Quadrant Fader

[Winston OBoogie]

...Sound Techniques are designing and re-building brands that I love...

There's a lot to love about those desks for sure. Some truly great sounding albums were recorded at studios with a Sound Techniques 'A' Range.


They also happen to look very sexy so I can absolutely understand that Danny would want to capture that look by using quadrant faders and Ernest Turner type meters.

Filing trademarks associated with the products you're building is all part of protecting your business and certainly not unusual in my opinion.

Think about the kind of money that's probably needed for R&D/tooling costs and everything else involved in recreating those faders!
Respect

 

[cyrano]

Care to enlighten the ignorant?

What's the advantage of such a quadrant fader? Just look and feel?

 

[warpie]

Care to enlighten the ignorant?

What's the advantage of such a quadrant fader? Just look and feel?

I think they're stepped, aren't they?

 

[Squeaky]

Legitimate or not, I think it should be noted that there is a difference between applying a newly developed trademark to a new product and applying an established trademark (and exploiting any good will that might be associated therewith) to a "reborn product" shall we say (there might be a lot more unicorns involved in the latter). The pro audio industry has a confusing history when it comes to branding.

 

[Gareth Connor]

Hello All,

A few notes in regard to recent posts.

There has been a lot going on in the background and the results are now showing in this thread.

Firstly, Wall, thank you in post #13 for the clarifications and for steering the discussion in a new direction.

Winston OBoogie's post #14 brings in the subtle but important notes about the differeing types of Painton / quadrant faders present in consoles from different manufacturers. Also, that meters in the ET style have been out of production for some time, the result of a decision by a UK meter manufacturer.

Responding specifically to Squeaky's post #24.
We could consider any component part for the example I am about to give; I have chosen meters.
It would be very easy to disingenuously put a sub-$5 meter movement into a new casing, print a trademarked scale plate and pass the thing off as a $ (3-figure) ET meter (or whatever trademarked product you are riding on). A problem arises when the fraudulent product is fitted into what is deemed to be a high quality console. As soon as the customer does some digging into the internals of the console, the cheat will be exposed and all crediblity is blown away. It's not a good business model and is a sure guarantee of business demise along with the acquisition of a reputation for being a "walking eagle", of which the audio industry already has a large flock.
The amount of time, effort, engineering, investment, R&D, testing, etc., that has gone into the meters to ensure that they are correct is huge.
There are no stables for the housing of unicorns at ST, either in the US or the UK.

Further reading in relation to Sound Techniques is here:
https://www.soundtechniques.com/new-era/
There is additional detail in the August 2020 edition of Mix Magazine.
The article covers company history, music recorded on ST consoles and the studios that had them, a photo of the ZR32 Tweed console and some of the thinking behind it, current projects and glimpse into the future.
This is the article title and a link:
Resurrection of a Console - Danny White, Geoff Frost and the Legend of Sound Techniques
https://www.soundtechniques.com/news/
Cheers,

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Thanks for the heads up Gareth.
Reading the Mix article I see that I made an error earlier in assuming the extended channel EQ in the ZR borrowed from the later System 12 desk, obviously you and Graham went above and beyond that by sticking to the ethos of the A Range.

Seems clear to me that if the new Sound Techniques Company were about pulling the wool over people's eyes with sub par components, slap-dash design etc., we'd have seen a slew of 500 series modules long before now. We haven't.


By God! That new ZR16 is perfect

 

[matriachamplification]

We are curious, why not share this info at the start? Seems like a odd way to clear the smoke and see the mirrors.

 

[crosstalk]

The Sound Techniques fader is a copy of our design started
Back in April 2010 , this idea allows a existing
Linear Faders to retrofit to look like a vintage Quadrant
fader This concept remains our intellectual property.
As Ian has already stated there is no Painton Ltd
They have trade mark the Name Painton the in the U.S
This is a Quadrant fader so you can call it anything you like

Both myself self and colleague Bill Todd are fed up with this B.S,
so we have decided put our design in the public domain.
Any one can produce and modify the parts free of charge.
These 3d CAD files will be the same Files we used to produce the fader sample that we sent to Sound Techniques back in 2017, when we wrongly thought that we had gentleman’s agreement to purchase our design.

I am not sure which is the best platform / license to use to make theses files
available to online.

Any advice from members would be appreciated .


Regards


Jim Dowler

Audio Digital Technology

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Oh wow!
Really clever design and concept Jim. Seems simple when you know how. But having that initial idea and "know now" is the ticket of course, and worth every penny of the price of admission.

Sorry that the business end of things couldn't be settled fairly and in private, and that it's now forced you into a corner on here.
Of course, it's good news for us folks that you're offering your intellectual property to the public domain, but still...

I've never met Gareth but have exchanged messages with him and he seems a really straight-shooting, stand-up guy. He's had a long, solid career in this biz. anyway.
I'd bet good money he's probably just been the messenger in this scenario/on this forum and, with the utmost respect to Jim & Bill, I hope he doesn't get unjustly caught up in the crossfire.

Someone please help Jim with hosting the 3D files etc.
I think there should be some kind of deal where there's a token royalty payment per fader tbh., but who am I to say?

 

[crosstalk]

Thanks Winston
just want to make one thing clear ,this is nothing to do with Gareth he is a great designer and engineer
I was dealing with Danny White.

 

[ruffrecords]

Hi Jim. I have released a number of my PCB designs as Open Source. For this I use the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license a full copy of which you can find here:

Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

This licence basically allows anyone to make the PCBs for their own personal use but if they want to sell them or build them into a product for sale they need to contact me to discuss a royalty.

Cheers

Ian

 

[madswitcher]

The Sound Techniques fader is a copy of our design started
Back in April 2010 , this idea allows a existing
Linear Faders to retrofit to look like a vintage Quadrant
fader This concept remains our intellectual property.
As Ian has already stated there is no Painton Ltd
They have trade mark the Name Painton the in the U.S
This is a Quadrant fader so you can call it anything you like

Both myself self and colleague Bill Todd are fed up with this B.S,
so we have decided put our design in the public domain.
Any one can produce and modify the parts free of charge.
These 3d CAD files will be the same Files we used to produce the fader sample that we sent to Sound Techniques back in 2017, when we wrongly thought that we had gentleman’s agreement to purchase our design.

I am not sure which is the best platform / license to use to make theses files
available to online.

Any advice from members would be appreciated .


Regards


Jim Dowler
View attachment 80608
Audio Digital Technology

Neat ideal. I'd love to try it out. Where do I sign up for a sample?

If you really want to share it widely, then perhaps making it available for 3-D printing at a site like yeggi - 3D Printer Models Search Engine would make it easier to make.

Kind regards

Mike

 

[matriachamplification]

The Sound Techniques fader is a copy of our design started
Back in April 2010 , this idea allows a existing
Linear Faders to retrofit to look like a vintage Quadrant
fader This concept remains our intellectual property.
As Ian has already stated there is no Painton Ltd
They have trade mark the Name Painton the in the U.S
This is a Quadrant fader so you can call it anything you like

Both myself self and colleague Bill Todd are fed up with this B.S,
so we have decided put our design in the public domain.
Any one can produce and modify the parts free of charge.
These 3d CAD files will be the same Files we used to produce the fader sample that we sent to Sound Techniques back in 2017, when we wrongly thought that we had gentleman’s agreement to purchase our design.

I am not sure which is the best platform / license to use to make theses files
available to online.

Any advice from members would be appreciated .


Regards


Jim Dowler
View attachment 80608
Audio Digital Technology

Thank you Mr. Doyle for clarifying the uneasy feeling we've been experiencing and my family and I are deeply sorry for causing you and Mr. Todd any frustrations.

We can and will of course aid with sharing these files on our website (and look at some compensation as mentioned by Winston). If there is any other help we can provide please let us know.

Sorry again. We know how busy you and your team are.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Thanks Winston
just want to make one thing clear ,this is nothing to do with Gareth he is a great designer and engineer
I was dealing with Danny White.

Thanks for clarifying Jim, that's what I'd thought too.
I don't know Danny but have emailed with him a few times. I was introduced via a friend and so I just took him at face value.
Again, I'm sorry it went sour for you and Bill.

Ian was obviously right and I, somewhat, incorrect in assuming there was no smoke and mirrors at play.
Apologies to Ian, Squeaky, Wall et al. for me not seeing that.

 

[crosstalk]

Hi Jim. I have released a number of my PCB designs as Open Source. For this I use the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license a full copy of which you can find here:

Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

This licence basically allows anyone to make the PCBs for their own personal use but if they want to sell them or build them into a product for sale they need to contact me to discuss a royalty.

Cheers

Ian

Thanks Ian that was exactly what I need

 

[DaftFader]

matriach...

What 3D format does the Unreal Engine require ? I could probably knock up a quadrant fader for you , based on our models

 

[matriachamplification]

Hello Daft Fader

What a generous offer. Thank you. Unreal Engine requires .fbx format.

Given I myself am not an artist, I have shared a good resource for 3D modeling UE4.

https://game-ace.com/blog/unreal-engine-3d-modeling-a-step-by-step-guide/

 

[DaftFader]

OK .
I know Blender about as well as the back of your head having played with it for only a few minutes .

The only route, I can see, from CAD to Blender is via .stl file, which is probably the least useful 3D model format .

So, all I've been able to do so far is export an assembly as stl (so it is just a single blob in the shape of a fader) , import in to blender , add an overall metallic shade and export as .fbx

If you can check this file can be imported OK into UE4 , then we can work on doing something more useful with it

Bill

Oh! I can't attach it so you'll have to download it from my google drive here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15rYK6Za9MlXG8GXgxUy8YLoZWasTveKS/view?usp=sharing

 

[jhulk]

onshape

 

[jhulk]

for a professional quality product needs to be a mold plastic printing is ruff