h i s t ö r i c a l ™

A vintage cat logo, lulu as a funny little kitten. She was born in the fireplace and exhibited extraordinary intelligence from the beginning. Gives me many ideas but is unfairly bossy and opinionated. Doesn't like plastic bags but loves bugs, luncheon meat and space electronics. She was an engineer for the government at one time, I think, or was it . . . I don't remember. Chaos dynamics and particle theory are of special interest and annoyance to her.
The original recording rack--two LA2A style compressors, a preamp, microphone power supply and a band-pass filter. The studio is wired to a TT patch-bay and signals can go straight to tape, through the mixing board or into the computer. We're using an ADAT, TEAC 4-track and Sonar. The ADAT is also tied into the patch-bay, completely balanced in and out and most of the IC's are updated with nicer Burr-Brown items.

Messy band-pass filter, built quick, idea from the Audiocyclopedia and one of those early days of hi-fi books. It's usable and weird sounding. Regulated 6 volt filament supply, 1/2 a 12AX7 coming in, the other 1/2 of the 12AX7 going out.

The power transformer is one of those Antique Electronics twenty buck specials. We use it with a bridge rectifier and end-up with enough juice for a 12AX7 or two. The 6 volt regulator is the usual suspect.

My very first LA2A style vacuum tube compressor. The Caprice Classic was put together many years ago using the original Audiocyclopedia schematic before this crazy internet thing took off. I corrected some of the obvious errors but for the most part the schematic's fine as is and this thing is still an incredible sounding device.

The VU meter is vintage scrap but everything else is new. We used carbon comp resistors throughout, Orange Drop and Paper-In-Oil caps, Elna Cerefine Electrolytics and the transformers were bought new from OPT before they got weird. The screw terminal is there so I can tie it into Mr. Patch-bay. We use screw terminals for pretty much everything in the studio.

The original Oktava MK219 modification. We didn't want to make a new body so we came up with a plan to cram everything inside the existing one. We made a little eyelet circuit card, added some metal l-channels, a nine pin tube socket and it was ready to go. We tend to like the Russian capsules. They sound good. The circuit itself is based around a 6072 but we've used a 12AX7 with good results, too. Also saved the guts and made a solid-state Russian preamp out of it.

For space reasons the output transformer is in the power supply and you can switch it in and out or change it to something else if you feel like it.

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