Ampex 3761 Mixer / Stax / Tom Dowd?

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Hi --

I have an Ampex 3761 mixer for auction on ebay. A fellow from the
Netherlands who has been studying the Stax recordings saw the auction and
contacted me. Here's what he said:

> Hi Steve,
>
> I have just seen your Ebay auction of Ampex model 3761 and I
> was thrilled to see your pictures!
>
> Anyway, my name is ... and I live in the Netherlands.
>
> For many years now I am doing research in the recording
> equipment that Stax Records in Memphis used to use.
>
> The mixers were always a question mark : was it model 3761 or
> MX35? Not untill recently I found out that it was model 3761.
>
> Coincidently last Wednesday I spoke with Steve Cropper who
> was a recording engineer at Stax (and also the guitarist of
> Booker T and the MG's) about the mixers. Two 3761 were
> coupled to have 8 inputs and one output to drive Ampex model
> 350 or 351 (mono). I still don't know how they wired the two 3761's.
>
> When Stax started the first stereo recordings Tom Dowd of
> Atlantic Records wired the mixers to a Scully 280/2 in order
> to have one 3761 for each channel!!
...

*********************

Can anyone verify any of this info?

Thanks,

-- Steve

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Ultimate Multitrack Analog-to-Digital Transfers
http/www.sonicraft.com/a2dx
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Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <SOidnZJNw-MSzeXfRVn-ug@comcast.com>,
Steve Puntolillo <steve@sonicraft.com> wrote:
>>
>> When Stax started the first stereo recordings Tom Dowd of
>> Atlantic Records wired the mixers to a Scully 280/2 in order
>> to have one 3761 for each channel!!
>
>Can anyone verify any of this info?

Not at all, but that sort of thing wasn't unusual back in that era. I
remember seeing one later studio with a Shure M67 on each channel of their
440B-4.

Folks would take those things and tag the outputs together with summing
resistors to chain a bunch of them in parallel. They'd chain inputs
together to make matrix mixers as front ends for early multitrack work.

You'd see the junky Ampex mixers (and often folks would replace the horrible
Beyer input transformers, but not always), and the Altec rackmount PA mixers
a lot. Later on the Shure stuff. I don't think I saw any studio desperate
enough to use Bogen or Newcomb front ends. But back then, there wasn't
any other real alternative other than a custom console which took a lot
of time and money.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."