OK, so I called a local studio...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
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Michael Jones

Michael Jones

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... a local independent studio that is, just to get an idea of going rates.
He charges $65/hr (min 4 hrs). Pretty typical. The average going rate for around here.

Then we started talking recording, and gear. This guy has a king's ransom worth of gear! ELAM Mics, Fairchild 670's I think. 2 of them. Banks of 1073's and 1081's, and 2 or 3 different boards with names like Neve, Helios, and get this, Western Electric.

Now, I know of the first two. And anyone over 25 has probably heard of Western Electric, I know Western Electric used to make telephones and switch boards for Bell. But I didn't know they made Audio input consoles.

At any rate, the studio guy told me that the mic pre's in the W.E. board are among the finest ever made!
Fletcher, of Mercenary Audio has an article on his web site, and he speaks highly of them as well, but gives little detail about them.

Are these things (Western Electric Audio Consoles) as rare as hen's teeth? I've never heard of them.
 
hey michael, I don't know about WE...guys gear sounds impressive though...whats he record to, 2", digital? but I am posting this here so you will read it -

How are you liking your SP T3? Ever use it much on vocals? that's my main curiosity...

thanks,
wes
 
Michael, I've pasted some stuff I wrote at the start of the "big thread" in the way of an answer to your question:

In a way, the history of microphones and sound all started with Alexander Graham Bell, and Western Union. After Bell won the lawsuit with Western Union over the invention of the telephone, his fledgling AT&T company needed somebody to manufacture phones for them. Western Union had created a manufacturing division (Western Electric) to make telegraph keys and telegraph equipment. Bell bought the Western Electric division and they had the exclusive right to manufacture phones for Bell.

By 1910, Western Electric had the ambitious task of creating a coast to coast telephone hookup to tie in with the opening of the Panama Canal, but the problem of amplifying a signal over long distances was still unsolved. In 1913, Dr. Harold Arnold (of Western Electric's research group) saw that Dr. Lee DeForest's "Audion vacuum tube" was the possible solution, and they bought the rights to it and began work on a "high vacuum" tube.

This indeed solved their long distance problem, and led to another discovery - a "loud-speaking telephone". In 1916, they received a patent for what we now call a "loudspeaker". With the addition of the "high vacuum" amplifying tube, and another little patent for a device called a "condenser mic", they were suddenly in the P.A. business as well.

These inventions opened the door for radio, talking movies, and sound systems in general, and with their other patent for a high quality "amplifier" in 1916, they pretty much defined the science of sound. (It would be another 12 years (1928) untill a young Georg Neumann would start his own mic company in Germany. That same year, Western Electric received a patent for a "dynamic mic" design.

The designs Western Electric developed for movie speakers would eventually start companies like Altec and JBL making horns and loudspeakers for Western Electric, and eventually those Western Electric designs became the foundation for their own speaker lines.

Note: Even the spun aluminum cones on the Hartke speakers are nothing new; Western Electric did that in the 50s.

Western Electric created their own Research and Development arm called "Bell Laboratories", which went on to create the transistor and a host of audio related products. It was Western Electric and Bell Laboratories who we must thank for the development and research into microphone design and audio advances that we enjoy today.

Wester Electric (and Westrex) symbols appear at the end of almost every movie's credits you've ever seen. Like Technicolor (for color film), Western Electric dominated the sound industry for decades, till they were forced to divest themselves of their interest in that market by the government.
 
Wes, I posted a little more in depth review of the T3 here:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=59920
Because this mic is varible pattern, I'm still learning the ins and outs of it. But my initial reaction is that it is primarily a vocal mic. And a very good one at that. On the right female singer, I would expect for it to sound "like butt-ah":D
The guy I spoke to, records to 2"' analog, but has digital (PT) as well.

Harvey, thanks for the info and input, I have your "Big Thread" printed out, and refer to it often. But what about W.E. mic pre's?
I'm just curious. It's not like I'm going to go out and buy any.
 
Western Electric and Westrex as the engineering arm of Bell Telephone, had unlimited money available to perfect "state of the art" equipment. As the sole supplier to the movie and early broadcast industry, they lead the way in developing the best equipment available at the time.

Later, as companies like RCA and JBL began to develop their own unique products, and the government telling WE it was time to get rid of some of their holdings, WE moved out of manufacturing these audio items and had them made by outside suppliers.

But with unlimited funds available for R&D, Western Electric made some of the finest audio equipment available at the time and much of it still is yet to be outperformed, even today.
 
Harvey,

I love this historical stuff and you got me started researching on these WE consoles. Came across this site which has some more information about early recordings and use of WE consoles. Thought I would share.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rabruil/mercury.html
 
I'm completely speaking out of my ass here but it's hard to believe they could make stuff that performed as good or better than the later generations of gear. Without having anything to compare their inventions to how did they even know what level of quality to strive for?

I would have thought they would be satisfied with "Holy shit you can actually hear it!!!"
 
Reading that article it makes a bit more sense. I thought we were talking about 20-30s era gear. They were making stuff into the 60's though.
 
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