Behind the Scenes

The Pasadena City College Audio Controls Lab

Sandy Wu

Toni Concepcion

Eton Tsuno

Not only did Toni give a magnificent violin performance, she completed PCC’s Audio Controls course, during which its students learn to produce multi-channel recordings similar to the Mendelssohn Trio heard earlier. Here she holds the hardware interface as lab partner Jody looks on.

Student stations were a mixture of analog and digital gear: open-reel tape transports were gone. Mixing consoles and cart machines were in the first category, while Macintosh computers running Pro Tools, Panasonic DAT machines, CD players, and 360 Systems Instant Replay units were in the second. Soon after these photos were taken, the DAT units were disposed of, and digital mixing consoles became the order of the day. During 1991, PCC was rumored to be one of the first community colleges to add Pro Tools mixing and editing systems to the curriculum. A brief history of Pro Tools is available for your enlightenment.

During this time period, the Audio Lab’s academic program was awarded a grant earmarked for the purchase of more microphones, which was especially fortunate due to the fact that additional DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) had just been added to the lab. These mics were laid out for students to see during their classtime, which was an ideal opportunity for them to experience the new equipment they would soon be using during their lab sessions.

As the instructor, I jumped at the opportunity to bring in several mics from my personal collection to share with students, who showed marked interest in the old ones!

A Neumann Model M 149 condenser microphone is seen closest to the camera. These are manufactured in Germany.

With new mics still in their boxes (but not for long), students were able to view them on this special day. To the curious who are reading this, yes, all the mics in these photos are included in the coutant.org site. I’m betting you figured this. After all, it was a student’s request made in this very room during 2000 that inspired the mic site to come into existence.

Remaining photos show additional microphones obtained via the grant presented to the college that was mentioned above.

A Neumann TLM 103 condenser mic.

Although minimum time was spent using the open-reel tape machine during class, it was appropriate students be aware of the basics since entry-level jobs often involved transferring analog tapes into the digital realm, especially after the chief engineer at a local broadcast facility told me he would not hire any aspiring engineer who couldn’t dub a tape.

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