To any other guys out there who have mixed audio on a modern recording console, just take a look at the BBC consoles in use at the time The Beatles were recording their radio broadcasts.
The main desk in use in studios like the Paris was the "Type A Mark V" which came in 7 or 9 channel flavours and dated back to the late 1940s. Here is the one at the Paris Cinema studio:
- type a desk 9 ch.jpg (18.42 KiB) Viewed 785 times
and here is a close up on the 7 channel version:
- type a desk.jpg (28.15 KiB) Viewed 785 times
and here is a description of the controls:
- Studio Equipment Type A - 2.png (85.8 KiB) Viewed 785 times
The "microphone amplifier changeover keys" were so if one of the valve microphone preamps (in an enormous refridgerator-like structure in another room) blew then a backup could be immediately switched in (necessary if they were going out live). The "echo mixture switches" sent part of the signal to an echo room with a speaker at one end and a mic at the other, to allow for reverb. The room could be in the same studio or in another studio altogether (all the BBC premises were inter-connected by high quality landlines). This wasn't a variable pot but an actual selector switch with 9 positions. Likewise the microphone faders (akward rotary dials not sliders) were not pots but a smoothly transitioning series of "bumps" (switching points). There was then one "control pot meter" which was a master volume fader, a solitary recording meter which could be switched to monitor any given input or the master output (yikes), an "echo control" which set the return level for all the echo (reverb) sends, and "independent control" which was for the announcer's microphone and had no echo send, and some telemetry switches for communicating with the studio or anywhere else.
And that's it! Not so much as a tone control in sight! No compressors, limiters, gates or other gubbins to distract from their task. They literally had just a bunch of microphones and some faders. The console at the Paris appears to have some remote keys for the tape recorder too, so at least they didn't have to keep shouting out to the tape operator in the adjacent room. His job was to man the tape recorder and handle the tapes, because only engineering staff were allowed to touch recording tape. Interestingly, the "Studio Managers" who did the sound balance often had little technical training and were usually from an artistic background. That is very different from EMI where the balance engineer Norman Smith would also be involved in editing and other technical matters.
And yet, with so little sophistication they managed to get it to sound so good. Now there is something to think about. I would love BBC TV to create a series where modern artists were sent into a mockup of a vintage BBC radio studio, and see if they could cope. That would be one reality series I would watch!
