showconsole - too good to be true?

Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Riley Casey wrote on Sun said:
Brian, if you just want something REALLY large and impressive I can give you a great deal on a Europa.
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Built in gates!









Evan
 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Jim Roach wrote on Sat said:
If I were going analog, I would want something a little more widely available like an XL4 or H3000. Both of those can be found used at reasonable prices.
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Dunno how these prices are, I know of an XL4 and a H3000 for sale, both tour packs, asking $39K and $34k respectively. (I am not directly associated with for the seller.)

 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

The Show Console is IMHO a very bad investment. It seems like a good idea at first but in reality you can do far better. I don't think I'd even take a free one because it is just going to cause you grief forever. I have bought a lot of consoles in the past and learned that repeatedly fixing unreliable consoles is not worth the hassle with downtime, time soak and the money pit they become. Plus your resale value will always continue to drop unless it is a very solid performer that doesn't break. The Show Console always had problems from the beginning - no matter what people might say. It was a great idea and really cool if you had someone else fixing it (Showco and then Clair) and had a spare console around.
As for those of you who are interested in Harrisson consoles - they are terrible messes that sounded good when they worked - which was sometimes. Overpriced, not enough inputs, lack of part inventory, and horrible service. They didn't travel well on the road. I checked them out when they were new and there was no way then to justify buying them. At that time in the early 80s the Gamble consoles were far superior so I bought some of those. Later I bought the first Midas XL3 in North America and the second Paragon as well as a slew of others. As for the really old Harrison consoles (like the ones Maryland Sound had) that had the first VCA feature set avoid them completely. They are the noisiest things around and broke all the time.
 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Mark Herman said:
The Show Console is IMHO a very bad investment. It seems like a good idea at first but in reality you can do far better. I don't think I'd even take a free one because it is just going to cause you grief forever. I have bought a lot of consoles in the past and learned that repeatedly fixing unreliable consoles is not worth the hassle with downtime, time soak and the money pit they become. Plus your resale value will always continue to drop unless it is a very solid performer that doesn't break. The Show Console always had problems from the beginning - no matter what people might say. It was a great idea and really cool if you had someone else fixing it (Showco and then Clair) and had a spare console around.
As for those of you who are interested in Harrisson consoles - they are terrible messes that sounded good when they worked - which was sometimes. Overpriced, not enough inputs, lack of part inventory, and horrible service. They didn't travel well on the road. I checked them out when they were new and there was no way then to justify buying them. At that time in the early 80s the Gamble consoles were far superior so I bought some of those. Later I bought the first Midas XL3 in North America and the second Paragon as well as a slew of others. As for the really old Harrison consoles (like the ones Maryland Sound had) that had the first VCA feature set avoid them completely. They are the noisiest things around and broke all the time.
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Hi Mark!

Have to thank you again for buying that unreliable Studiomaster monitor board from me back in the 80's.
At least it was cheap enough neither of us got hurt too bad..

It is funny to remember the guys touring with Harrison (and Gamble) consoles poo-pooing the PM-3000 as a "disposable" board, trying to justify the insane expense of the console with better parts that would not stay working.

The Gambles seemed to stay working, but I remember the pots after a several years developed the "Tapco Syndrome", practically needing a vice grips to turn them.

Ah, the good old days...
 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Hi Art!
Funny thing is that old Studiomaster (common nickname was StudioDisaster) I fixed up and it actually made me money. It paid for itself x20 with rentals and then it got sold for what you sold it to me. Of all the consoles it might have made the most ROI (return on investment) percentage-wise. Kind of crazy. Can't believe you remember that. It was the 3rd console (if you want to call it that) I bought
I never liked the extremely colored sound of the Yamaha PM-3000 and hated the 10 degree thermal drift of the VCAs but I have to say that they were a great investment and were significant in making my company grow. I had 16 of them out on tour at once and they were a gold mine. Having a lower cost, reliable touring console with VCAs and power supplies that didn't fail was huge at the time they came out in 1986 (of course the very first run of PM-3000s were full of problems but that got fixed).
The Gamble HC and SC models (1979 -1985) had their quirks ( oh yeah) for sure but I never had big problems with the pots locking up. Guess I serviced mine more:). They were great sounding at that time and far better on the road than a Harrison. I did have a nightmare with motherboards and a slew of pots a few times - usually due to stupid actions. One notable time Jerry Garcia from the Dead spilled a supersized Coke all over a pristine Gamble SC monitor console during a rehearsal while Harry Popick the monitor eng was out on a longgggggggggg break riding a motorcycle. It was never the same. That bummed me out because I personally handbuilt that entire console myself in Gamble's shop. It was the best sounding Gamble ever in that whole series. The ROI on the big expensive consoles was never as good as on the PM-3000s. Ah those days...
 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Mark Herman said:
...Garcia from the Dead spilled a supersized Coke all over a pristine Gamble SC monitor console during a rehearsal while Harry Popick the monitor eng was out on a longgggggggggg break riding a motorcycle. It was never the same...
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Sounds like you're mad at Harry, not at Jerry. What could Harry do other than power it down immediately? ...Which is what was done by somebody else, I imagine, whoever was there with Jerry..

-Bink
 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Bink said:
Sounds like you're mad at Harry, not at Jerry. What could Harry do other than power it down immediately? ...Which is what was done by somebody else, I imagine, whoever was there with Jerry..

-Bink
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Well, more like disappointed that no one at Ultra Sound copped to it that the disaster even happened until much later. ( It was sort of an UltraGambleCokeGate coverup until someone let it slip to me about a month later:)) The fact is that no one turned off the console or did anything for hours. Ouch! Think of a $60,000 console (value back then) humming ( didn't use to hum) away with a very large puddle of Coke on the surface leaking through to the horizontal motherboards directly lying underneath. I'm sure Don Pearson nearly freaked out when he saw it!
I can't blame Harry - he didn't spill it and it was common for the Dead to noodle around and take breaks as often as they wanted during rehearsals. Not sure who put a big drink on the top of the console's nice wooden top (that was the cool style then for nice consoles) because that is just wrong. Not long after that I became a big advocate of console tops with a tilted angle to discourage the drink ledge temptation.
 
Re: showconsole - too good to be true?

Mark Herman said:
Hi Art!
Funny thing is that old Studiomaster (common nickname was StudioDisaster) I fixed up and it actually made me money. It paid for itself x20 with rentals and then it got sold for what you sold it to me. Of all the consoles it might have made the most ROI (return on investment) percentage-wise. Kind of crazy. Can't believe you remember that. It was the 3rd console (if you want to call it that) I bought.

The Gamble HC and SC models (1979 -1985) had their quirks ( oh yeah) for sure but I never had big problems with the pots locking up. Guess I serviced mine more:). They were great sounding at that time and far better on the road than a Harrison... Ah those days...
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Mark,

I didn't realize you only had a couple consoles yourself then, thought you already had a fleet- good sales technique!

I think the sticky pot Gamble I recall was out with Willie Nelson, they didn't ever cover their stacks and racks outdoors overnight, the console probably never got much more than one of those flaking aluminized covers if that.
The Gambles always did sound good, of course never heard a bad band through one either.

What are you doing these days ?
 
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