Mel Lambert concludes his review of Progessive Electronic Products modules.

The acid test

What do you end up with after all this labour with a soldering iron and screwdriver? In my case it was a very nice little 4/2 mixer with excellent technical and operational manners. The equalisation section, in particular, was very useful, giving just the right amount of cut and boost at just the right bass, mid and high frequencies. But more than that it sounded right. Some desks I've come across possess eq that has a rather gritty and harsh sound to it. Not so the equalisation on the PEP modules, which was nice and gentle and, well, more 'rounded'. Difficult to describe, admittedly, but if you've ever heard a really clean and well-behaved eq section you'll know what I mean. Up to 80dB of gain is available on the microphone input, which means it can cope with almost every conceivable type of mic the average user is likely to come across. The line input features a sensible 40dB of gain — more than enough for most tape machines, including the -10dBV operating level of Tascam gear, and quite satisfactory for such things as active DI boxes and other devices with a few dB of gain about them. Another useful feature is the peak-hold overload LED that flashes when either the input to the channel pre-amplifier is too high, or the amount of equalisation being used is causing distortion in the following stage. By monitoring the amount of overload at two points in the signal path, excessive levels will be detected even if large amounts of cut or boost are utilised. For example, a direct-injected bass guitar may overload the pre-amp but not later stages if a lot of bass cut is in use, but may overload later stages and not the pre-amp if the input level is reduced and you suddenly reach for the bass boost. In either circumstance the LED will flash to signify that all's not well with the channel module.

The four switchable cue/echo sends represent a very useful advantage over the 'traditional' single cue and echo buss normally provided on smaller desks. It's extremely handy to be able to select all four for pre-fader cue, since very seldom will every member of a band be satisfied with a single foldback mix. With four at your disposal you stand a better than average chance of pleasing most of them most of the time.

Even though the small evaluation mixer I put together only had two output groups, there is no reason why up to eight cannot be connected; full routing and pan facilities having been provided on each input module to accommodate this number of group busses. The new Penny & Giles 900 Series slimline conductive plastic faders that I was using as channel faders had the noise-free, elegant action one expects from this company, and at around £9 each must be a serious consideration for do-it-yourself, budget mixers. Which is not to say there was much to choose between P & G and the Audiofad Model 700P conductive plastic and Model 800W wirewound faders I was using as group faders. Admittedly the Audiofad faders are slightly cheaper than comparable models from P & G, and the wire-wound versions are slightly less smooth in operation than conductive plastic (they are also less expensive), but all in all I had not a nanosecond's trouble from any of them.

The tape return/group buss switch and cue sends on the group modules allow previously-recorded tracks to be routed to both the control room monitoring and studio foldback during overdubs.

Like the AHB Modular II mixer I reviewed in the January issue, off-tape signals also appear on the group VU meter, a situation I found slightly confusing but one that can be assimilated after a while. All in all, though, the result was a well-behaved little mixer, and one which showed that adding more inputs and outputs would present no problems at all.

Don't just take my word for it

One last thing I did was to check with a small studio that has bought a ready-built desk from PEP (another service offered by this friendly little company) to see what a typical customer thought of the modular system. IPS Studio, based in West London, is the proud owner of a 12-input/4-output desk made entirely of PEP modules and main-frame. (A similar mixer, I'm told, would cost between £1250 and £1500, depending on the type of fader you specified and other minor modifications.) Pete McGee, the studio's owner, echoed my initial impressions of the PEP approach, and is 'very, very pleased' with his desk. In particular, he felt the three band eq had 'lots of definition' and was 'very positive'. His particular desk was fitted with Audiofad wirewound faders, which performed extremely well apart from the screws needing retightening from time to time. He also found the four cue sends to be 'extremely useful' mentioning that the drummer with The Movies, a band using Pete's studio when I spoke to him, had been really knocked out with the fact that at long last he could have his own separate foldback mix — something that had never been possible in other studios the band had used; Pete is presently running the studio as a 4-track set up, his track-laying machine being a trusty old Teac A3340. Commenting that the desk was 'very quiet indeed,' he pointed out that any noise he hears through the studio monitors can always be traced to the Teac and not the PEP modules. By the time you read this piece IPS will probably have made the jump to 8-track, with the desk increasing to a 12/8 or possibly 16/8 format. The addition of extra modules will only mean a few hours of re-wiring the desk, an important consideration for a studio in use practically 24 hours a day.

Some facts and figures

Progressive Electronic Products can be reached at (Contact Details) and talk to the man definitely in the know, Stephen Gutteridge.

For conductive plastic and wire-wound faders contact Mike Gilbert at Penny & Giles Conductive Plastics Limited, (Contact Details). Or Richard Hussey at Audiofad, (Contact Details).

Prices (plus 8% or 12½% VAT, although you'll have to decide if you qualify as a 'professional' user or not): The CM-1 input module costs £47.50; GM-1 group module £39.50; VEM-1 virtual-earth mixer £4.50; LHD-1 line amplifier £5.75; MBC-1 meter buffer £4.50. A MkII version of the CM-1, to be known as the CM-1b, will feature an equalisation in/out switch, push-on connectors, phantom-powering for capacitor microphones and a 10dB gain attenuation switch. Price is £58.

Sound International is, of course, primarily concerned with the operational aspects of equipment of this type. For those of you with a more technical bent, a full technical review (including specifications and measurements) of the PEP modules described here recently appeared in our companion magazine, Studio Sound. Interested readers will find Hugh Ford's analysis in the December issue, pages 62 to 70. In his summary, Hugh found the modules 'very cheap' and the performance 'excellent' and 'beyond reproach'. All in all an excellent system. The modules are not at present available in the US.

Mel Lambert is a freelance writer.