The Bottle Garden

This is our main mixdown deck. For the first two years we owned this machine, it had an annoying habit of falling out of record mode. Because of this, we relegated it to tape echo, rewinding and other secondary duties. We replaced every single electrolytic capacitor in the machine chasing down the prob, but it ended up being just a little jumper that wasn’t pushed in properly. Boy, do we ever feel stupid.

Now it’s just a sweet sounding late-70s Swiss mastering deck that gives us no sass and just happens to match our console.

Tho it only records one track, it’s the best sounding tape machine we have. This mechanical marvel was built circa 1965, and after replacing the electrolytic capacitors, it performs up to the specs in the manual. Compared to our other machines, the fast winding torque is truly terrifying.

A certain AL JACKSON JR leaning against an AG-350

This is our favourite multi-track machine. It looks like 80s hospital equipment.

Interesting features:

• Lets you store two bias settings per speed.
• Switchable speed pairs (7.5/15ips or 15/30ips)
• ‘Global input’ for all 8 channels for quick and easy alignments
• Very nice sound

Despite being smack dab in the middle of an era of horrid prevailing production practices (e.g. the SSL+Lexicon+DASH recorder sound), 1987 was a fairly OK year for music (Darklands, Sister, You’re Living All Over Me, Yo Bum Rush the Show, even Cloud Nine had a couple winners) but this one stands out as my clear pick for single of the year:

When it all comes down by Miaow