Olive console in France

by Guy Foucher
(Paris, France)

Hello,


What a fantastic story !
I started my studio tech career in 1977, at Pathé-Marconi/EMI studios complex, in Boulogne, in the west suburb of Paris.

At this time I remember there were many stories of this new Canadian Olive console that had ben installed at another recording studio, but I have never seen this console.

The studio was named " Studio CLARENS" and it was located " rue des Laitiers, in Vincennes ( close city on the east suburb of Paris ).
Best regards,

Guy Foucher
guyfoucher@gmail.com

Comments for Olive console in France

Average Rating starstarstarstarstar

Click here to add your own comments

Apr 01, 2014
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		BOB MORRITT
by: Anonymous

The initial vision for the Olive console came from Wayne Jones in 1969. At that time, consoles were being built in one of two ways: completely custom with the whole control surface built as one custom panel, or modular using individual functional elements such as faders, equalizers, and compressors. Electrodyne had pioneered the concept of the “strip modularization”, laying out each input channel as a vertical column. The column itself consisted of a series of individual modules starting with the fader at the bottom and working up to channel switches at the top. Using this modular approach, consoles with different quantities of inputs could be constructed by assembling side by side strips. Quad Eight and Automated Processes (later API) would later continue this approach. Using this technique, a custom console could be designed using standard components, thus reducing the engineering effort, risk, and development time. Yet a customer could configure a console unique enough to suit their particular needs.

Jones started Olive with the belief that a single input channel strip module with all of the functions integrated would be more cost effective. But it would have to include all of the functions commonly wanted by users. He reasoned that a single module circuit board and single metal housing would lower the cost compared to individual modules, and that the more circuit boards were used for wiring rather than conventional point to point wiring, he wanted to use circuit boards to interconnect the input module strips, and to carry the modular approach all the way through the construction, even to the large console housing. Two-foot wide frames would be made that could be bolted together to make console widths in multiples of two feet.

The execution had flaws. The tolerance ldup caused by alignment of the two-foot frames and associated two-foot bus boards compromised the integrity of this busing concept. The alignment of the connectors on the input modules that plugged into the bus boards was also compromised due to the distances involved.Resulting in the modules did not always seat correctly,the contacts between the modules and the bus boards were not reliable. This was a major source of reliability issues for the console.

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Olive Series 2000 - Console.

Share this page:
Enjoy? Click here to share the HTML code with your friend's!

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.