Using the API 1608-II Console in the Gavett Audio Studio at the University of Rochester
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- The API 1608-II is a versatile and well-designed console. Follow along with Dr. Stephen Roessner of the AME program to learn some of the peculiarities of it and the Gavett Audio Studio at the University of Rochester.
Additionally this video has information about using the Triad Orbit Starbird stands as well as a basic primer on using tube condenser microphones.
This video is meant to be an education resource for students at the University of Rochester, and the signal flow of the Gavett Audio Studio. Other studios that use the API 1608-II console may have different signal flow design, but the concepts are very similar!
0:00 Introduction
0:15 Start Up and Shut Down Sequence
1:51 Normalizing the Console
4:26 Labeling the Console with Board Tape
7:21 Getting Playback from DAW Through the Monitors
9:39 Getting Playback from Computer Out Through the Monitors
11:10 Every Button on the API 1608-II
11:35 548C Channel Module
20:27 265C Aux Bus Master/Stereo Return
25:11 286C Monitor Output Master
26:52 845C Monitor Controller
29:45 840C Multifunction Module
35:17 Using Aux Sends in Pre-Fader vs. Post-Fader
40:36 Aux Sends vs. Summing Bus Sends
44:10 Mic/Line Loop Issues
47:26 Using the Stereo Return to Bring Back Outboard Effects
51:55 Reading a Patchy
54:00 Using the Camera System
55:29 Balancing a Starbird Stand
01:03:01 Using Tube Mics
Correction: 01:03:09 I said U87 when I meant U67! Oops! Mistakes happen when filming all day. Thanks to those who pointed it out!
01:06:13 Flipping a Suspension Mount
01:10:17 Thanks for Watching
01:10:37 Bus Analogy
Video shot and edited by Alex Weiser at Floating Home Films: www.floatinghomefilms.com/
THIS WAS GREAT!!! Very thorough! Thanks for making this available!
A long time ago, I had the pleasure of working on the design of the original 1604. The signal flow is so easy to understand. Nice to see that the legacy continues.
Nice work. I bought a 1608 over the summer for a project i'm doing out of my house in Berkeley. I've worked on a lot of consoles, but each is unique and the 1608 def has some specific settings. I had just about given up finding a video of someone doing exactly what you did here. Thank you for the walk thru and I def learned a few new things about the 1608. Nice going and good luck!
Thank you! Have fun with your new console!
Hello, I loved the video. As someone else said, I was searching and searching for a video on the 1608 before purchasing it for my studio and yours is perfect. I learned the difference between the aux sends versus summing bus sends. Well done! Thank you! 🚀🔥
You are most welcome! Thanks for watching!
Fantastic video! I had trouble understanding the manual and how everything was connected, but this video is pretty detailed and easy to understand.
Glad I could help a bit! Nothing replaces sitting in front of the console and playing with the signal flow though!
Great video Dr. Roessner! I wish we had this when we were in school.
It looks like you're doing great things Kurt! Always proud to see our students out there making it happen!
Great stuff to learn and very well explained.
You're a good teacher man. This makes me want to go to college.
Thanks! I (Dr. Roessner) do my best to bring my enthusiasm for audio to my classroom! I'm planning on making more videos in the future too!
Thank you Dr Roessner..
Great Video 👍 very well explained
Great series! Please make more videos!
Planning on it!
this is fantastic what a good way te learn every single thing in the studio
articulate and organized.
This is such a good breakdown of the signal flow. Does your school have other consoles?
Perfect!
33:19 solo in place correctly explained: it routes Solo signal not only into Control Room monitors, but also into PGM bus, indicated by all mute buttons being red
fantastic
Muy bueno!
Cool thanks
Good Job... 🙏🙏
Right around 40:00 minutes I started getting meta vibes with multitakes about recording 😂.
God bless that I get the opportunity, the patient crew and artists, and exceptional budget to use this information. Thank you VERY much for taking the time you have to share this. I have stumbled over routing in different boards in the past. Fingers crossed 🤞🏽 I get more opportunities on this and different boards.
Haha! Missed that in editing! Thank you for watching and good luck!
Awesome video, this was the most in depth video i have seen about consoles and how to use them. I wonder what the API sound is, what makes API so different compared to SSL ? When i mix in the box I usually reach for Neve and SSL plugins, but I love API Eq's for their more gentle sound i seems, just like the 2500 compressor which has a more gentle knee and thrust setting. Is that what API has been from the beginning, to make solid state sound more ''like'' analoge desks?
Each manufacturer has their own "tone" that is built into how they design their circuitry and what components they use! It's what makes producing audio so much fun. There is no "right" or "wrong" sonic character to use -- just what best fits the music you are working with! If you love the sound of the API EQ's for mixing in the box, go for them! If you prefer Neve or SSL for "console" vibes, go with those! In this age, we can mix and max so much easier than the past, and you can define your own sonic character as a producer and engineer.
I use my UA API 2500 comp plugin on the MP Controller and it feels like I am working on a console 😁
Hanging the tube mic upside down is a good idea so the heat from the tube doesn't damage the capsule.
Really only applicable to old M7 capsules (early U47s) were it was an actual problem. For the rest it just looks....cool.
Just a crazy thought. Zeroing out a console could also help folks dig in to spinning knobs and take note. Just the act of spinning knobs fast and moving around a console. They might start to notice that some of the knobs are pinned and take the time to look what was on the channel.
Curiosity and exploration of the equipment, or plugin for that matter, are paramount in fully understanding the way they work!
Many of the concepts are surprisingly similar to my Audient 4816SE console, except that the Audient is an in-lne console
The 2448 is the API equivalent.
Just a small correction, at 1:03:10 when you introduce tube mics you say a u87 is a tube mic, which it is not. It looks like you have a u67, and that is probably what you meant. Cheers!
Thanks! Yes, I misspoke. It was a long day of filming....
Sometimes my solo button on my api doesn't always engage? Tips?
Its very peculiar to watch and listen to Jack Reacher reviewing an API device 🙃
lolol I’ve vacuumed up Channel 1 on my 1608 and dug into the vacuum bag to retrieve it more times than I’d like to admit publicly…
🙂👍
S U P E R ..... Nice work
Fruity Loops ---- would that be a bit of reference to us Reaper users?
👍i LoVe !
💙⚪❤
We call it "zeroing" a console as to not confuse with patchbay normalling...
Both terms are acceptable! Sometimes "zeroing" can be confusing as well, because you don't leave faders at "zero". They are to be put at negative infinity. Any confusion can be alleviated with education and context! Kind of like the term "compression" being used for both dynamic control and bitrate resolution.
I agree. Zero the console. "Normal the console?" ummm ok
“Dr?” 🤣🤣🤣😂ok (just teasing.)
College is good
Oh yeah, Normalizing a console.
When I worked at NBC-TV in Washington DC. If you did not normalize your console. At the end of the production you were doing. There would be hell to pay. You would not hear the end of this. You would be on everybody's bad list. It was screw other engineers up. You would damage their reputation. They would not like you.
And so Normalizing is something you do before you leave. You don't leave until you have, normalized, everything. And you double check.
Of course if you don't get your patching right. You might be like this, Masters guy from Berkeley school of music. Personally had a Sony Baby Oxford at home and at work. And I had no experience on that digital audio console. When I was hired by him as a temp. When he went on vacation from the US Postal Service,, Recording Studio.
So he's playing me some music tracks he had, produced and engineered. In the control room he designed and built. And it sounded nice. It was professionally recorded and mixed. That was obvious.
Then he wanted to hear some of my stuff. Which I am always happy to play for people. I am proud of it. As he was, his.
And as is playing. He thought it sounded really nice and impressive. I thought there was a problem.
Yes there was a serious problem. He was playing my tracks back in Monaural in mono. Not stereo. We have, Meyer HD-1's in his control room. And it's definitely mono. And I tell him. My stuff is playing back in mono. He said no it's in stereo. I sit it is absolutely not in stereo. He thought I was nuts. I knew nothing about this Sony D-100 or whatever it was?
So I look at the audio console carefully. Not knowing anything about this beast. He's owned one now for 2 years. I twist a selector and press a button. And suddenly. I am hearing my tracks played back in stereo..
Needless to say he was shocked. He hadn't heard stereo in this control room he put together 2 years earlier. And the one he had at home. That was identical. He has been listening to mono now for years. And he has a Masters in the Recording Arts & Sciences.. And he didn't know the difference. He was clueless.. He was shocked. His mind was blown. He was chagrined. He was dumbfounded. But that's why he hired me. To replace him for the next couple weeks.
In the end. He had terribly over equipped this US postal facility recording studio. For doing high-end, high resolution, multitrack music productions. When all they had with some old ladies and old men. Doing some horrible narrative voiceover. How to put a letter into an envelope. Really great dynamic stuff. And so you don't also need, eight, API 550 A cover equalizers. You don't need additional, high-end, vacuum tube,, microphone preamps. You don't need a full roster of Manley vacuum tube, equipment. For recording voiceover narrative tracks of US postal service, instructional recordings.
I don't know if I said something or did something? Those couple of weeks I was there. I heard he got fired shortly after his return. And he was a nice guy. And I feel bad. But he sure did spend a lot of our taxpayers money on something they certainly did not need. As a Mackie mixer and ALESIS 3630 limiter would have been fine. |They didn't need a $100,000 control room. A $1000 control room would have been more than adequate. But no. He had a Masters.
I'll never forget how surprised he was. When I suddenly made that Sony digital audio console. Play my tracks back in stereo. And to think. He got a Masters a couple of years earlier. And had never figured this out. How is that possible?
So let me know when you figure out the speakers you are listening to our in negative absolute polarity, also. Because there's a 90% chance they likely are. And you'll never realize it. Because you really don't know what you're listening to. Or how it should sound. How it's supposed to, sound. Because when everybody gets a simple thing wrong. And adopts that simple wrong thing. Virtually throughout the entire industry. It makes me realize. Homo sapiens are likely in the early throes of going, extinct. We are going, extinct. When you believe you are right about something. And everybody must adopt that. When somebody proves, it's wrong. We know what happens. It's Jesus Mania. But I proved that Jesus did not know, how to connect the speakers correctly. Because it's an easy mistake to make. And 90% of everybody has made it. Particularly those with college degrees. That's like a religious cult. And which religion? Yale religion? Harvard religion? University of Southern California religion? How about Ku Klux Klan University? Mein Kampf College. Third Reich school of Law. The Richard M Nixon justice committee.
I just want a hamburger from McDonald's. Whenever they start making them again.
RemyRAD
I could tell you a story about Al Schmitt that’s almost equal to that.) Actually, Maybe more than equal, because after all Al Schmitt was Al Schmitt!…. But let’s not speak ill of the dead.
Student loans funded that.
You're certainly not very consistent about your power. You leave the audio console, laptop and a few other items on. But you leave all of your, ancillary processing gear, off. Let me tell you why that's not good.
Of course everything is transistorized. It requires no warm-up time. Right? Wrong.
In fact. As a highly skilled, studio designer and technician. Having worked in some of the US's, finest recording studios. Not schools. I discovered a couple of things.
I had over five, original, UREI, Rev D and H, 1176 limiters. And you've heard. That, no 2 work or sound the same. That is correct. From incompetent technicians. That don't know those units well. As those transistor, 1176 units. Take over 4 hours. Before they come to proper operating temperature. Before they should ever be, calibrated.
And the secondary mistake people make. Before calibrating them. Even if they allow them to come up to temperature. Is to remove the lid. And not calibrating it, immediately.
If you follow my recommendations. You should have no problems. Getting all of your 1176's in any revision variety. To virtually all work, function, respond and sound, the same. When you pay attention and follow my, recommended calibration procedures.
Strangely enough. I discovered my pair of, $36,000 each, Ampex MM-1200-24 track analog recorders. Also took nearly 1/2 a day to come up to operating temperature. Before you should ever try to align or calibrate that machine. And this is true of many others.
So when you're trying to save a buck. Leaving your equipment off. Until just before you are ready to use it. Oh dear…… Yeah it's not going to be calibrated right. It's not going to be working right. For at least the next 4 or so hours. Because it takes that cool running transistor stuff. Much longer for the chassis to come up to proper operating temperature and everything to stabilize.
And everybody's in to, too big and important a rush. To do anything correctly anymore. To do anything, competently anymore. They think they are. They are missing knowledge and experience. But they have their college degree they can wave in your face. And tell you they are supposed to know something and this proves it! Yeah no. They are unfortunate rude idiots.
There is an even more serious, Pro Audio, major blunder. And it is the Absolute Polarity of your, monitor speakers. You are convinced you have them wired correctly. Because you have followed your instruction manuals. More than one. That have showed you how to connect everything. And you have gotten your speakers connected one or percent correctly. And you can prove it..
Yeah no. You don't. They are in phase together yes.. They are also in phase together but both are in 180 degrees of negative absolute polarity. Though they could be considered in positive, religious extremist, correct, polarity. If you are convinced you have the right Jesus. And I have the wrong Jesus. Yeah no. I got it right. And they haven't figured out yet Jesus is actually dead. And he's not coming back anytime soon in anyone's lifetime on this planet. But they don't understand that. Like so many of those Karen's we see busted on RUclips. And they are a sorry excuse for Homo sapiens. Chimpanzees are better mannered. Even if they poop on your living room floor. They just haven't gotten that sphincter control down, yet. We might have to wait a few more thousand years. Maybe 50 or 100,000 years? Maybe more? Before they start talking like us. I meet we saw them in the movie. So we know it's going to happen. In the future. In our lifetimes. And won't we be surprised?
I've talked of monkeys before. It did me no good. I still got a ticket..
RemyRAD
Been there. Done all of that. Own a phase clicker, and worked in the Los Angeles studio scene for over 40 years. …and you’re right.
How do I use my ears to power on?