For those who saw the first part of this review in last month's fun'n'fact packed issue, I would recommend that you skip on down to the next paragraph. That way you will avoid an overpowering feeling of déjà-vuness with what follows. And for those who didn't read part one (your only salvation being to rush out as soon as you've perused this issue of SI and place a regular order with your newsagent so that it doesn't happen again), let me explain what this month's offering is all about. Recognising that prospective owners of smallish multitrack studios — and let's define 'smallish' as meaning 8-track with serious thoughts/intentions on a 16-track facility — may not be altogether clued up on every aspect of interfacing one piece of hardware with another, Allen and Heath/Brenell has done everyone an amazing favour by putting together a special studio package. Included in the Package are a 16-input/8-output Modular II mixer with built-in provision for 16-track recording and monitoring, & Mini-8 8-track on 1in tape machine complete with varispeed, tape counter and remote control unit, and a very useful Mini-Limiter limiter/compressor. Total cost of the individual items would set you back just over £6¾ grand but, as a Package, can be had for a very reasonable £6200. A useful saving of over £500, and no hassles about compatibility because that's guaranteed by the AHB nametag on everything. Last month I examined in detail the Modular II mixer, and this month it's the turn of the Mini-8 tape machine and accessories. Plus how all the composite bits and pieces really stand up as a package deal.

The Brenell Mini-8 tape machine is a very compact piece of technology, with barely a square inch of space on the front-panel that isn't taken up with a button, switch or meter. It is designed to be used in either a vertical (ie upright) or horizontal position, provided care is taken that when the machine is laid on its back the input and output leads and plugs are not crushed. A custom-built console housing is the obvious solution, although simple chocks of wood would do until a permanent installation is possible. And it's worth considering some means of laying the machine down (maybe not flat on its back but possibly at an angle of about 60° or so) since it makes tape loading, head cleaning, routine adjustment and other such day-to-day tasks just that little bit easier. Two nicely sculptured aluminium handles mounted into the wooden side panels are provided for carrying the machine — in and out of a mobile, for example — although the machine is rather on the heavy side at just over 70 pounds to be moved any great distance by one person.

The machine's compact design, with very little space between the tape spools, guides and head assembly, makes for a fairly tight tape-threading path. So don't be in too much of a hurry while lacing up a tape or you'll run the risk of a trapped finger or two. Each spool is held on to its respective hub by means of an ingenious self-centering retainer, which considerably reduces vibration caused by spools being mounted off-centre. From the feed spool the tape passes around a guide mounted on a spring-loaded arm. This acts as an 'autostop' device and causes the transport to drop into 'stop' mode when there is a loop in the tape path or the end of a reel has been reached. From the arm, tape passes across the head block, in front of which is mounted a hinged head shield for the playback head, past the capstan and pinch wheel, around a roller and on to the take-up spool. To the underside of the roller is connected a tachometer assembly, which detects whether or not the tape is moving and in what direction, and which also drives the electronic tape timer. The tape motion sensor, coupled with the machine's fully-integrated logic controls, ensures that, for example, the machine cannot pass straight into the play mode from fast rewind without the tape first coming to a complete halt. (Which is just as well because chewed up inch-wide tape is the devil's own job to straighten out.)

Designed to be remotely mounted on top of a mixer or some other device within easy reach of the engineer, the tape timer provides a readout of elapsed time in minutes and decimals of a minute at a tape speed of 15 in/s, and can be zeroed by means of a rear-panel pushbutton. I'd rather have seen a display of minutes and seconds, which to my mind is a lot easier to follow, but would be prepared to put up with decimal rather than do without one altogether. It's surprising how very useful such a device becomes for accurately shuttling backwards and forwards between, for instance, drop-in points. Anyone who has spent half an evening trying to get a groggy guitarist to perfect a simple drop-in will know just how tiresome it can be to have to find your way back to the same point in the tape each time without a friendly counter on hand to save your sanity.

Below the tape path are to be found the operating controls. Square pushbuttons, which have a crisp, positive action, select the normal play, wind, stop and record modes. Unusually, there is only one lamp — a red one beside the record button — to show which mode has been selected, although a glance at the speed and direction in which the spools are moving should provide such information. On the right-hand side of the machine are located the power on/off switch and tape speed selection between 7½ and 15 in/s. The electronics section comprises eight identical modules housing the record and replay amplifiers and a larger module in which the eight associated VU meters are mounted. Like the Modular II mixer, the Mini-8's amplifier modules are not numbered or otherwise marked in anyway, but a trusty wax pencil or 'instant' lettering should cure that. (It's easy to guess why no permanent channel designations have been provided, since one of the definite advantages of modular design is that it enables a faulty unit to be swapped very easily during a session; provided, of course, that you can limp along on seven out of eight tracks until the offending module can be fixed. Furthermore, carrying a spare one would seem to make eminent sense.)

At the top of each electronics module is a record 'safe/ready' switch and associated lamp, the latter flashing when ready is selected and remaining alight when record mode is entered. Below this are a pair of knobs for setting line-in and line-out operating levels, plus access through the front panel to recessed preset controls for bias level, record level, record high-frequency equalisation, sync level, sync hf, replay level and replay hf. It is hence a simple matter to set up the Mini-8 for operation with almost any type and brand of tape. How nice not to have to dive inside the works to find the necessary adjustments, since they're all to be found in a clearly-marked and logical order on the front panel. Also featured on each module is a three-position toggle switch that selects the source of the signal appearing at the rear-panel line-out socket between line-in, sync and off-tape replay.

On the rear of the machine are located two multiway sockets that provide connections between the Mini-8 and its separate power supply unit (which, because of the large mains transformer it contains, needs to be mounted at a reasonable distance from the transport) and eight pairs of unbalanced line-in and line-out sockets. A third multiway socket is provided for connection of the remote control unit or tape timer, while a 3-pin IEC-style socket gives access to the capstan motor servos by which the varispeed unit does its stuff.

And so to the accessories themselves. The remote control unit houses a duplicate set of transport controls (forward, rewind, play, record and stop); eight record safe/ready pushbuttons with built-in lamps that flash to signify that 'ready' has been selected on that track, and remain lighted when record mode is entered; master controls for sync, line-in and replay that simultaneously switch the outputs for all eight tracks between the selected modes; plus reset and 'stop-at-zero' switches for the tape timer. Since only one socket is provided on the rear of the Mini-8 for either the remote control or the tape counter, if you plan to use both the counter needs to be plugged into a slave socket on the rear of the remote control. As the name of the function suggests, when the stop-at-zero is selected — and a light comes on to confirm that the circuit is made — the transport will stop when it reaches the nominal zero set on the tape time. Depending on how far away the machine is from the zero setting when you hit rewind or fast forward, the degree of overshoot ranges from insignificant to dreadful. If the machine does pass way beyond zero, it's pretty simple to put the transport in motion a second time and send it back once again towards zero, when the overshoot is minimal.

The varispeed unit comprises a small box of electronics coupled to two leads. One lead plugs into the servo socket on the rear of the Mini-8, while the other is terminated in an adjustment control giving up to ±15% of speed variation around the nominal 7½ or 15in/s. Also provided on the box is a jack socket that gives direct access to the synchronisation circuits mounted within, and which enables control from an external oscillator. When AHB come up with the necessary additional hardware, this latter facility will allow tape synchronisation systems, such as Maglink, to lock up a pair of Mini-8's for 14-track recording (one track per machine being taken up with the time code used to match the relative positions of the two machines slaved together).

Lastly, a brief description of the Mini-Limiter which is a very useful little device for a fledgling studio. Although AHB would themselves be the first to admit that it's probably not the most 'exacting' device in the world, it certainly does all that is required of a limiter. The Mini-Limiter's restricted performance means that you would be advised to refrain from using it to limit the main group outputs on the Modular II mixer. Nevertheless, the unit is more than adequate for limiting, say, a drum track where the 'quality' of the limited signal will not be too important once it is absorbed in the mix. (Translation: The Mini-Limiter doesn't cost the earth so don't expect a fantastic signal-to-noise ratio; hence it should only be used on tracks that won't suffer too much from a little degradation.) Front-panel controls comprise pushbuttons for line/mic selection, limiter in/out, slow/fast attack time and slow/medium/fast or 'auto' release time. Thus attack and release time can be tailored to suit the exact requirements of the signal being limited (drum tracks, for example, need a slow attack time to prevent them sounding too harsh and gritty) without too many compromises because of lack of adjustment. A fader control (unusual) and associated LED allows the input level to be adjusted in relation to the limiting threshold, while two rear-panel unbalanced sockets give a choice of 0dB or -30dB output level. In this way the limited signal can be returned to the mixer at an identical or lower level than that at which it was sent. Two further rear-panel sockets are provided for line level input and the linking of two Mini-Limiters for stereo operation. A 3-pin XLR socket handles microphone input.

Well, that's the Package; how they stand up together is the next question. As I stated last month the Modular II mixer is simplicity itself to operate, once you have mastered one or two key controls. It takes a short while to come to grips with the 'line-in/line-out' switching and the sync override facility, these two features enabling a monitor mix to be rapidly set up between new material and previously-recorded tracks during overdubbing. The Mini-8 8-track interfaces directly and easily with the desk, with parallel connections of the tape machine's output being necessary for the channel line and monitor inputs. This is probably not the place to argue the virtues of ½in versus 1in 8-track format, because presented properly the pros and cons would take up too much space (but it's a subject we'll hopefully cover in a forthcoming issue of SI). Suffice it to say that without noise reduction a studio would be unwise to contemplate ½in format. But eight tracks on an inch of today's low noise/high-output tapes running at 15in/s is definitely a viable proposition, provided that recordings are made well up to the tape's operating level and not too many track bounces are attempted.

No noise reduction system is cheap, and until AHB come up with their promised 8-track add-on based on the MXR Compander unit, many new studios will have to get by without it. And very creditable sessions can be had from the Mini — with or without noise reduction. It's very easy to operate since everything is laid out logically and ready to hand. As an example of the machine's good manners I tried putting it in fast rewind and suddenly turning off the power. It coped beautifully, not throwing the slightest trace of a loop as it dropped into stop and applied the brakes to bring the tape to a gentle halt.

One problem facing the owner of smaller studios could be the amount of mechanical noise that the Mini-8 produces. A cooling fan runs constantly, blowing air across the innards, and isn't exactly quiet. In fact it's pretty obtrusive if, because of space restrictions, the Mini-8 has to be positioned close to the mixer. I'm told that the noise can be attenuated somewhat by mounting the machine in some sort of custom-built console, especially if it's lined with absorbent material and is fitted with a diffuser in the path of the air leaving the console. If you can manage to set up the machine more than about a dozen feet away, there should be few problems. And, of course, long-range operation is no problem since the Package comes complete with a very comprehensive remote control unit and tape timer. In a busy studio a remote control unit like this is nothing short of essential — doubly so since very few, if any, smaller facilities would even begin to contemplate the extra cost of employing a full-time tape-op to look after their multitrack.

The Mini-8's electronics take care of all the switching logic necessary to maintain the correct input and output combinations for drop-ins — sync mode, for example, selects sync output on all tracks up to the drop in point and automatically switches to line-in on the drop in tracks. One small point that needs to be remembered, however, is that the mode selection on the Mini-8 works in parallel with those on the remote control; plugging in the latter does not disable the former. To allow the remote to function correctly each mode selection switch on the Mini-8 must be set to 'sync', otherwise confusion reigns and the machine doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing. An 8-track has possibly less application for a varispeed unit than does, for instance, a stereo machine, on which numerous special effects are common fare for such devices. It does have its uses though, particularly for correcting speed variations caused by drift in mains frequency during a session. Rather a restricted use but the unit's provided for free so why sneer at it?

With a wide range of possible combination input and output levels, the Mini-Limiter can be inserted at various points in the Modular II's signal path. The easiest and most convenient, however, is after the microphone pre-amplifier and before the equalisation. A point, in fact, provided by the top row of sockets in the patch bay. By connecting the limiter's input and output to the relevant tip, ring and sleeve of a miniature (or optional full-size) 2-pole jack, output to and input from the Mini-Limiter are available on one connector. In this way it can be inserted into whatever channel needs limiting, and moved around the console as required. Alternatively, of course, the unit can be hand-wired to a spare jack and connected by conventional patchcords. Either way it's a very versatile device.

So there you have it; a really nice Package deal for the price of a secondhand Rolls Royce (which for any self-respecting studio owner should be the next status symbol on the shopping list). Compatibility is definitely a strong point; the AHB logo is your guarantee that all the various bits and pieces can immediately establish a meaningful rapport with one another. And happy hardware must mean a happy owner; the rest is up to the brain behind the hands adjusting the knobs and faders.

Complete package as described: £6200 (see text)

Mel Lambert is a freelance technical writer.