ProSoundWeb Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 7   Go Down

Author Topic: Z Z Top console  (Read 20739 times)

MikeHarris

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 490
Z Z Top console
« on: April 06, 2020, 05:08:43 AM »

Anyone have pics of the custom live API console Jerry Cameron built for ZZ ?
24 X 8.  As dealer we provided mic pre/eq/faders/summing modules..lots of 2520s.
It replaced a Tascam (supply horror emoji)
Logged

Ivan Beaver

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9534
  • Atlanta GA
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2020, 04:40:11 PM »

Anyone have pics of the custom live API console Jerry Cameron built for ZZ ?
24 X 8.  As dealer we provided mic pre/eq/faders/summing modules..lots of 2520s.
It replaced a Tascam (supply horror emoji)
Not what you are asking for, but here is a photo of a much earlier console ZZ Top used.  May 1970, when they were a "prom band".

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/billy-gibbons-on-the-zee-zee-top-prom-photo/
Logged
A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

Tim McCulloch

  • SR Forums
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 23741
  • Wichita, Kansas USA
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2020, 06:42:27 PM »

Not what you are asking for, but here is a photo of a much earlier console ZZ Top used.  May 1970, when they were a "prom band".

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/billy-gibbons-on-the-zee-zee-top-prom-photo/

Tuck and roll PA by Kustom from Chanute, KS by Bud Ross (Ross stomp-box pedals).  Bud passed away in Kansas City in March of 2018.

Kustom Signals was the spin off that largely created the market for portable, police operated speed enforcement radar and the company's factory is on Chestnut Street in Chanute.  The Kustom audio brand is now owned by Hanser Music Group based in Hebron, KY, and is no longer affiliated with Custom Signals.
Logged
"If you're passing on your way, from Palm Springs to L.A., Give a wave to good ol' Dave, Say hello to progress and goodbye to the Moonlight Motor Inn." - Steve Spurgin, Moonlight Motor Inn

John Fruits

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1004
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2020, 08:03:02 PM »

Way back when I visited the Kustom factory.  It seems that sometimes the employees would get bored and take time out to play with the Radar Guns.  One time they discovered they could check the speed of a fly buzzing up and down the hall.  Kustom Signals was also pitching a device like a tablet computer for police cruisers.  On a couple of test benches they had oscilloscopes with tuck and roll cases.  I recall them as being red sparkle.
Logged
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.  There's also a negative side."-Hunter S. Thompson

Ivan Beaver

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9534
  • Atlanta GA
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2020, 08:58:01 PM »

Tuck and roll PA by Kustom from Chanute, KS by Bud Ross (Ross stomp-box pedals).  Bud passed away in Kansas City in March of 2018.

Kustom Signals was the spin off that largely created the market for portable, police operated speed enforcement radar and the company's factory is on Chestnut Street in Chanute.  The Kustom audio brand is now owned by Hanser Music Group based in Hebron, KY, and is no longer affiliated with Custom Signals.
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.
Logged
A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

Ike Zimbel

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1057
  • I'm not a newbie, I just play one on the internet!
    • Zimbel Audio Productions
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2020, 10:43:50 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.
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... :'(
Logged
~Ike Zimbel~
Wireless frequency coordination specialist and educator.
Manufacturer's Representative (Canada)
Radio Active Designs
Pro Audio equipment repair and upgrades.
~416-720-0887~
ca.linkedin.com/pub/ike-zimbel/48/aa1/266

Jeff Bankston

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2568
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2020, 01:10:25 AM »

Billy looks like a computer technician in that foto.
Logged

MikeHarris

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 490
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #7 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
« Last Edit: April 07, 2020, 03:08:46 AM by MikeHarris »
Logged

Ivan Beaver

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9534
  • Atlanta GA
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2020, 08:20:13 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
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----------
« Last Edit: April 07, 2020, 08:23:15 AM by Ivan Beaver »
Logged
A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

MikeHarris

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 490
Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #9 on: April 07, 2020, 09:51:45 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----------

Toto...I dont think we're in Kansas anymore
Logged

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Z Z Top console
« Reply #9 on: April 07, 2020, 09:51:45 AM »


Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 7   Go Up
 



Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.041 seconds with 23 queries.