Sound Techniques gear ?

There’s another thread about this on here somewhere, but for the history I recommend reading (or listening to, I was actually the audio editor on the project) Joe Boyd’s book, White Bicycles. Joe worked out of Sound Techniques and talks in non technical terms about the history of the place/building, why he loved working there, and how they would setup for sessions using different acoustic properties of different parts of the room.

There’s a a snippet here too: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wood_(record_producer)#cite_ref-d58_2-0

Other recent thread about them realgearonline.com/thread/16594/sound-techniques-zr7064cs-anybody-used

No personal experience, but hoping someone can spill the beans on how it sounds.

There are various postings on the internet regarding the history of ST. One of the best is the Danny White and Brian Kehew Roundtable at Sunset Sound. An interesting hour and a half.







The short story is that Sound techniques was a recording studio in London where the owners bult their own equipment.

The gear was well thought of and ST started to build consoles.

One console, a Sound Techniques A-Range, was built for Trident Studios. Trident subsequently built their own console and called it A-Range. Go figure!



ST made a number of console types and traded from early 1960's to mid 1970's.

Geoff Frost (one of the founders) put the company into dormancy until Danny bought the company name, assets, intellectual property in 2014/2015.



Danny brought together a team of people to re-work the products and re-launch the company.



I had worked on a project with Danny previously and at the beginning of 2017 he asked me if I would be interested in getting involved with designing the electronics of the console that he was making for Andrew Ratcliffe at Tweed Recordings in Athens, GA. I worked on system designs and facilities for a couple of months, and then brought together a team of 4 to do the detailed design and build of the console.



Long story short, we got the core of the console designed, built and functional by early 2018 in time for launch at the NAMM show, where Ken Scott mixed various of his great tracks at the show and visitors could have a go at their own mixing.

On completion, the NAMM console was delivered to Tweed in 2019.

Since then, we have continued to develop the console and its facilities and have delivered consoles to Sleeper Sounds in London (where it replaced a TG console), two LA studios, including Boulevard Recording, and finally a console to Music For Freedom Studios in Lille, France. There are also a number of 8-channel sidecar units. These are actually 8-channel mini-consoles that retain the core mix and control facilities of the full console. One is currently available for demonstration in the UK.



The commercial, mechanical and styling of ST products is handled in the USA. Electronics design and the majority of the electronics build in done in the north of England. The original electronics team of 4 that designed and built the console for Tweed / NAMM has grown a bit, and the same core people remain. Between the core 4 we have over 120 man-years of pro-audio design and manufacturing experience, all gained at the high-end of the industry.



We have new designs in progress for various products.

Thank you for the welcome, Louis
RGO looks to be an interesting forum where I hope to be able to be a worthy member.
I will do what I can to answer questions relating to ST.

Cheers,
Gareth.

paulcheeba:

Regarding your allegation of non-payment to Jim Dowler in respect of quadrant fader designs, I respectfully suggest that if you or anyone else wishes to raise issues on this subject that you have the integrity to do it privately and directly to Danny White at Sound Techniques and not on a public forum. 

I have sent you a private message with Danny's email address.


Regards,
Gareth.

Thank you for the reply.

As with you, I "have no dog in this fight" either. HOWEVER, relaying what you have been told, i.e., relaying second-hand information without offering backup evidence, is EXACTLY the problem! .... It has the potential to escalate and be mis-interpreted.

My electronic design involvement at ST does not give me access to historical relationship information with Jim Dowler in regard to quadrant faders and what may or may not have happened. This is the reason that I suggest getting the ST side of the subject from the man who heads the company.

Trusting this clarifies my view on this subject. I look forward to this discussion closing down in the public domain and moving to private communications so that the FACTS can be established privately.

My personal dealings with Jim Dowler have been few and infrequent, but have always been cordial.

Regards,
Gareth.

I have been in contact with Danny White, and he has asked me to post this on his behalf regarding the quadrant fader history:


Hi Paul,



Gareth is posting this for me as I do not have an account on this forum.



The reality regarding the Painton fader is that Ian Gardiner from Boutique Audio (Tree Audio) in L.A. and myself, completed a modified Painton fader design back in 2003. It was installed in my console at 16 Ton Studio on Music Row in Nashville. See photo. This is long before Jim had attempted a Painton fader rebuild. However, our new Painton fader is nothing like Jim's. Jim had a good idea. I like Jim and always wished him the best. At great expense, with our money in 2017 and Jim's approval, we built sixteen faders based around Jim's design in order to determine if they would work for us. We redesigned the top of the fader, the fader scale and the fader button in order to get the look of an EMI REDD series Painton. We also made minor adjustments to the mech that attached to the fader. Eight of these first faders can be seen in a sidecar at Tweed Recording in Athens, Georgia and the other eight in a ST 16 Channel console in Alabama. In the end, we spent a great deal of money only to determine that Jim's faders were not what we needed for a long term solution. Beyond that, the licensing cost was prohibitive.



One of the issues for us was that the fader could not be built to incorporate an illuminated lens with a reverse laser engraved dB scale. Our new design, the body, the lens, the mech, the electronics, which took us years to get right, is nothing like the fader offered by paintonfaders.com. Just the ability to illuminate a curved fader lens, (as were the originals and as our fader accomplishes), at first sight should convey the fact that these two faders are not in the same ballpark. Beyond that, our faders work with a comprehensive mute and solo network that locks out the group faders when mute or solo is selected. Green for SOLO. Red for MUTE. The default color is AMBER. I am more than happy to speak with you or anyone else on this forum in regard to this post.



I can be reached at: danny@soundtechniques.com.



All the best,

Danny