SSL 4064G (c. 1987)

A quarter-million-dollar used console with no factory spec sheet to its name — the 4064G survives in the record almost entirely as a line item in a broker's classified ad.

Overview

Not much paper survives on the Solid State Logic 4064G. It is a professional recording console from SSL's G generation, part of the 4000-series family. The Archive's file has no brochure, no manual and no full review, so what is known comes mostly from classified ads and studio features in the pro-audio trade press. The page header reads "c. 1987," an inference drawn from a used listing that described a unit as "3 yr, mint" in mid-1990. That is the source's own reasoning, not a documented production year.

The name moves around. The same desk turns up in the record as "SSL 4064G," "SSL 4064G+," "SSL E 4064 G+," "SSL 4064 G series console," and "SSL 4064G Channel Console / Loaded 48." The plus suffix and the "E" prefix show up across dealer listings, studio equipment PDFs and forum threads. Nothing in the file settles whether those all denote the same revision or a spread of configurations. Expect the badge to vary, and the paperwork with it.

It was a serious large-format studio console. A used example was priced at $275,000 in a Mix classified in April 1990 (p.201), listed by the Boston broker db Engineering with the description "3 yr, mint." That is a used price on a three-year-old desk, and it is the clearest statement the record makes about what class of machine this was.

Key Features

Ultimation and Total Recall

The best-documented configuration detail is a 1993 studio feature in Mix (March 1993, p.92) describing a control room fitted with an "SSL 4064G with Ultimation and Total Recall." Ultimation is SSL's moving-fader automation. Total Recall is the desk's settings-recall system. A dealer listing for a "4064G+ Ultimation" spells the pairing out: a 4064G+ console with Ultimation moving fader automation and total recall. SSL's own advertising in Mix (February 1994, p.3) was still pushing these upgrades a year later, billing the G Plus and Ultimation-fitted consoles as a new generation that "sound simply astounding." That is marketing copy, not an independent verdict, but it helps date the option packages.

Tangerine Automation Interface

Later in its service life, several 4064G+ consoles were fitted with the Tangerine interface from THD Labs, described in one studio's documentation as one of the first commercially available integrated Tangerine units. The Tangerine interfaces the SSL fader automation with ProTools and lets the desk act as a controller, with the audio either in ProTools or running through the SSL faders. The corroboration is decent. Vintage King, MixOnline and Power Station New England all describe the Tangerine fitment, and Vintage King's listing notes an "upgraded Tangerine automation computer."

G+ Computer and Disk Drives

One studio's account of its 4064G+ notes an original G+ Computer complete with 3.5″ disk drives. That dates the automation package and tells a prospective owner what they'll be maintaining. The same desk was retrofitted with a modern Atomic Instruments power supply, per MixOnline.

Channel Configuration — Conflicting Accounts

Here the record gets messy. A Vintage King listing describes a "64 channel/loaded 48 SSL 40000 series console" and gives dimensions of 149 inches wide by 48 inches deep. That is a single-source figure, on a "Loaded 48" listing, and nothing else in the file corroborates it. A Metropolis Studio B document describes "60 mono / 4 stereo channels." A macmusic.org ad specifies "56 channels & 8 stereo channels." A Hybrid Studios desk is documented with a left-hand patch bay, plasma metering, 32 x E242 EQ, and 32 x G292 EQ. These are almost certainly different consoles built to different orders rather than contradictory factory specs, since SSL desks of this era were configured per client. The Archive still can't resolve them into a single factory number. No frequency response, THD, signal-to-noise, power consumption, or weight is documented anywhere in the file.

Historical Context

The 4064G's paper trail starts, like many large-format SSLs, in the classified pages. db Engineering of Boston - 214 Lincoln Street, Suite 103C - listed a 4064G as "3 yr, mint" in Recording Engineer (June 1990, p.71) and priced one at $275,000 in Mix (April 1990, p.201). The same broker's ads in the period also carried a 4056E/G with left-hand patch at $205,000 and a 6064E/G VU at $275,000, which puts the 4064G in the top tier of the used market of its day.

The most substantial documented sighting is that 1993 Mix studio feature: a control room built around an SSL 4064G with Ultimation and Total Recall, alongside a Neve 1073 rack, a Sony 3324, a Studer 827, and an Otari MTR90 Mk III. The room took a 1992 Interior Architecture Honor Award.

The desk stayed in service long enough to be adopted by newer rooms. Hybrid Studios in Santa Ana opened in Winter 2013 with an SSL 4064G+ as the centerpiece of Studio A, according to MixOnline (May 23, 2019). A Gearspace poster refers to "a very late G+ from 99 - 01" while explicitly asking when the last one was built. That is speculation, flagged as such, and the only hint in the file about a production end date. No confirmed end year exists.

Collectibility & Value

Two prices bracket the 4064G in the record, and they are not the same transaction. The 1990 Mix classified asked $275,000 for a three-year-old "mint" example. A later, undated proaudiodesign.com listing for an "SSL 4064G+ Ultimation" shows a sale price of $75,000.00. That is a different era and a different desk, so the Archive treats the two as separate data points rather than a trend line. No current market price with a date is documented. The source notes plainly that no exact SSL 4064G listings were live on eBay at the time of research.

Maintenance information is thin. A Gearspace thread titled "SSL 4064G+ decommission and move" asks whether the owner had major issues putting the desk back together, with no answers captured in the record. A YouTube video documents the Frostbox SSL 4064G+ decommissioning and transport in Copenhagen, the poster's first and only decommissioning of a large-format desk. An SSL forum thread references a cosmetic channel-cleaning process as part of that same refurbishment. None of this amounts to a maintenance guide. Spare-parts availability is undocumented.

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