Finally, A Little More History

Continuing the gonzo history I began this review with, back in 1971 TEAC decided to compete with all the tech-jocks (Neve, Harrison, Gately, Langevin, Harned, et al) by coming out with a really low-cost console that cut a few corners but offered pretty substantial functions for the time. So they offered a console called the Tascam Model 10, a cheesy, cheap piece of work that offered 4 buses plus four aux buses, primitive EQ and 8 inputs, all for $2,000. It didn't even have a monitor mix. Balanced inputs and mic transformers were optional. The jacks were all RCAs that were literally tacked onto little phenolic boards at the back of the modules. But it sold like hot cakes and started the semi-pro revolution. It probably sank a good many tech-jock manufacturers, just because Tascam could build in quantity, and it was hard to argue with the price.

Times have changed. That $2,000, in 1971, is equal to $7,000 today. And we may be at the end of the semi-pro revolution. The Mackie, at 2/3rds of that cost, offers at least five times the functions of the old Model 10, in a robust and thoroughly professional chassis. It is difficult to think of the Mackie 8•Bus console as semi-pro.

So, the Mackie 8•Bus may represent the end of an era, the closing product in a long line, a point of diminishing returns in an exponential curve that is finally flattening out. It is hard to imagine that someone, 10 years from now, is going to offer a 64-input 24-bus analog console for $2,500, because of material costs if nothing else. By then we probably will have made our computers and software sufficiently friendly and reliable that we will be able to do our work off-line, in the digital realm, with mega-channels of virtual tracks, mixes, effects, etc. and we may no longer need to have a trusty analog control surface on which to organize our audio thoughts.

But not yet. Recently, I bought a popular digital audio workstation that uses a Macintosh computer to show automated faders on the screen, among other things, and after a month of working (some would say fighting) with it I said to myself, "Jeez, I really got to get a console! This just doesn't handle signal." The studio-in-a-small-digital-box is coming, but it ain't here yet. In the meantime, you need a console, and this one is a dandy. At the price it seems silly to buy anything smaller, particularly in light of the verity that you never have enough inputs or tracks (or can be rich enough, thin enough or have enough RAM). It has almost enough of everything, is expandable, robust and capable. It may very well be the last analog console you ever need! Go for it!

Dave Moulton is busy trying to determine if Up is still Louder. At the same time, he is molding (some say bending) minds at Emerson College in Boston and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.