i make recording studio electronics and provide special sound services with my big fat recording studio
completed . this custom kaimaitron 4 channel mic/instrument amplifier with internal /external source control room or headphone monitor section. built all of beaut fat handmade transistor amps into a 1960s brown leatherete portable case . also features a pretty awesome switchable germanium stage which can be sweet or stinging.
ive been experimenting with a valve mag phono stage for a while and have at last nailed it. the mysterious circuit had suspicious boobitraps and ommisions, pfff. i think by marrying it with the fabulous roger eq one … your record player can now drive a truck! so fat and powerful. u can pop your boat and caravan on there too. i’ll make this one into a beaut thorn mk12 tape recorder cabinet over the summer . that understated grey vinyl covering is a perfect foil for the bright electric valve sound about to be transplanted in.
here’s a new twin channel rojer eq . a drawing for a new build for an old client . the 2 way valve eq design was inspired by an american rogers hi fi amplifier that i repaired years ago. sounded ahhmazing .. such a really clear sweet hi freq and fat low tight bottom end. and with some ekadek tweaqs and refinements – even better. the size of the sound adjustment is impressive. a vast tone and body control. go subtle and careful with a mix or slash and bash a single sound input to pieces. the output stage is the big pultec MB1 . all in all an eight tube box. kind of extravagant? you betcha squealing piggy banks its extravagant. roger is completely worth the 3500 nz$ – every buck. he can build or bust mountains. sort the trash and make cream buns and make glass shatter . he’ll do the dishes and never answer back. and who doesnt want that in their crew.
the commando is a naked preamp with no annoying reach around issues. read on. its inputs and outputs and controls are all all right there up front. . perfect. theres no reach around issues. its actually a lot easier and efficient to assemble all the components of this multichannel preamp on one surface. then u can build a chassis with a power supply in the corner - totally prewire a whole amplifier circuit unit of pretested channels. - pre assemble the control and interface parts onto the clean conductive panel - stop for lunch - make the grounding sheilding conductivity of the panel / chassis / cabinet. – trim and attach all the wireing to the controls and switches . and boom. turn it on . almost dinner time. (i wish) but actually very efficient. very easy to be super tidy. all the wireing at the inputs is as short and direct as possible. more like a point to point style construction. more robust too. nothing flimsy – just strong hardwired connections. the amplifiers themselves are the sexchanger transistor designs. simple tough hi fidelity amps from the late seventies. yes they are quiet running and super fat gain cells. big and clean, and yes . they can distort if you push them. there is a fine cross adjustment between level in. amp stage gain , and pickup amp volume. well worth the journey. the quad unit contain two stage amps. im considering a three stage design – for super clean super full on 80 db gain. or beastly extra fucked up distortion. extra squared square with your square.
David Chechelashvili is one of the tutors at SAE sound recording college branch here in auckland. he spent time at ekadek mastering an album for ‘battle circus’ last year and just recently took a luxury gyrator ten8tor home for a try out. his words.
“This EQ is something very special. It seems to penetrate the sound fundamentally and rebuild it rather than add on top of what’s already there. It never sounds hyped or fake even at extreme settings! I tried it on several instruments like drums, guitars, vocals and bass and it sounded great on all of them. However, I found it to be most effective (amazing really) on richer, pad-like sounds like strings, piano, organ, synth, etc. on these instruments it really shines. Sweeping the hi-mid frequencies while applying generous amounts of gain produces a truly magical result – adding depth and lushness of sound only a top quality analogue EQ can provide. Well done Mr. Ekadek! Another uncompromisingly organic piece of kit. Dave “
thanks dave. ek.
control room stations are one of my favorite things to make. these little guys can be fashioned to be your best friend. with really nice individual character. loyal and hardworking and never complain. they are not just fake arse bells and whistles cheap shit with chips crappy plastic rubbish. (take a pill ek) ….. gear that you always suspect doesnt really give you the real thing.
the folks that have my custom fenkner control room stations all say that they never never have heard so much sound in their music . boom! . seriously tho. the ekadek’s genius kept secrets have made a life changing improvement to the clarity of the sound of their sound. yes .
the transparency of the audio. at all volumes is the most important thing. never cloudy.
the clarity and completely open fatness of our simple sweet transistor driver amp.
utterly flat frequency response. low low impedance output. simple class a transistor tech.
headroom you can drive a truck with.
and quietness. no buzzes. hums. harsh crackly hissing. etc etc.
just a very hushed quiet smooth stable friendly quiet quiet black background.
they really are lovely to control and admire to touch and flick the switches. and they sound like the sexiest voice you ever heard.
now that that is that sorted . another best thing is .. they are so easy and loyal. they dont go on strike. they dont run off with the family silver. they are a decent fair price of only 1200$nz (check your currency calculator for that one) for a beautiful new zealand handmade thing . for a minifenk1 . ( freight to be arranged). gets basic stereo 3 line input 3 output transistor amp active monitor control room dog. with stereo-reverse .stereo-mono. solo left. solo right . knobs and metering and options are available for discuss.
i already make fat ladys so why not ? but i reckon the product is just so cute and friendly. not so little at 3ru this single (or stereo) channel line equalizer features a trafo balanced input . tube driver . bass - treble frequency switchable shelving eq with and a fat two tube MB1 balanced output stage. one sweet fine lady .
this custom motherboard has enough muscle and brains to activate 8 input channels and pick up 2 stereo busses and make some vu meters move to the music. its made from our neever all transistor operational amplifiers.this mother is the amplifying mind of the small mixer build on the bench this week getting loomed up ready for chassis insertion. i’m letter stamping a drilled up panel today while waiting for the last of the parts to arrive. the simple mixer design has 8 mono panorama abled channels and 2 further stereo inputs. the master gain is fine trim able and has a switchable external fx/eq/limiter inserting function. the mixer also has a bus interruptor function which splits the first 6 channels away to an alternate stereo buss amp which can be driven off to some other external processor, and then back to the main mix via one of the stereo inputs.
this stack of shiny junk is the killer rig to kill all other so-called killer rigs. fat as pultec-ish MB1 stereo mike/di/line preamp. 4 tube chassis. the FAT LADY 5670 stereo limiting amplifier. 8 tube chassis. and the TEN8TOR GYRATOR stereo eq. about two bazillion transistor chassis. the most extreme channel strips you’re ever likely to see. amazing sounding. so gutsy and so quiet!. the sweet sweet clean fat MB1 valve preamp amping up . the totally sexy fat lady gain control freak limiting amplifier holding back . and the sophisticated ten8tor gyrator equalizer being the ultra cool frequencies outputting amp with its devastating signal shaping powers. i’ve been playing everything thru the killer rig last couple of days and am astounded at the improvement-of-everything-isation power of it.
this whole package is ready and banging. so im looking forward to plugging the bugger into the big 100KW pa system. ive been playing records thru it . and distributing out into the radios and grams and monitor amps ive got around this room. sounds awesome to change the focus of parts and flavours of audio and seemingly fill up a space with very delicate shifting tones. dont get me started. im all about that shit. i’ll put a little thin eq and a slow echo in one speaker way over in the corner – and a bassey round tone with a phazey squeal in a speaker over the other side. fill in with the mantle radio left reverb and blaster for the right flat flat … and hell. youve got a hell over a flavourfull sound. you can pop the vocal out of the 8″ woofer or the 1″ tweeter. good for much more trickery pokery than that gay sounding example . OR just easy-peasy-by-ear sweet sweetening of the classic 4 way stack. i need another beer. given the bar space i could tweak the surround sound of music into the eeriest experiential …. altering state happening. something to really turn the ears on.
the ultimate & uber non portable 16 channel valve amplifier. after a fair while drilling every holey hole – it took only a day to final construct these 2 basic chassis skeletons. milled & cut & folded 2mm aluminium custom rack mount trays- 32 valve sockets – 16 tag strips – eight threesomes of hi voltage caps - saddles of input & output connectors – 16 of MB1 16k/600 output mofo trafos – and obtusely massive power connectorators . this build is well underway now . it was a good day.
this small chunky control room monitor console is built for extreme flexibility and control and accuracy. it uses a neveish transistor control room amplifier with stereo/reverse/mono/soloL/soloR/spk A.B.C.switch/VU meters with adjustable calibration and a best quality headphone amplifier. fed from a 4 X stereo input listen select switch – mix/daw/aux1/aux2. the ‘mix’ selection to monitor an outboard summing mixer of 4 ( easily eight) stereo inputs fed from a multitrack soundcard. the passive mixer circuit and mix preamp could be housed in an outboard unit along with a power supply and all the input/output terminations . the mixed stereo signal flys back to the fenkner chunk pair of stepped level controls and feeds a neve 535 line output stage and a germanium output stage and mixes the two for double slamming sidechain action . a double power hunk’o'chunk. stop me! the final output signal would feed the mix output sockets as well as the ‘mix’ listen select position. other features are to be switched inserts across the mix preamp and the line outputs for external processors. there’s a pair of mic/di amps in the rack unit too , just to make it a complete studio in a chunk. they have outputs that can be routed permanently to a pair of soundcard inputs as well as having independent level/panned/(or muted) outputs – lets call them mixer inputs 17-18 … punching direct into the multitrack sum for zero-latency monitoring. thus the system is uber functional. the most versatile chunk of gutsy electronics ever. the rack unit is something like this. the bride of chunky.
i’m not kidding. they a complex multisexual beast. does it all. simpler versions can easily be quoted of course. these other two fenkners have control room functions and mic/di amps. valve ones. pultec MB1 style amplifiers.
at last the frame paint is dry enough to soak test this beast. so close to delivery. i’m rapt with the sound of this klangenschmitt. really fat clean bottom end. so powerful with so much headroom. the functionality is extreme with busses and inserts everywhere. 99% integrated circuit-free for that super expanded fabulous unsubdued sound. the small angled rack will be tony’s outboard machine. i actually had made 66% of that rack’o'gear for diogo in portugal. the deal came full back round south – all good for diogo tho. and tony and ekadek. its a dam gutsy processor, with a tube mic amp and tube limiter amp, a transistor 3 way sweeping/filtering eq, a small shure mixer, and a stereo germanium line amplifier.
this biggest single thing ive ever made just blew my client away by the sounds of it. heres his first words after the first blasting with a brand new klangenschmitt gogo model. “KLANG IS HERE! I have been non-stop Klanging it up all afternoon ( btw: thanks for an amazing packing job. it would have survived Armageddon in that crate). btw: The Ekadek wrestling cape is the best! I’m only now just resurfacing to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I admit I was lost lost lost for a while with its army of options – but I slowly had one a-ha moment after the other as I got to grips with it. I haven’t been sleeping well since I knew it was in town – as excited as a little kid. She is more beautiful and nicely made than any photo could show – takes the light well from every angle and the power supply is like a diving bell had a fight with 20’s radio. matches the style of the meters. that hot rod touch came out really well with the hooded meters blinking away. build quality its universally superb. all the knobs have a strong feel and all the right ones are detented. the preamps too sound really strong – I’m still sussing the various gain stages sounds but they’re clear and clean with just the right amount of over the top as the pedal hits the metal. Our singer had a test and was loving them for her voice. The Klangenschmitt just makes music sound exciting – I hear all kinds of intricate details from my speakers that I wasn’t getting before. gutsy too – like just the amount of gravy is always there on ..err..tap J. Its like a transformer ( the robot kind ) has just collapsed into my room with the mission of making my stuff sound better and giving me a better way of working. You completely went to town and I’m humbled by this beast of a thing – so many other things to mention – the busses had me mega confused until I realized that you’d pulled them off without them actually ‘using up’ a channel – sort of as assignable as a digital system – its genius! plus with each able to run 2 ( or 3 with the d.i ) channels – it makes a/b-ing a cinch. it does the boogaloo with options to the point where I can’t really see running out of channels for anything – Its so original and inspired. it just takes everything and suggests really interesting ways of working. monitoring is uncannily easy – the ‘monitor mode’ is a really nice idea with the A buss taking control . same too with all the soloing and isolating options, the comprehensive right/left/mono/dim controls. plus the cool talkback button. the monitoring options are so slick – love those little silver buttons there too. I haven’t had zero latency before and this whole step up to a console at the heart of the sound rather than the computer is a big deal for me. I have absolutely zero niggles with it – it just completely blitzes anything I’ve ever seen on the market and it’s the sort of desk that could spawn a music style! it has a timewarped vibe but the ideas are so fresh. thankyou again for thinking of everything and making it possible. You totally aced it. Its more powerful that I could have imagined and its perfect. love it. every last daleky , Russian spaceship and uber-audio bit of it. speak to you soon. yours extremely gratefully .ronan. thankyou ronan. for courageously going ahead with this whole project. a real mission (and an expensive one) and im dam pleased and proud of the result. heres the last of my nz photos of my klangenschmitt gogo (thats me in the blue shirt smiling and waving). on with the next projects now. im making a valve limiter/mic amp AND a custom format discrete silicon and germanium transistor mic amp – for a Portuguese client. and another console! for a nz client. 
