I'm new to the forum but I've searched for information and found none so I thought I would post my question.

I'm looking at buying a Studiomaster Series II, 24 X 16 X 2.

Any information you can give me would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Has anyone had any experience with the Studiomaster Series II?

It supposedly has that British sound but I would like to get other's opinions.

Thanks

I was thinking about buying one (on ebay now) for a bit over $400, but the power supply is not included. I'm going to pass given the fact that it's a 6 pin connector calling for +15, -15 and 48VDC taps, complex to build and these power supplys are nowhere to be found.

I was also interested in the electronic charater of this board, but the hassles associated with the power supply is a deal breaker for me. For example WHY do these boards have power supply issues? And, WHY are they impossible to find?

Too bad, people I talked to said it was a sweet board. Studiomaster is useless for support and THAT is a reason why I probably won't use their gear. An investment that goes obsolete and off the face of the planet in such a short time is not a good one.

Good luck.

Hi there,
I recently acquired a Studiomaster Series II 24•8•2 and am very interested in one, or even two, 8-channel expander units. I have one expander, but it's missing one of the PCB cards & all the pots & jacks, so for now, it's an extra-parts unit. So far, ebay (et. al.) hasn't turned up anything.

Any help would be well appreciated!

Thanks!
Regards,
Frank

Phil Collins liked it!

great mixers, the sound is, blimey er, analog-y, lol only way i can describe it..... like an old, real analog, cheap korg or something versus a new VA synth is how i'd compare one to a typical 'new' mixer

wasnt sweet dreams/eurythmic tracked on a studiomaster?

i've got a mixdown gold myself. makes nice old-skool sounds etc. you could use it for tracking drums for example which'd be great. also very popular desk for classic budget reggea i'd say especialy if you get one with the sweep bass eq

Hi there,
On the back of the Studiomaster Series II -and expander units- there are blank panels for EDAC multi-pin connectors (as described in the manual). What the manual & schematics don't seem to provide, is how to connect them. This is obviously a big time & money saver and I'm interested in wiring them up. So, I thought I'd try and save myself the trouble of chasing down all the traces on the circuit cards by asking if anyone here is using the EDAC connector option and if they have documentation about the wiring scheme.

Regards,
Frank

Kudos for him, he's got a Brennell Mini-8 multitrack too! Look in the top right corner.

Brenell was pretty much standard issue for Rawkstorrz in the UK at the time. At least 2 of the floyd had them back then as well.

Studiomaster started life in Bedford near where I now live.
There have been many Studiomaster companies, all of which went broke, most of which deserved to.

The vast majority of their post late seventies output is not too good at all. Trading on the name made when they were in their heyday.
So be careful what you buy and of course NO spares are likely to be around off the shelf.

I bought one of these consoles about 6 years ago at a local store that just wanted to get rid of it. I got it for $100.00 which was pretty cool. Unfortunately there was an issue with the PSU so I never had phantom power on it. I was in the same position as you and was not able to really find anything online except that Phil Collins photo lol. Anyway, it sounded great. EQ was completely usable and the pres were warm but not in the range of muddy. All in all it was a good board. Ended up selling it a few years back since I was mostly doing overdubs. Wish I hadn't sold it. Good luck finding some info.

I don't understand that. What's bad about them? Was it corner-cutting, so to speak? I can't see how they got that much success and sales by making bad products. I'm just asking.

Also, spare parts, that's just not really true. The only thing you'd have a hard time obtaining is maybe potentiometers, even then, something could be retrofitted. Unless you need the front panel or meter bridge casing.

Depends on which SM desk you need parts for.

And why did they go broke? Because people who are good at building electronics are not necessarily good at running businesses.

This part of the UK is littered with the corpses of many "famous names" in the music biz, most of whom were scuppered by the very success that made them household names.

HH & MM are the first 2 that come to mind.

The specfics with regard to Studiomaster are that there were at least half a dozen different incarnations of the company, some of which involved NONE of the original folks. I know personally of one set of owners of the name who basically had their hearts in the riht place but had no clue as to how to manufacture things en masse or even in a consistent manner.
I have had the misfortune to work on some of those products and the only thing you can say is that they were interesting.
Components hung off the back and front of pcbs as a sort of temporary fix till the next revision of the pcb (which of course was also the same, since they were doing their R&D on the customers)

What you have to remember is that none of these companies that abounded in the UK in the seventies were big by any standard.
At its biggest, MM had around 100 employees and IIR HH wound up never topping 200. And bear in mind that in their day both of these companies shipped way more product than any of the Studiomasters.
FWIW I bought a very early Malcolm Hill desk, to my eternal regret. Now that was the worst designed, worst built piece of garbage I have ever seen.
I can not even find the words to describe just how awful the feeling in the pit of my stomach was the first time I opened it up to sort out a fault on the road.
It was 12-2 the size of a garden shed (might be exaggerating here) with a built-into "flightcase" of MDF or chipboard.....

You seem to be wanting someone to validate your decision. Well, here's the deal... you've picked a board that was from the batch of manufacturers who were offering budget solutions in the 1980s... in line with Behringer, Phonic, and like that today. Consoles that might have been considered okay to use for bar bands and in basements, but not in a serious facility. I don't know what this console in particular looked like inside, but in general consoles of this ilk were not made that well, the circuit boards weren't top notch, the pots and sliders were cheap and they just weren't worth getting excited about when they were new... unless you were a bar band or a budget PA company or a small/basement studio, where you got a lot of bells and whistles for your money.

Right now there are a lot of analog consoles floating around of some quality, as midline studios are closing everywhere. For under $2k you can probably get something that, for another $2k or $3k in parts and a whole lot of free labor, would be a restored $50,000 or better board. This would be worth the work and costs, if you have the time to devote. I would not put $5 into a budget console that was thirty years old. I know a fellow trying to sell a beautiful board, needs work, that was $110,000 when new (according to him...) and last I checked he couldn't get $10,000 for it. MCIs for under $3,000. Other quality pieces show up pretty regularly. Put your time, love, and money into something that will return the favor.

Well, it's more like I find it hard to believe that the parts and design can be that bad. It's not like they were building pcbs with crappy material and had screwholes in the wrong place, crooked mounting and unipolar circuitry with 741 opamps. So in a way I am being defensive, but only because I believe that on a technical point of view, they can't be that bad. then again, I haven't actually seem inside one of these boards. I just always liked the look of them and it seemed that alot of care was put in their aesthetic and functional design.

I have. I got a Mk III system 8 and find that it's a decent board for what it is, where it was made and the parts used in it. It's a bit too "new" for me, but I know it's better than alot of newer budget gear around, even though they have more features. I never cared about features. I don't know how my board measures up to those Studiomasters, though...

Hi there.
I currently own one of these desks and am looking at getting it serviced. Anyone in England, UK know anyone?
I must agree the EQ is rather nice, parametric low and high mid is really useful to have.

Hi there.
I currently own one of these desks and am looking at getting it serviced. Anyone in England, UK know anyone?
I must agree the EQ is rather nice, parametric low and high mid is really useful to have.

Hi, did you find anyone to service that desk yet?
Does it just need a general service with a few crackly pots/switches, or does it actually have some faults?

Hi Jellyfish,

Been a while I know, desk has been running solid but the tape outs started giving me greif, I managed to find a local place that would service it. The tape out section was covered in gunk so I got that all cleaned up, no more drop outs. Pots are getting scratchy and I was told it would be waste of time to get them all replaced so when they finally go I'll pawn it off. For now it's all good. The fuses in the master bus had to be replaced... they'd half blown but were still working.. weird.

The guy who took a look at it was actually quite impressed given it's "budget 80s board" status, the faders are really really nice. I'm gonna miss them when this thing goes.

Regards,
Shaun

Tracked and mixed this for a friends solo project recently. Used the desk pres and tape outs of the Series II to the A/D into Cubase. The bus section really came in handy sending drums to a stereo bus out to Cubase, monitored the channel with a stereo CLA2A and sent back out to the mixer. Hopefully I can do it completely OTB with a real one... some day maybe. Eats up channels quickly but really nice (and easy enough) to do. It'd be killer to get my hands on the 8 channel expander they made for this. Anyone?

Here you go...
Studiomaster Series 2 II 8 Channel Extenders Expansion Boards Console Mixer | eBay

I own the studiomaster series 2. I don't want to be rude but in my opinion you have to own it or at least have used it to make a comment on it.. the guy was asking for opinion whether it's a good buy or not. in my studio I have the studiomaster and mackie 8 bus mixer connected to delta 1010 which I'm using to run pro tools 12.6 . The studiomaster in comparison to the mackie 8 bus is like a day and night difference in terms of sound quality. The preamps of studiomaster is some what comparable to my liquid channel preamp. It has a very big fat sound compare to mackie 8 bus which cost me a lot of money when I bought it new $5000. Mackie 8 bus was $5000 brand new and the studiomaster was around $8000 in 2001 So my conclusion is this model series 2 has a great sound comparable to high quality preamps such as neve, API, etc...and yes I can say that and I'm saying that. I have 40 high quality preamps on my liquid channel and I own two I wish I have 8 cause in my opinion it sounds better than the real thing yes I mean it...read the reviews about and try it your self .

I own studiomaster series 2

16 channel console. Do not believe what other people say. This console has good quality components. The pots are made of metal unlike the other companies uses plastic, now that's cheap like mackie 24/8 bus console. You can also feel the knobs when you turn them that they're high quality. Unlike the other brands like soundcraft ghost they are problematic, their power supply always breaks down. At least the mackie has better power supply, I own it for about 20 years the power supply is a workhorse. The only problem I have with Mackie 8 bus was the preamp, very thin sound and you can't drive it hard. Other than that I think mackie 8 bus is pretty good. They don't break easy, you can still make good music with it if you don't mind a thin sound to your mix personally I don't like that sound.

Now let's talk about studiomaster series 2. I still own one and I will never get rid of it ,why because it has that big fat sound which we usually hear from big companies like neve and Api, that warm big analog sound. If you can find one in a used market buy one. Just the preamp facilities of this console is worth buying. This console kicks ass

Hi Friendlycasper,

I know its been a couple of years since you posted this but i've just purchased a Studiomaster Series III console as a bit of a passion project for myself as i believe its in need of a new power supply and maybe more as it hasnt been used in years. Any advice on where i can aquire a power cable or even what PSU it uses? I'm fairly new to this and the main reason i picked it up was in order to attempt to teach myself more. Thanks a lot

Hi sorry I didn't see this reply. I own series 2. You said you have series 3.
The only advise i can give is first check the fuse on my unit i have o think 4 fuses in the power supply but you don't need to open the power supply, you just twist the tip plastic knobs they're really small but you can't miss them infront of the rack remove all the fuses and go to electronic shop to get the exact match and size. Then install them see if the console works.
If that doesn't work, you should bring it to a local tech to see what the problem is. Good luck it's a great board try to fix it.