Soundcraft Series Two/Series II

Recording Console Specs:

  • Classic mid 1970s British Recording Console

  • Class A

  • Fully Discrete

  • Transformer Balanced (Sowter transformers on every channel)

  • Inductor EQ (ala Neve etc)

  • 12 Channels

  • 8 Tape Returns

  • Classic split line console format

  • 8 Busses

  • 4 Aux Sends

  • 2 Echo Returns

  • (Second console is 4 bus version of above with PPM meters)

Notable Recordings And Users:

  • The Specials “Ghost Town”

  • Joy Division “Atmosphere”

  • Eurthymics - Sweet Dreams album

  • Gary Numan/Tubeway Army - Replicas album

  • The Undertones “Teenage Kicks”

  • Gang Of Four, Duruttie Column, The Fall, The Chameleons, Nico, Teardrop Explodes etc per Cargo Studios, Rochdale UK:

  • Jason Falkner (Beck)

  • Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake and Palmer)

  • New York’s CBGB’s club

Further notes:

John Rivers (The Specials “Ghost Town” producer):

"I so wish I still had [one]. It was just bloody brilliant, with Sowter microphone transformers and discrete components — such a sweet sound; the same kind that people revere old Neve mic preamps for. It was all really old-school.” (https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/specials-ghost-town)

Series II in action on Eurthymics Sweet Dreams album (Source: soundonsound.com)

Cargo Studios, Rochdale. Photo Source: (https://www.cargostudios.co.uk)

Soundcraft Series II console as used extensively by Martin Hannett on recordings made there by Joy Division, Durutti Column, Nico and OMD. Other artists to record there with it include The Fall, Gang Of Four, Teardrop Explodes, Membranes and many more (Source: https://www.cargostudios.co.uk)

More info:

https://www.discogs.com/label/264408-Cargo-Studios

https://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/biography/6814/Cargo_Recording_Studios

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063765091097

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/oct/01/joy-division-rochdale-blue-plaque

Keith Emerson (Source: https://myblogitsfullofstars.blogspot.com/2010/01/soundcraft-stuff.html)