The "Father of British EQ", the "Mother Of Al

[Emperor-TK]

I spoke with him over the phone once and he was very polite, but of course I was buying stuff from him at the time. :grin: Too bad it was the S-100 :razz:

 

[Emperor-TK]

S-100 bashing aside, I'd probably buy this if I were in the market for a console:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=7331142018&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I have plenty of outboard pre's now, and the EQ is pretty pleasant and transparent, probably very nice for mixing with. Not sure how the summing is though. 32 decent mic pre's wouldn't stink either.

I miss mixing on real consoles. Hmmm. Anyone ever mix on an Oram board?

 

[Brent Casey]

Emperor-TK: That is brilliant!

Brent Casey

 

[SSLtech]

There's one in a small studio in Eureka, California. i'm there occasionally, I should see if I can drop by and check it out...

That said, Andrew at Purple audio found the BEQ-32 (I'm pretty sure that 'BEQ' stands for "British EQ"... -Talk about clinging on to the marketing hype!) to be pretty friggin' unuseable in it's factory state... check out the link:

http://www.purpleaudio.com/Product/oram.html

Here's an extract:

The master section on the BEQ-24 is easily one of the worst we have ever seen. The list of things wrong with that master section is LONGER than the list of functions it performs. We quickly realized that nothing in this master section was worth "fixing". If you have used one of these consoles, you probably know some or all of these failings.

Pretty strong words... and from someone who I utterly respect.

Keef

 

[Emperor-TK]

Wow, that's exactly the info I was looking for Keef. Thanks! I thought that was a ballanced and unemotional assesment of the console, one I would tend to believe. FWIW, the S-100 also uses TL074's on the output :grin:

When the Oram BEQ-24 console was introduced, we thought it looked pretty good. The equalizer sounds good. The preamps hold their own.

That's pretty much my assesment of my MWS. To bad that level of quality doesn't carry through to the rest of the console.

I would be more inclined to order a custom master section from Purple and use my own DIY channel strips.

 

[chrissugar]

I remember I read long ago at a proaudio forum about the whole "Father of British EQ" and some heavy guys (ex Trident) posted about the fact that the asociation with Oram is BS. It is all about marketing.
I will try to find the thread. This guy has not a very good reputation.

chrissugar

 

[chrissugar]

I can swear it was a post from Barry Porter but can't find it. Although I found some info from Alan Hyatt:
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=60eba4ee3a88af71fec3aeaf06b7dcec&p=1114020#post1114020

chrissugar

 

[Guest]

The big "Father of British EQ" Thread
Starung:
Malcolm Toft,
Fletcher,
Geoff Tanner,
John Oram
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.audio.pro/browse_frm/thread/bb0d10fe01c5ca88/5a6fec9637de54fc?q=&rnum=2&hl=en#5a6fec9637de54fc

Enjoy

 

[Guest]

And the Barry Porter one
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.audio.pro/browse_frm/thread/5865cbed23a154db/6cafdda84b3da2d4?q=An+interesting&rnum=16&hl=en#6cafdda84b3da2d4

 

[smallbutfine]

SOOOOOOOOOOOO,
as a newcomer in the mixing business (in fact a hobbyist for decades as a musician and doing IT for a living...), - WHAT THE HECK is:
THE british EQ ????

You may wonder, why i ask this way...
I found schematics and stuff not mentioning the origins (haha :twisted: ) or original devices calling itself THE british EQ so this thread came into my focus and i really wanna know what kinda stuff this EQ is really. Do you pro guy's out there can get me a little bit up to date?

What would YOU say is THE British EQ :?: :?: :?:
(is this question enough for starting a poll?)

Funny thread BTW :grin: :thumb:

Emperor-TK :green: :thumb:

Cheers

Martin
- genetic EQ -

(i.e.- grandson of the non british quality eq called a Konzertmeister - )

(that's really true, he lived in berlin, played 10 instruments - different ones :wink: - worked for symphony orchestras and made cat music on a violin with my dad beeing a child before he dies in war 1945 - a shame i never even saw a pic of him - my grandma burned them in pain after she got his conveyance and death message the same day - musicians: don't go to the army - amen)

 

[SSLtech]

Greatest Quote I've read for a while:
[quote author="Barry Porter"]Yes, but to sound right, you should get it made over here, preferably using ex-army (1st World War) components, put together by a short sighted ex-bricklayer with true Brit hearing and a fear of soldering irons.[/quote]

:green:

Keef

 

[smallbutfine]

:green: :green: :green:
I totally agree with his sense of humor, but i would prefer german parts nevertheless :thumb:

Martin

 

[Carl_Huff]

I exchanged several emails with Barry Porter after he offered up his 'NetEQ' circuit on the web a few years ago. I always found him to be interested, tolerant of my questions and a great resource of knowledge. I remember one email in particular when I was questioning the need for center tapped potentiometers in his design. He started his email by complaining that he "Didn't really have time", and then proceeded to write pages and pages of detailed response. He was one of the good guys in this industry. I miss him.

 

[frackyfreak]

[quote author="Emperor-TK"]S-100 bashing aside, I'd probably buy this if I were in the market for a console:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=7331142018&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
[/quote]

now 50% off :grin::

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=7332530928&rd=1

but for 7k you can get a neotek elite...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=7329646328&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

j.

 

[pucho812]

From what I hav e been told, British EQ simpley refers to an EQ that has full parametric LMF and HMF bands and then a low shelf and high shelf.

Here is a DIY british eq project .

http://www.akustische-kunst.org/audio/briteq.html

 

[bcarso]

[quote author="SSLtech"]Greatest Quote I've read for a while:
[quote author="Barry Porter"]Yes, but to sound right, you should get it made over here, preferably using ex-army (1st World War) components, put together by a short sighted ex-bricklayer with true Brit hearing and a fear of soldering irons.[/quote]

:green:

Keef[/quote]

Reminiscent of the late Salvatore Martirano's epic multimedia antiwar piece from about 1969, "L.'s G. A." in which a tape score plays as two or three projectors run films of Ronald Nameth and a guy jumps around on the stage reciting fragments of the Gettysburg Address through the carbon-granule microphone of a WW I gas mask.

I was there, and it was only the beginning of a wild night.

 

[Emperor-TK]

[quote author="frackyfreak"]

now 50% off :grin::

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=7332530928&rd=1

but for 7k you can get a neotek elite...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=7329646328&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW


j.[/quote]

Wow that's some sale! That is only slightly more than I spent on my 24 channel Mackie 8-bus in the early 90's. Adjusted for inflation, it's even cheeper.

Regarding the Neotek, I have a good friend that has one of those and I can't say that I like them much. From the earlier posts, it sounds like the Elite would do a better job as a mixer and signal router. But I think the mic pres on that board are worse than mediocre and the EQ is bland. Maybe the way to go is to rip the channel strips out of the Oram and throw them into the Neotek :green: :thumb: Nice mixer for ~$11K.

 

[frackyfreak]

[quote author="Emperor-TK"]
Regarding the Neotek, I have a good friend that has one of those and I can't say that I like them much. From the earlier posts, it sounds like the Elite would do a better job as a mixer and signal router. But I think the mic pres on that board are worse than mediocre and the EQ is bland. Maybe the way to go is to rip the channel strips out of the Oram and throw them into the Neotek :green: :thumb: Nice mixer for ~$11K.[/quote]

to be honest, i've never heard the Neotek but heard good things about them and that's why i linked to it. a friend of a friend had an Elite here in NJ, but he recently sold it before i had a chance to listen to it. (maybe we know the same guy? tomas g.?)

as for Oram gear, i have some Oram Sonicomps and i can't complain about them, they sound good and the build quality is fine. (they've been working with no problems for 5 years now, i do however think the Oram gear is overpriced for what it does.)

anyway, i don't know how low can these analog console prices go. i think it's a good time to buy, before people realize what they're doing... maybe in a few years they'll bounce back into vougeness like analog synths did.

cheers,
j.

 

[smallbutfine]

I think at the TapeOp i read an article where the neotek series one was mentioned beneath a trident to be one of the consoles to be a bang for the buck as a recommendation for a 15000$ all in all for gear budget studio... as i am not into analogue completely (using daw and mackie and roland rack mixers and some outboard gear for synths) i consider to be better off to have alot of dual channel vintage offboard strips / modules to be racked to have a nice palette of different quality sound...
and i simply never have enough money and not enough room for such monsters...

Thanks poucho, that was the info i was looking for... (it's ´just a topology of EQ and not an *all time best of* special unit i looked at, and yes it looks quite similar to the links project)...ehem...if i look into the files of my harddrive - oops this one IS the one of your link!!!

:shock:

(just a diy unit, nevertheless looked quite nice!)

Cheers

Martin

 

[Rossi]

[quote author="smallbutfine"]SOOOOOOOOOOOO,
as a newcomer in the mixing business (in fact a hobbyist for decades as a musician and doing IT for a living...), - WHAT THE HECK is:
THE british EQ ????
[/quote]

Since you live in Germany, get the current issue of KEYBOARDS Magazine. There's a review of the Trident 4T channelstrip (I'm the author) and a text box with my paraphrase of John Oram's answer to exacly this question. The next issue will be out on July 1st, I think, so you better hurry.