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had on motion picture business began to be eaten away by the development of magnetic recording. (The sole standout being Fox, who had developed its own Fox-Movietone system.) New magnetic technologies (first developed by AEG in Germany in 1935), began gaining a foothold after the end of WWII, and players such as Ampex, Nagra, Magnecord, Magnasync, Magna-Tech, Fairchild, Stancil-Hoffman, Rangertone, Bach-Auricon, and others began to enter the field. Unlike RCA and Western Electric, these manufacturers were willing to sell their equipment outright to studios, and didn't demand the licensing fees that were associated with the leasing arrangements of RCA and Western Electric. Despite these advances, RCA and Western Electric were still the major suppliers for most film sound recording equipment for major studios well into the mid-sixties and early seventies, with upgraded versions of their optical recorders (which had been developed at significant cost) in the late 1940's still being used to strike optical soundtracks for release prints. Both RCA and Western Electric developed "modification kits" for their existing dubbers and recorders, whereby mag heads and the associated electronics were added to film transports, thereby alleviating the cost of a wholesale replacement of all the film transport equipment. Much of this equipment remained in use at many facilities up until the 1970's, when studios began taking advantage of high-speed dubbers with reverse capabilities. THE 1940'S After the initial rush to marry sound to motion pictures, the 1940's saw a steady series of improvements in film sound recording, mostly related to optical sound recording systems and solving problems related to synchronous filming on set, such as camera noise, arc light noise, poor acoustics, and related issues. In 1935, Siemens in Germany had developed a directional microphone which provided a solution to sounds coming from off set. Disney also released the movie Fantasia, a groundbreaking achievement that featured the first commercial use of multi- channel surround sound in the theater. Using eight(!) channels of interlocked optical sound recorders for the recording of the music score and numerous equipment designs churned out by engineers at RCA, it can safely be said that the "Fantasound" system represented the most significant advance in film sound during the 1940's. However, except for the development of the three-channel (L/C/R) panpot, the basic technology utilized for the mixing consoles remained mostly unchanged. Likewise, functionality of standard mixing equipment for production sound saw few advances, except for much-needed improvements to amplifier technology (primarily in relation to problems due to microphonics in early tube designs). Re-recording consoles, however, began to see some changes, mostly in regards to equalization. Some studios began increasing the count of dubbers as well, which required an increase in the number of inputs required. For the most part, though, the basic operations of film sound recording and re-recording remained as they were in the previous decade. THE 1950's While manufacturers such as RCA and Western Electric attempted to extend the useful life of the optical sound equipment that they had sunk a significant amount of development money into, by the late 1950's, the technology for production sound recording had already begun making the transition to ¼" tape with the introduction of the Nagra III recorder. Though other manufacturers such as Ampex, Rangertone, Scully, RCA, and Fairchild had also adapted some of their ¼" magnetic recorders for sync capability, all of these machines were essentially studio recorders that simply had sync heads fitted to them. While the introduction of magnetic recording significantly improved the quality of sound recording, it would remain for Stefan Kudelski to introduce the first truly lightweight battery-operated recorder capable of high-quality recording, based on the recorders that he originally designed for broadcast field recording. This was a complete game-changer, and eliminated the need for a sprocketed film recorder or studio tape machine to be located off-set somewhere (frequently in a truck), with the attendant need for and AC power or bulky battery boxes and inverters. Later, Uher and Stellevox would also introduce similar battery- operated ¼" recorders that could also record sync sound. Up until this point, standard production mixing equipment had changed little in terms of design philosophies from the equipment initially developed in the early 1930's (with the exception being some of the mixing equipment developed for early stereo recording during the early 1950's for movies such as The Robe). Despite the development of the Germanium transistor by Bell Laboratories in 1951, most (if not all) film sound recording equipment of the 1950's was still of vacuum tube design. Not only did this equipment require a significant source of power for operation, they were, by nature, heavy and bulky as a result of the power transformers and audio transformers that were a standard feature of all vacuum tube audio designs. In addition, they produced a lot of heat! Westrex RA-1485 mixer in "tea cart" console. Note the interphone on the left for communication with the recordist. (Credit: Colin Campbell) RCA BC-5 console. Another of the consoles made by RCA for broadcast, but adapted in various configuration for film use. French-made Girardin tube mixer. Western Electric 22C console. While this particular console was designed for broadcast, with some modification to monitoring, it was also the basis of film recording mixers. (Credit: Brent Huskins, Crossed Paths Vintage)