There's an interesting [well, interesting to me] Calrec on the bay today. I've not seen one of these before. It's very expensive at £30k though. In my experience i-c based consoles do not command such prices, unless they begin with the letter 'N' - who wants to take on all that risk without the cachet? Sexy though isn't it....
Ebay text:
This is an auction for a STUNNING vintage custom made Calrec 40 channel mixer which is in good condition for it's age and was custom made for Front of House duties for the world famous Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London at a cost of over £150,000 in the 80's. That was a lot in those days too!
Also included (but not pictured) is a single, genuine plastic Neve knob from a 51 series mixer.
From what I can gather, it is a 40 input mixer with full mic pre's and 4 band eq, 8 aux sends, with 36 busses and 40 group/monitor faders that can be routed to the main mix buss. All of this is in a very compact frame so would be good for all you bedroom users (if you have a big enough bedroom of course...
I have been told that the design of the e.q. was based on and closely resembles the one in the classic UA8000 Calrec consoles...!
It includes a comprehensive GPO patchbay, quite a few power supplies and the leads to hook it all up, plus the original Calrec manual/schematics. Please see the many high resolution photos I have posted to see the good condition this console is in. Considering it dates from the mid-80's it is not too bad at all - have a look at the photos and make your own minds up! The Royal Opera House had the budget to maintain this regardless of expense but it is untested and sold totally AS-IS.
This little beauty is ideal DAW front end and you will get some amazing sounds from it. It has that Calrec/Neve warmth to it and you can tell this just by running a couple of channels up with no eq, it just seems to do something to the sound which just seems so right. People who have used vintage Calrec/Neve consoles before will know exactly what I am talking about.
Just as spares alone, or if it is broken and sold as modules it would be worth over £30k + VAT!!! Try me with a realistic offer....
Well ill let you know since i bought it for 6k sterling, the plan is to either restore it or module it. Having done several racked versions of modules im pleased to say that as yet even the oldest ones still have all the orig electro caps in them...says something about built quality and cap tolerence, Neve could learn a thing or two about cap tolerence's and heat. That said dialastat swithes and pots maybe hard to find.
ReplyDeletecongrats anon, thats a beautiful looking desk and will be a very exciting project for you! having recently been through this process with a studer 900 series console and an mci 416b i kind of know what you're in for. hopefully you've got all the schemas and extender cards...
ReplyDeletethanks, i have discovered that it was taken out of the ROH in 1993 sent back to calrec and given a full refurb, since then its been in a small private studio where head of sound from ROH used it very little, it has all the drawings which is great, prob what ill do is break out 8 modules and have 32 in the console as i need some real estate for Qwerty keys and screen. Yup it could be an exciting nightmare (or maybe not) ill keep you posted, we collect on the 25th.
ReplyDeletefantastic. good luck!
ReplyDeleteHere is another one, same chap has it that i got mine from...odd patch bay and not such a musically flexible console ....Q's went a bit surface mount for my liking! item number 110536259935
ReplyDeleteBit of a heads up im going to catalogue the refurb here if anyone cares.
ReplyDeletehttp://forum.analogconsole.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2396
i care
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