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Z Z Top console
Ike Zimbel:
--- Quote from: Ivan Beaver on April 06, 2020, 08:58:01 PM ---Right before they went out of business (or so I am told the story) they made some "professional" consoles.
I heard there were 7 made. At one time I owned 3 of them and knew where a 4th was. The 24 channel verison weighed around 250 lbs or so. Each channel was individually shielded, had a 5 band true LCR tone control circuit, switchable high and low pass filters, and I think a compressor on each channel.
The auxes were the stupidest I have ever seen. They sent a signal to the rear of each channel, and had a return on each channel. but were not summed together.
So no monitor mixes or effects mixes.
I turned one of the 24 channel versions into a 8 mix monitor console and did a good number of national acts on it, after I redid the preamp, which was very low impedance input and would completely kill the tone at the FOH console due to the loading.
Oh those were the days.
--- End quote ---
They (Kustom) made a 12 channel desk that had to be at least 5' wide. They had faders that consisted of two sliders, side-by-side with a common knob that straddled both. Not great faders and the double thing just made them really hard to move. They had early LED meters, which were either calibrated to light ALL the LED's as soon as a signal went through them, or no headroom. I started my mixing career at age 17, in Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province. While I was there, I never used one of these monsters, but I knew a band that had one. Sounded awful. Having moved to Toronto without ever having to mix on one of these, I thought I was free and clear...until one evening the band I was mixing rolled into either the Drake, or the Gladstone Hotels (both are now refurbished, boutique hotels, but at the time were dives...) can't recall which. Anyway, whichever it was, the PA was a "courteous self service" affair, and after searching vainly for a FOH position, I walked behind the SR PA stack, and there was one of these Kustom desks. I don't remember the rest of the gig... :'(
Jeff Bankston:
Billy looks like a computer technician in that foto.
MikeHarris:
Going to University of Kansas 67-70 I managed a rock band Pig Newton & The Wizards From Kansas..one of the band members had a friend..John King who we went to see in Shawnee Mission.
His dad developed Kustom’s radar gun and I saw my first computer in the shop in his garage...a Digital.
Dad had a small company King Radio..which became a well known avionics company. Our band used Kustom crap...taught me first lesson. When the indicator lamp dims the PS is running out of P.
.
And I thought my karma had bit me in the arse when I saw that rolled and pleated box in the cruiser as I was getting a speeding ticket
Ivan Beaver:
--- Quote from: MikeHarris on April 07, 2020, 02:01:40 AM ---Going to University of Kansas 67-70 I managed a rock band Pig Newton & The Wizards From Kansas..one of the band members had a friend..John King who we went to see in Shawnee Mission.
His dad developed Kustom’s radar gun and I saw my first computer in the shop in his garage...a Digital.
Dad had a small company King Radio..which became a well known avionics company. Our band used Kustom crap...taught me first lesson. When the indicator lamp dims the PS is running out of P.
.
And I thought my karma had bit me in the arse when I saw that rolled and pleated box in the cruiser as I was getting a speeding ticket
--- End quote ---
All this talk about "Kustom crap">
I bet you change your mind when you hear my computer speakers at my office. You've just forgotten what what they can sound like, with a few modifications of course HA HA Putting an NL 4 inplace of the 1/4" made ALL the difference.
That, and having a 2400 watt/ch amp drive them also helps----------
MikeHarris:
--- Quote from: Ivan Beaver on April 07, 2020, 08:20:13 AM ---I bet you change your mind when you hear my computer speakers at my office. You've just forgotten what what they can sound like, with a few modifications of course HA HA Putting an NL 4 inplace of the 1/4" made ALL the difference.
That, and having a 2400 watt/ch amp drive them also helps----------
--- End quote ---
Toto...I dont think we're in Kansas anymore
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