Malcom Toft Equate

Funny Story, Allen Hyatt got really really mad at me years ago because I called BS on the entire “ Toft the father of British EQ and designer of Trident consoles”. I said he “ drew” these designs but wasn’t the designer. Toft was the head drafts man at Trident, the designers would come up with a circuit on a scrap of paper and Malcom drew it nice and pretty. Now I’m sure working for a company as small as Trident Malcom picked up a thing or 2 but he wasn’t a designer. In Private I some shit from the gentlemen , Till he asked Malcom to design the series 88, suddenly I was right.

Some guys go through a ton of different companies because they are difficult, some because their products are difficult.

When it comes to the A-Range, my understanding is that Barry Porter designed and Malcolm was the ears. Personally, I don’t believe it would have been as good without Malcolm. Together, they created something legendary.

As for the hype, bending of facts and all, that’s just business. It always was and always will be. Some people get so bogged-down with that. Accept it for what it is, don’t put much credit or time into it, and move on.

Yeah I remember Alan Had Paul Wolf do most of the design work on PMI’s A Range Modules.

I Don’t know, I know from the Rusckie that the one at SMART was all over the place and even years after having a plan on what parts to use almost every channel still sounded different!

Im trying to remember what Bruce Robb told me at the time, but no, I don’t think Paul Wolff worked on the Cherokee consoles.

Recently had to go back to the first studio I worked in, the owner had bought a bunch of Toft gear back in the early 2000's because it was affordable and seemed like a good deal. The ATB console along with every other Oram/Toft thing there was a paper weight and not working. The Toft ATB sounded pretty good for the money, the EQ's were amazing, but it was constant problems from day one when we got it way back in the day. Only one channel worked "properly" at this point, console kept shutting on and off, the other stuff there was just completely dead.

Really sad, but fair warning of what to expect with pretty much anything Malcolm is associated with. I don't hate the guy or anything, but it's a really predictable pattern of high output/low quality stuff that's not easily repairable. Sadly, there's probably a reason they're doing this in one single unit instead of individual ones...

The thing Smart always had going for it was Butch always had a decent tech around, first Brian than Lonya.

Speaking of Smart and consoles, anyone else get the VK email about the History of Harrison where they stated Nevermind used the Harrison at SMART? First we all know it was the Soundcity Neve, but the early Nirvana demos wher done on the Tac Scorpion, I know because Tom Blaine was trying to figure out what the Nirvana link would do for the value of that console when I sold him the DDA QMR that lived at Audio for The Arts for years.

Some of the PR that companies do to just hit Google a little harder gets pretty ridiculous. 

I didn't realize Smart had a Scorpion.  I worked on a TAC Magnum for years, and it was supposed to be installed at my place, but movers ruined it, so I had to buy the Neotek. Though without that happening I might not have had my MCI which came from your neighborhood, Wheeler Audio. 

Wheeler is a pretty good regional post / voiceover studio. For years they were located under James Beard award winning Chef Michael Smiths restaurant.

I remember Orban did a blue colored EQ that was more clean like a GML. I don't remember a DBX one, but I could be wrong... I remember the Orban stuff being pretty decent.

I think when they left that location is when I bought the JH24.  I knew a guy who worked there who would do the ad work during the day and bring in indie rock bands at night.  He'd use the 2" for that.  He had a 3M in his home studio. Last I heard he was engineering for a producer in Nashville.