Chalk Hill Media's Virtual Museum

The Virtual Audio Museum

This page features mixers, studio gear, odd broadcast items, and other fun but bulky oddities from the past. 
Some of this stuff we still have, others have found new homes.
 

Raytheon Portable Remote mixer for broadcast.

RCA Broadcast Console
From WOAI, San Antonio, Texas
Circa late 1930's, used through early 1960's

RCA OP-7
Remote Broadcast Mixer
Originally from KSKY, Dallas, Texas

Webster Chicago Wire Recorder

MagnaTech 1" Eight Track Recorder
We always thought they just made film dubbing systems!
This recorder sports a Hewlett-Packard transport and is capable of speeds between 1 7/8 ips to 60 ips.  Why?  Good question. It has found a new home with another collector.

Ampex AG-440's
We have several of these tape decks which we use for audio production on a regular basis.  These were real work-horses in the late 1960's and 1970's.  They are still great machines.

ADM Recording Studio Console
This Board came from Detroit. We think it was used by a studio called Conquistador Recording.  If you have ever heard of it, or know any details, we'd love to hear from you.  It was built by Audio Designs Manufacturing, about 1969 or 70.  It has sixteen inputs and eight outputs, although it appears to be expandable to sixteen outputs for "state of the art" sixteen track recording.  It has since found a new home.

Scully  280 Series 8 Track 1" Recorder
Very "state of the art" for it's era. It has moved to a new home.

McCurdy Broadcast Console.  The instruction manual says it was built for NBC New York.
I found it in Muleshoe, Texas (really) .  I'm not sure how it got there.

 Tascam Model 32
This one has given great service for over 15 years.  This one has DBX noise reduction, which we never use.

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Collins 212F-1 Broadcast Console. We were recently given a second one which is much nicer. 

Yamaha PM-1532 Mixing Console

Ampex 600 Full Track Tape Deck

Fairchild Spring Reverb Unit
It's not exactly portable....

Quantum Audio Mixing Console

CBS Labs Stereo Volumax
A popular compressor limiter from the late 1960"s.  Most were used in radio, but this one is the "recording version."

This GE audio console came with our DuMont Telecruiser.  It is early 1960's vintage and one of the first consoles to use linear (rather than rotary) faders.  The strange thing is rather than using a conventional fader like we do today, these faders were actually a ladder of resistors which controlled the brightness of a small light bulb.  This light bulb was mounted into a small cardboard tube with a photocell at the other end.  The photocell actually regulated the volume as the lamp got brighter or dimmer.  There was a very noticeable time lag when you brought up a fader, before the audio gain would change.  This made precise gain riding very difficult.

A pair of RCA RT-21 tape decks. One of the record amps can be seen to the left below.  Operators loved these decks because they had a "Jog-Shuttle" knob.  It makes cuing tapes a lot easier. That idea was quite ahead of its time.