^^ ahhh, one more (ex)studio owner. Spent amazing amount of money here to keep up with customers expectations (and engineers lust for new toys). Had lots of (Danish) Tube-tech. Thankfully sold off most of the expensive equipment\multitracks while they still had some semblance of value. Not that long ago sold a MTR12 1\2 inch, went to France via ebay, still some interest for such stuff. Desks here was Trident, Soundcraft, DDA. Crazy changes to the recording tech world since the 80-90's, looking at those all-in-one digital desks\recorders at give-away price. But good micpreamps, compressors, mics etc (and good artists) still important.
Sorry, but I was one of the engineers
I was mostly the keyboard tech, doing things like fairlight programming, keeping outboard stuff connected properly.
Had plenty of tubetec stuff too. Also had all sorts of "old stuff" that clients and the other engineers liked - like AMS reverbs, Quantec room simulators, eve and old spring reverb in the loft (looked very much like a mattress to me). Aaah - the silky stuff you could get from a good set-up when you used just the right equipment for the particular voice/instrument.
Even with today's all-in-one computer stuff, you miss out on the interplay between the engineer, product and artist. The best producers I worked with let the engineer play the studio almost like an instrument (to borrow a phrase from Donabld Fagen AFAIR), and ending up with fantastic sound. Hated being reduced to a mere tape-op, remembering good punch-in and -out points. That bit I am not unhappy about having been replaced by computers.
Another thing inparticular I wasn't to happy about was getting sent to the drum booth with mr Cross' (even then) Vintage Fender tube guitar amp, equipped with a SM57 (or something like that) and pair of headphones, and acting as the remote control when getting "just the right sound" as the tubes wehere warmning up and Billy was playing... Needless to say, the headphones did little to dampen the audio levels of the turned-to-the-max amp in a 2x2 meter drum room...
Anyway, very nice to meet other ex-sound recording professionals.
