Hey fellas I just stumbled onto the footage of Jammy mixing Jail House Rock on youtube. Long story short I couldn't spot the console and the sound of that record kills me already even before ever seeing the footage, so I went looking for answers. Saw you guys pondering the same thing.
Just quickly, the idea that it's mci seemed ridiculous to me cause I know mci stuff well, well enough i have rebuilt 24 channels of a jh428 and used 16 tracks etc but as scientist releaved in the interview, and i have since realized, it's a 4 track unit, 12 ins obviously, custom built by mci circa 1964 and i would guess it goes with the mci 4 track system in the back corner of the room.
Also the machine he's printing to is an early ampex 4 track unit.
Jeep from mci was building valve/tube systems when they were using those 4 colour lever fader assemblies, so I'm guessing it's valve based.
It's definitely way before the harris 911/2001 ics in the 70s mci stuff. I read too that the console was already way old when they got it, so, it makes sense.
The channel faders would have been the emi style levers and as has been said he replaced them, cause he couldn't get the old ones and the ones he put in were much more fluid to use.
So that's the end of the quest for me at least, just thought i'd share it with you guys in case you were still umming and ahhing, at least this is my take on it.
Now I'm lookin out for schematics to those early units.
Btw....
Same era custom job pics....
href="http://www.mcirecording.com/galle ... category=1
and the playback machine in 8 track form...
http://www.mcirecording.com/gallery.php ... ategory=1
also there is an ampex 4 track in the left edge of one of the pics.
Oh and it was was a modded fisher reverb they were rockin, i read somewhere in my travels.
Plus if those mci units were remotely like the jh400 consoles then the switches at the top of the console will route channels to some other channels and the 4 masters. Probably.
Ha one more thing, I know that echo technique he's wired up too that Jammy is using.
He's got choice tracks routed to a choice tape track and channel 2 is bringing up the tape return from the playback head on the same track, but channel 2 routes back to the same track too so he just needs to bring that one fader up to start off a recursive echo effect, echoing back on itself and filtering thru the channel eq, exactly like you hear on the mix. I do the same thing for echos, it's the best way when you have only one send and it's used already, as long as you have a mix out or track direct out or some tricks.
Still I wonder how much of it was still mci after Tubby tinkered with it and how much is cyborg alligator.
Anywayz.. thanks for the mci tip off. Who woulda thunk it.
Peace