The Brick

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  • #15189
    fredrikberg
    Participant

    Hi Ted!

    I own a Brick that just sounds amazing. It has serial nr. VC230-136. On the front just right under the VU meter is printed “Voice Channel”.

    Now I have the chance to buy another one with the text “VC1” also printed below “Voice Channel” Whats the difference.
    It has Serial VC7-520

    You said earlier that about 50 or so were made of these. Whats about those different types of serial numbers.

    Cheers and thank you for some really great products. I dream on buying a p-38ex in the future.

    /Fredrik Berg
    Sweden

    #15544
    Ted Fletcher
    Keymaster

    Hi Fredrik, thanks very much for your post….. The reason the serial numbers seem so far apart is that at that time we used a simple numbering system for all products, so the intermediate numbers were mostly SC2 compressors. Yes, it’s true that only about 50 ‘bricks’ were made, and they were very much individually hand built. I had a number of problems with the early ones, mainly with the phantom power supply and the VU meter, but as far as the audio path was concerned, they are all the same.
    The early units were just called ‘voice channel’, only the last 10 units were called ‘VC1’. I can’t remember why that one you have has the ‘VC7’ letters…. that’s a mystery.
    For other readers of the forum, the superb sound of the ‘brick’ was a combination of a transformer input and a good quality preamp, arranged so that there is 30dB overload margin at the input. The ‘brick’ was not particularly low distortion, or wide bandwidth, but that transformer, operating properly, gave it a ‘presence’ . I’m seriously thinking of making something similar once again. :)

    #15545
    fredrikberg
    Participant

    Hi!

    Thanks for REALLY quick reply. I haven´t been in touch with any company that give such great support. And now we´re talking old discontinued equipment.

    Just to clarify if there were any misunderstanding.

    The unit I have now is serial number VC230-136 and this unit doesen´t have VC1 written on it.

    The unit I am to buy (hopefully) Has serial nr. VC7-520 and have the letter VC1

    The VC7 in the serial may still be a mystery , but I just wanted to make sure I´d explain it correct.

    Thank´s again for the very great support.

    I show my wife your personal answers to my questions and she just stares at me like i´m a fool with a very big smile.
    I´m sure other members on this forum understand the great feeling of being able to communicate with the engineer himself. :)

    Have a great summer

    Fredrik Berg
    Sweden

    #15546
    Ted Fletcher
    Keymaster

    I just had some other thoughts on this one…. The VC7 was a dual mic preamp with switchable impedance matching for the microphones. I designed it as an exercise to produce the best possible sound out of a variety of microphones; it was a very ‘up market’ piece and worked brilliantly. It was also very expensive.
    There is still a spec and some pictures of it on the original JoeMeek website, but it’s certainly not available now!
    :(
    One notable feature of the VC7 was that it had a built-in M/S matrix designed for recording using a cardioid and a figure 8 microphone to achieve a complete stereo image from a single point. The thinking was not original, but it certainly led to my present work in amplifier and loudspeaker design.
    Not enough use is made of that system in recording…. it’s possible to achieve superb depth and realism with no possibility of ‘hole in the middle’ problems.

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