SSL SL 5000 M (1985–)
A broadcast and film console built as modular cassettes, sold by the yard, and specified to order. The same product line dubbed Hollywood features and cut live news.
Overview
The SL 5000 M was a chassis waiting for a job description. First deliveries landed in the fall of 1985. SSL built it as an open architecture: a range of standard audio and control cassettes dropped into mainframes of varying sizes. A broadcaster and a film dub stage could order from the same catalogue and end up with completely different desks. It also means no two SL 5000 M consoles are quite alike, and buying one today means buying somebody else's specification decisions.
The architecture was flexible. According to DB Magazine (September 1987, p.69), the stereo broadcast version was housed in mainframe sizes from 8 to 72 inputs and aimed at live radio, continuity, outside broadcasts and post. A separate film configuration shared the same system architecture but swapped in film panning and monitoring cassettes to handle anything from simple mono up to complicated surround formats. Both could be integrated with SSL's G series studio computer and total recall computer. So the M Series was a family of consoles wearing the same badge.
The engineering underneath changed at the component level, and not only in the packaging. DB Magazine (January 1985, p.45) reported that SSL developed a new series of hybrid chips to replace the earlier op-amp-plus-discrete subassemblies. They cut the size, weight, complexity, and power consumption of the building blocks substantially. A single SSL hybrid chip delivering a fully balanced, earth-free output capable of driving a 600 ohm load at +28 dBm occupied roughly 40 by 15 by 5 mm - about a tenth of the area the older approach required.
The switching system drew a public argument. The console's Instant Reset computer scans and recalls all channel pots and switches, though it does not physically reset them. Any of 48 complete switching setups could be called from RAM at a button press, with preview, editing, and disk storage for libraries. Total Recall ran outside the audio path, which let SSL keep continuously variable pots instead of stepped rotary switches. That was a trade-off, and SSL was candid that it preserved signal integrity at the cost of not being "total instant reset" in the strictest sense.
The M Series went into rooms that could not afford to go down. Universal City Studios installed an SL 55128 M with 80 inputs, set up for three operators and fitted with Instant Reset, as the centerpiece of its refurbished Alfred Hitchcock Theatre - a 300-seat room serving double duty as a dubbing stage and screening room (Studio Sound, May 1990, p.70). The desk was heavily customized to the facility's needs. Studio Sound (October 1990, p.32) noted that Goldcrest specified 48- and 64-channel M Series consoles for its Elstree and Roger Cherrill's modernization, with post-production director Bill Rowe praising the level of user-specification as the reason for the choice.
The cassette approach was sold partly on serviceability. Studio Sound (June 1990, p.37) pitched the standard-cassette architecture as eliminating the maintenance headaches usually associated with systems of this sophistication, with mainframes available in three depths and from 8 to 128 channels wide. When a channel strip misbehaves, you swap a cassette instead of pulling a whole console.
The M Series is not a plug-and-play purchase. These were custom-built to order, priced on application (SSL listed the SL 5000 M as "available upon request" in DB Magazine, September 1987, p.69), and every surviving example carries the fingerprint of whoever commissioned it. Buyers should expect to inherit somebody's routing decisions, cassette complement, and computer integration. They should also spend real time understanding the Instant Reset configuration before trusting it on a session. When properly set up, the switching system moves between radically different show formats without a time penalty. That was the pitch in 1985.
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