[Ardour-Users] what linux audio project do you miss?

[Lamar Owen]

On Saturday, March 05, 2011 12:15:38 pm Kim Cascone wrote:
> when I first moved to San Francisco in 1983 I worked as an electronic 
> technician for Orban - and my first product was tweaking and fixing 
> Orban 672A Para-Graphic EQs...which was an odd beast but an interesting 
> mashup nonetheless

Speaking of Orban, a functional Orban 8100 and 9100 'simulator' would be useful to me, to do 'airchecks' of material destined for broadcast, but without having to actually get one of those units, align it properly, fixup issues (like pot noise, and in units of this age that would be a problem), and set it up.  The 9200, while good, and while the unit in heavy use all around, sounds different and cleaner (it's digital; the 9100 is very analog); the 9100 is better than the 9000 if for no other reason than finding SAD1024 chips to repair 9000's is virtually impossible.  And so the 9100 is, to me at least, the reference standard to what a broadcast processor can do to the sound.  The 8100 less so, because it didn't have to be as extreme as the 9100 did, being they're targeted at different types of radio stations (8100: FM; 9100: AM).

I have access to a 9100, but doing work in a transmitter 'room' that is both noisy and echo-y is less than ideal (read my October 2000 article in Radio Magazine on the specific 'building' at http://radiomagonline.com/infrastructure/facility_design/radio_alternative_constructing_transmitter/ ).  And since this 9100 is still in the backup airchain, I can't pull it.....

Now if you did work on the 9100, Kim, I would be rather impressed.  The 672 is a great box, but the design and execution of the 9100, to the point to where they're still in production use at radio stations twenty-plus years after manufacture, is a real testament to Orban engineering.  And I thought I recognized your name from somewhere....