One of the most useful adjuncts to any studio facility, large or small, is a good range of ancillary equipment that can be used for signal processing, alteration, and general mucking about. Phasers, ADT machines, compressors, and so on are commonplace in the larger studios, but they very often constitute a fairly large part of the capital equipment budget of the smaller facility. All too frequently, such gadgets can place severe financial pressures on the up-and-coming studio. You may be busily arranging loans to move up into the eight- or sixteen-track league — buying a new desk, or upgrading the old one; purchasing a second-hand or, if you're lucky, a new multitrack recorder — and auxiliaries like a new limiter may be completely forgotten.

That would be fine, were it not for the fact that a great many clients and visiting engineers may be quite put off or otherwise discouraged to discover that they can't actually stick a noise gate on the drums (acoustic treatment was a problem too) — because there isn't one. Whilst it is fair to say that the situation has currently got completely out of hand, with studios being judged on their gadgets rather than their sound, it is undoubtedly a good idea if you can somehow get hold of those little modules that can provide such a wealth of special — and everyday — signal processing effects.

To this end, we have commissioned a designer from a leading audio equipment manufacturer to produce a series of constructional projects for the lower-budget studio — although they are likely to interest everyone in the technical field. Personal experience indicates that even the smallest studio has at least one guy who is technically competent as far as building the odd little box of electronic wizardry is concerned, and it is for such electronic magicians that this series has been designed.

In the near future, we will describe, with full constructional, testing, and alignment details, a rack-mounting system of ancillary devices designed to meet the requirements of modern sound recording. Apart from the obvious phasers, ADT machines, limiters, and so on, we will be presenting other useful boxes, such as equalisers, High-pass and Low-pass filters, line amps, active direct-injection boxes — in fact all the units you can think of — and a few more — from the humblest tape remote control unit to the most interesting digital time-domain fiddle-box.

We will begin by describing the rack unit and power supply, based on easily-obtained components (purchasing information of an international nature, will also be given, including an approximate cost and construction time), before going on to consider the units themselves. The devices will be primarily modular in concept, and construction will be based on commercially-available circuit boards and module-kits. If there is sufficient demand, we will be introducing a printed-circuit board service, where this is required.

In the initial stages we will be concentrating on auxiliary modules, but later on we will be describing complete systems: foldback systems, tape machine electronics, and mixers for various purposes. Of course, we will be pleased to hear of any devices which readers are particularly interested in; no doubt we already have them in mind, but you never know! Comments on the system will be most welcome, along with new ideas and modifications. Engineers using the system are encouraged to describe techniques and unthought-of applications for the devices, along with hints and tips on recording techniques in general.

We hope you enjoy it!