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Mercury Recording Equipment Co. ...
Mercury Recording Equipment Co. was started in 2000 by David Marquette who
after dealing with vintage equipment and racking vintage modules for many years, felt it was time to build some of the great equipment of the past from scratch.
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Technology is taking us to new places in recording. But for successfully capturing great recordings that technology needs a helpful hand... from the past. Nothing sounds as good as the American and European tube equipment from the 50s and 60s. Full of warmth, air and musicality. As well, there was short period (late 60s to the early 70s) when the American and European Discrete, Solid State equipment was also wonderful sounding.
Mercury Recording Equipment Co. was started in 2000 by David Marquette who you may know from Marquette Audio Labs in Hayward, CA. After dealing with vintage equipment and racking vintage modules for many years David felt it was time to build some the great equipment of the past from scratch that were not truly available to most people. The first three products (M.66, EQ-H and EQ-P) were helped brought to life by David Bock, who you may know from his great work at Soundelux Microphones. But you might not know David Bock is a highly experienced studio technician and has worked in such places as Hit Factory (NYC) and Ocean way (LA). For studios like those, the in-house microphone and outboard equipment collection is perhaps their most important asset. But they also need constant maintenance to keep them up and running. David Bock got the experience "in the field" (i.e. in the most professional studios) where the equipment we call "Pro Audio" are the essential tools for creating recordings on a daily basis.
MERCURY 66 The Mercury Recording Equipment Co. line started of three classic recording equipment recreations: the MERCURY 66 is a Variable Bias style, "All Tube & All Transformer Compressor". It is very similar to a Fairchild 660. Due to the shortage of original tubes and transformers it is nearly Impossible to recreate that circuit exactly today. But the MERCURY 66 uses similar circuitry, tubes, custom transformers and design ideas, which recreates the sonic characteristics, performance and features.
MERCURY EQ-H1
MERCURY EQ-P1
Secondly the MERCURY EQ-H1 and MERCURY EQ-P1 "All Tube & All Transformer Equalizers" are tributes to the early Professional Tube EQs such as PULTEC. The MERCURY EQ-H1 and MERCURY EQ-P1 Tube Equalizers recreate the same sonic qualities as the early tube equalizers with that warm, distinctly rich tube sound you want in both your analog and digital recordings today. Focusing on tone, the Mercury Program Equalizers are paying homage to the "vintage" tube equalizers you have come to know and appreciate.
MERCURY M72s
MERCURY M76m
Next, Mercury's owner, David Marquette collaborated with John Hinson to work on the next two Mercury Recording Equipment Co. products: the MERCURY M72s and the MERCURY M76m. John has also worked with a lot of 'vintage' recording equipment in the past. With David's passion and pride in craftsmanship and John's unsurpassed knowledge of the old Telefunken/Siemens modules these projects were very successful. John's credits include: Musician, Beatle Fan and he also helped Universal Audio with their designs and production. John worked as Senior Analog Design Engineer on many projects for them.
The MERCURY M72s Studio Microphone Amplifiers are a recreation and salute of the Telefunken /Siemens V72 modules made in Germany in the 50s and 60s, but most famous for being used by George Martin on the Beatles early recordings at Abbey Road Studio in London, England. The MERCURY M76m is an enhanced recreation of the vintage V76m modules. With output attenuation, level control, as well as selectable input impedance. It also has many other features such as direct input, phantom and phase reverse.