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Had to mix a show on one a long time ago. As I remember it
was a headroomless wonder and strange EQ... 9 band fixed rotory
on each channel. Not good memorys of it. I had an old Kelsey
with more headroom.

GARY
 
Web quotes

The sound contractor for this festival was Malcolm Hill. Hill Audio was a well-known native company based in Hollingbourne, U.K. In the great Tradition of the Times the company was named after, owned and run by Malcolm Hill. Malcolm and his employees designed and purpose-built a great deal of the equipment in his own shop. Speaker cabinets, power amplifiers and mixing consoles were all custom made and proprietary.

We also used Hill TX series three channel power amps which were also
quite strange. Malcolm (Hill) used car audio output chips to drive two
four-transistor and one eight-transistor output banks through driver
transformers. Driver transformer solid state designs faded out in the
late '60s. These amps sounded pretty good actually but had no current
limiting or circuit protection other than a flame/smoke-release system
which usually activated before the fuses. They were like a huge V8 engine
without a tach or speedometer. Great power but you were on your own. We blew a channel each gig.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.audio.pro.live-sound/browse_frm/thread/e659536461ada773/b2bf047bb6e3f3d1?lnk=st&q=%22malcolm+hill%22+console&rnum=1&hl=en#b2bf047bb6e3f3d1




And Ted F - knows quite a bit about him as well...
 
First gig that I ever mixed FOH live was 'Eddie and the Hot-Rods' at "the Bridge" in Bristol, England on a "Benny" Hill console... -A monitor console! :shock:

It had a 9 or 10-band -quasi-graphic, rotaries everywhere (well, it was a monitor board) no metering other than a single PFL, and crackles came free of charge. -Not fond memories, but not loarthsome either... eeeeh, nothing remarkable.

Winged knobs loom large in my memory, as do subsequently working on a couple.

Simple enough things, but not great quality. Built the traditional way though, modular, motherboard and PCB's.

Keith
 
When I worked for Roger Quested (in the mid-eighties), we used to assemble our monitors at Hill's pa facility behind their factory near Maidstone in Kent. I never used Hill's pa stuff, except their awesome DC3000 poweramp. Yep. 3000 Watts. 1500W a side into - yes! -2ohms. It would also work happily bridged giving 3000W into 2ohms. Each channel would run into 1ohm. This is the only power amp i ever saw that came with a 30Amp Mains cable! Seriously! These amps were the most damped and controlled that we ever found for the bottom end, except the ridiculous Yamaha PC5002, which would only run into a measly 4 ohms - and cost twice as much - and you would need 2 for a 4 bass driver system. We used them into the 4x12's, and eventually into the 4x15's(heHeHe!) Unbelievable! - Except they kept overheating due to faulty fan control circuitry. Crazy boxes, only 3u high, and dissipating 3000 Watts! Shame they were too deep to fit into a normal rack, and were'nt very reliable. I do remember a Hill studio console, and a Studio Sound Blind Shoot-out with a plethora of current consoles in the late eighties. If I remember, the Hill came top! Ahead of Neotek, Neve, SSL, etc, and created quite a stir. They didn't sell many tho' . . .
I have a story relating to Hill, that still raises a smile . . . I had installed one of the aforementioned DC3000's at Battery studios, and it had been left on over the weekend. On monday morning, a maintainance engineer discovered that it was SO hot that it took a whole day to cool down sufficiently to get it out of the rack. Absolutely true! When I turned up to collect it and spirit it down to Maidstone, little did i know that, for a laugh, the maintainance engineer in question had stuffed the amp with pages torn from an absolutely filthy porn mag. So when I arrived at the Maidstone factory, and Malcolm Hill, who is a born again Christian, was protesting most vociferously that there could not possibly be anything wrong with one of HIS power amps, his gaze was set on me as he raised the lid. His 8 year-old son, who was with him at the time, delved immediately into the amp, and removing the first thing he saw, upon opening a scrumpled piece of magazine-print chimed, "Daddy, Daddy, - what's the nice lady doing to the donkey?" . . . . .

I nearly choked . . . just like the "nice lady" . . .

ANdyP
 
I bought a pair of these on evilbay about 3 years ago and just
got around to getting them racked. I am trying to cut them down to make them fit in a 19" rack enclosure.
I ran some test material through them and they sounded very
nice, warm and full, very reminensent to our Neve 1073
in here, although a bit darker. Although these probably need
recapped.
I have pictures of the channel strips and pin out info if anyone
needs it.
Whenver I get them finished I can upload samples.
I agree the 9 band Graphic Pot EQ is kind of strange, but it
doesn't sound half bad. Alot of NE5532s/Capacitors in the EQ circuit.

Todd

www.echoesrecording.com
 
Any further news on Hills? Schemos? I just got a Hill 4400 wich I posted elswhere on PP about. Any info is apretiated.
 
Got ahold of a few hill info. It is on the Muliti Mix. PDF. I can forward it to someone to host if you are interested. Still looking for the Concept schemo though.
 
BTW: I am taking some pictures of this beasts guts and can post them if anyone is interested.
 
[quote author="strangeandbouncy"]When I worked for Roger Quested ...
... DC3000 poweramp. Yep. 3000 Watts. 1500W a side into - yes! -2ohms.
... Each channel would run into 1ohm.
This is the only power amp i ever saw that came with a 30Amp Mains cable!
... and eventually into the 4x15's(heHeHe!) Unbelievable![/quote]

real amps have 30 amp or three phase connectors

I don't see anything wrong with any of that
and nothing unbelievable at all

use good cable and try to keep the amps close to the drivers

:roll:
and
no donkey comments from me
 
I don't know if anyone gives a crap, but I was the tech for Hill in Los Angeles, '81-84 or so, so I have schematics of all products being made at the time.
 
The concept and remix came later. I did take care of a concept here in the L.A. area, but I don't think I had any docs on it. But I'll certainly look.

Main console in my day were the B series, J series, and the 2 & 3 channel amps.

3 channel amps? For their own PA rigs, the used 1 amp per cab:

Cab:

3 long throw ATC 12" for low (critically tuned cabinet, worked well) fed by amp channel 1 (600 WRMS),

2 Tannoy coax woofers for low-mid from amp channel 2 (300 WRMS),

1 Renkus-Heinz 2" driver/horn for hi-mid from amp channel 3 (300 WRMS),

tweets in Tannoys passively crossed inside cab from hi-mid for highs.

Each amp connected to each cabinet with a 10 way 12 AWG cable on some military metal multipin connector.

When I worked with AC/DC at the Forum in '83, they had 88 cabinets, 1200 WRMS each.
 
hill.jpg

I paid $100 for this. Which one is it?
Does someone have a schematic?
Should I fix it up?
It has 5534's.

Or would that make me the Fool on the Hill?
 

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