Apple Road
03-17-2011, 05:50 PM
Greetings. My name is Stephen Smith, and I have been a professional audio engineer since the mid 1970's. I have worked in many world class studios as an engineer, studio tech, musician and producer, and have done wiring and installation in dozens of commercial and private studios. I have installed and verified many very expensive consoles over the years.
A few years ago, I left Nashville and returned to Indiana, where I grew up and my family lives. When I had the opportunity to build a private studio in my house, I decided that instead of getting a cool older console, it would be more efficient to but a new one and not have to deal with worn out switches, capacitors and other maintenance issues. After considerable research into available consoles in my general budget, I decided to get the Toft ATB24. I'd done a lot of good recording on several Trident 80B's over the years and the thought that Toft was making a scaled down version for project recording intrigued me greatly.
I got my console last June, but since my primary occupation these days is as a touring concert sound engineer, I was on the road all summer and fall and I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time on it till last November. I've used it almost every day since then, and have had excellent results, and no technical issue of any kind. My studio has a dedicated electrical circuit for audio gear, with it's own earth ground, and all the wiring is custom terminated (by me!) with premium wire and connectors throughout, and the console is very clean and quiet. I have a computer based multi track recording system and a couple nice old multi track analog tape machines, and a lot of nice vintage solid state and tube outboard gear. It was extremely cool to be able to route all of it through the Toft without the need of a patchbay, and everything plays together perfectly and sounds fantastic. The preamps are quite nice with a wide range of microphones and the eq is very good. A lot of the routing concepts are very creative and intuitive. I am a VERY satisfied customer, and recommend the console very highly.
If I were to make a suggestion, it would be this: In the option bay, labeled for a digital I/O that hasn't appeared yet, it would be fantastic to offer a high quality +4dB balanced analog 2 track return as an alternative. I have a really cool Otari 1/2 inch mastering tape machine that I'd love to return to the 2 track playback section in that fashion instead of the unbalanced 1/4 inch TRS connectors of the 2 track returns.
A few years ago, I left Nashville and returned to Indiana, where I grew up and my family lives. When I had the opportunity to build a private studio in my house, I decided that instead of getting a cool older console, it would be more efficient to but a new one and not have to deal with worn out switches, capacitors and other maintenance issues. After considerable research into available consoles in my general budget, I decided to get the Toft ATB24. I'd done a lot of good recording on several Trident 80B's over the years and the thought that Toft was making a scaled down version for project recording intrigued me greatly.
I got my console last June, but since my primary occupation these days is as a touring concert sound engineer, I was on the road all summer and fall and I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time on it till last November. I've used it almost every day since then, and have had excellent results, and no technical issue of any kind. My studio has a dedicated electrical circuit for audio gear, with it's own earth ground, and all the wiring is custom terminated (by me!) with premium wire and connectors throughout, and the console is very clean and quiet. I have a computer based multi track recording system and a couple nice old multi track analog tape machines, and a lot of nice vintage solid state and tube outboard gear. It was extremely cool to be able to route all of it through the Toft without the need of a patchbay, and everything plays together perfectly and sounds fantastic. The preamps are quite nice with a wide range of microphones and the eq is very good. A lot of the routing concepts are very creative and intuitive. I am a VERY satisfied customer, and recommend the console very highly.
If I were to make a suggestion, it would be this: In the option bay, labeled for a digital I/O that hasn't appeared yet, it would be fantastic to offer a high quality +4dB balanced analog 2 track return as an alternative. I have a really cool Otari 1/2 inch mastering tape machine that I'd love to return to the 2 track playback section in that fashion instead of the unbalanced 1/4 inch TRS connectors of the 2 track returns.