CBS studio audio mixing board
date: label: Date made
content: 1964
name: label: maker
content: CBS Technology Center
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: In 1989 the museum collected this audio mixing board from Columbia Broadcasting System's Recording Operations in New York. This CBS unit was being closed as a consequence of the merger of Sony and CBS. The board was used from 1965-1989 to mix all of CBS' classical and many of the company's popular music recordings.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The mixing board was designed and manufactured in-house by CBS at their Technology Center in Stanford, Connecticut. When placed in service at the New York studios it provided a much wider range of capabilities than other equipment then available. Utilized in conjunction with new Dolby noise reduction equipment, it combined the input of up to sixteen studio microphones for recording onto audio tape. The versatility provided by this number of input channels resulted in the production of higher fidelity (i.e. better quality) recordings whether the recording was of a single soloist or of many instruments in an orchestra.
label: Description (Brief)
content: A mixing-board served as a crucial component in the overall recording system. Situated between the microphones and the tape recorder, it allowed studio engineers to manipulate the signal inputs, whether to achieve a more accurate balance or to emphasize certain sounds over others. Studio recording technology in the late-1960s consisted of analog equipment, much of which had (like this board) moved from the use of vacuum tubes to transistors. Studio engineers later adopted more compact digital signal-processing equipment using integrated circuits capable of a far greater range of effects, making this board obsolete.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from Sony, CBS Records
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0180.1
label: accession number
content: 1989.0180
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0180.1
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0180.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: audio mixer
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 47 cm x 178 cm x 108 cm; 18 1/2 in x 70 1/16 in x 42 1/2 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 29 in x 51 in x 79 in; 73.66 cm x 129.54 cm x 200.66 cm