MCI JH-16
A three-head 16-track machine that undercut the competition and still ended up in the room for Carole King's third album.
Overview
Sixteen thousand five hundred dollars. That was the number MCI put on the JH-16. The company's own advertising made the pitch plain: buy the JH-416 console at $18,500 (or $19,500, depending on which printing of the ad you read) and you'd still have enough left to add the recorder and come in under what a comparable console alone would cost. Recording-Engineer (October 1971, p.8) ran the same copy and noted that at $16,500 the JH-16 was "worth fighting over." That's a marketing claim, not a lab measurement - but the price was real, and it changed what a small studio could afford.
The JH-16 is a complete 3-head 16-track recorder built around the JH-10 transport, which combined total logic with constant tape tension. MCI's own literature described the machine as a gain in both lower cost and higher quality. The company eliminated the costly hand-wiring found in comparable units and substituted channel strip printed circuit boards paired with non-redundant functions. Serviceability and reliability were, by MCI's account, improved rather than compromised. Whether that held up in the field is a separate question.
One- and two-inch tape capability was part of the package, and the changeover was quick. Owners could reconfigure the deck for 8-, 12-, or 16-track operation in minutes. Three heads were adjustable for height, zenith, and azimuth, and heads and guides were quick-change. An automatic tape lifter and automatic head shield were standard, as were rigid roller guides and a servo-controlled constant tape tension system for speed stability. The deck itself sat on a cast jig plate, with dynamic braking and a full logic system. Construction was silicon solid-state throughout, with all critical components on plug-in circuit boards.
Remote overdub and transport motion control came standard. The remote control lived in an aluminum housing with space reserved for the optional Auto-Locator, which added $1,200 to the bill. Automatic switching from sync head to input during overdubbing was built in, as were plug-in equalizers and central meter grouping. Screwdriver adjustments for tape tension, idle null, fast forward and rewind speed, reproduce, sync and record level, erase, bias, and equalization trimmers were all accessible without pulling the machine apart.
The machine was big: 32 inches wide, 30 inches deep, 35 inches high to the top of the transport, 44 inches to the top of the meter. It rolled on heavy-duty four-inch casters, and four doors gave access to any portion of the recorder. The JH-10 transport swivels over 90 degrees for service. Two ultra-quiet fans kept things cool, and an XL strip on the rear of the housing handled connections.
MCI's advertising placed the JH-16 alongside the JH-416 console as a complete studio package of heavy hardware at what the company called unheard-of savings. The 16-track JH-416 was priced at $18,500 in one printing and $19,500 in another. The 8-track version started at $12,900 or $13,900 depending on the ad. Expandability to 24 tracks was available at a total of $24,100 or $25,100. Since the prices differ between printings, they can help date a particular advertisement.
The JH-16 was in use at A&M Studios in Hollywood during sessions for Carole King's third album, with Hank Cicalo engineering and Lou Adler producing. Adler called Cicalo one of only two "complete" engineers he'd worked with. The sessions moved fast: eight tracks cut in the first two days. Cicalo's microphone approach was specific. He put a Sennheiser 421 D inside the piano with the lid closed, wrapped the whole instrument in two covers for isolation, and rolled the bottom end off slightly to compensate for boominess. An AKG 202 E handled Carole's vocal. Two AKG C-12s covered the drums, with an RE-15 on the hi-hat, another on the snare, and a third deep inside the bass drum, its head deadened by two heavy sandbags for a tight sound.
Cicalo's approach to drum tracking ran against the multi-track habits of the time. He described seeing engineers spread drums across five tracks of a 16-track machine and getting a stereo effect he called horrible - an "eighteen foot set of drums," as he put it. He preferred a tighter sound, and the JH-16's 16 tracks gave him room to work.
Atlantic Records' Tommy Dowd and Criteria Recording Studio's Mack Emerman were among the early adopters fighting for the first JH-16s, according to MCI's own advertising. That's a manufacturer's claim about its own customers.
The JH-100 transport eventually replaced the JH-10 in the JH-16, JH-8, and JH-24. The newer transport brought a DC capstan servo drive, crystal-controlled fixed tape speeds at 15 and 30 ips (with 7.5 ips available), stable variable speed operation from the front panel for special effects and speed corrections, and wide-range external speed programming for inter-machine sync and audio/video or audio/audio remote speed control. Flutter was quoted as typically .04% at 15 ips DIN weighted and .06% DIN unweighted - "piano proof," in MCI's phrasing. The all-mode reel tension control system maintained constant tape tension and high speed accuracy anywhere in the reel, with consistent tape packing. Full manual velocity programming for cueing, editing, and special effects was included. The design was totally relay-less, with full TTL deck logic. A new "Mark II" auto locator offered full bidirectional operation, keyboard entry, readout and operation in real time, and a controlled approach speed with no overshoot. MCI noted all these improvements came at only a very slight increase in price.
At $16,500, the JH-16 put 16-track recording within reach of studios that couldn't justify the cost of comparable machines. The hand-wiring elimination, the plug-in boards and the non-redundant functions were the engineering decisions MCI used to hit that price.
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