross- measured in alaboratory, with soles must emulate. One that what is its frequency talk. In our physical bus struc- highly controlled conditions. would exhibit comparable per- response?" ture, we pair aground The console is driven from a formance and stability in the Crosstalk is as important an conductor with each signal single, well-behaved source (an field to that exhibited in the attribute of aconsole's perform- conductor so that adjacent oscillator or noise generator), lab. And our experience in ance as is distortion or noise. channels of audio are always and terminated by aresistive sound reinforcement, and Yet typically you will see only isolated by aground. Even with pad and some sort of analyzer. especially in the broadcast one crosstalk figure (adjacent all those grounds, it would still Under these conditions, you industry (where the demands inputs to adjacent outputs). No be possible for crosstalk com- may see very impressive specs are extraordinary), gave us the wonder you cannot determine ponents to modulate the poten- for noise and distortion. Yet know-how to do the job. The take that same console into a result is the WR-S840 series of studio, an arena, or atheatre consoles. - and consider what happens. NMI You'll connect dozens of inputs Crosstalk: akey from avariety of locations factor in console .... ,dede-41:" Oa (some carrying noise modula- e tion from dimmers, fluorescent performance.