When I was involved in these things as a consumer (ABC-TV 1974-1981) we
spec'd Penny and Giles exclusively. At McCurdy (1981-1983) we used Penny
and Giles and later some Panasonic clones of P&G. But, at $100 per
fader, in quantity, back then (more or less), they really drove up the
cost of consoles and certainly weren't sustainable when you can buy a
24-mic-in plus four stereo line input Yamaha console for $1400. Who
cares if it breaks after a year or three, especially for TV.
Langevin had early slide faders in the 1960s, but I don't know prior to
that. Here is an interesting report/analysis by Rick Chinn of a 1965 (I
know 15 years later) Langevin console.
http://www.uneeda-audio.com/kearney/kearneys_mixer.pdf
I think Ward Leonard had slide rheostats used in engineering labs and
adopted to light dimmers well before 1950, but they were on a larger
scale. Daven made a few slide faders, I don't know if they made them
prior to 1950. There's one up on eBay at the moment 180855926717
One company that I'd look at is, I think, British, Painton (sp?) that
made arc-form (quadrant) faders (rather than linear) and these were used
in early BBC consoles as well as lighting consoles, IIRC.
http://www.soundtechniques.co.uk/history.html shows some.
Another company, and I think it was a Steve Temmer import, was Danner
from Germany.
While the 1950 patent is an interesting and important piece of art, I
think more searching might be useful to better understand the history of
the linear fader.
I never considered the slidex to be useful and Bob Bloom hated my specs
that specifically excluded that device. The Tascam string on rotary pot
was also excluded. I forget how I worded it, but it was something about
a slider on a linear resistance element rather than a conventional
rotary pot with a mechanical motion translator to linear.
I think I have a quad P&G linear fader here still.
Cheers,
Richard
--
Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
|