So, this guy called me today and said "I have a Hill Audio Console, and it's yours if you want it. I am getting rid of it."

Anyone know anything about these boards?

He said he was using it just two years ago, and everything worked fine.

I'll post photos and model # info when I have it.

I've never used them, however I've seen them used live. All the ones that I've seen had 4 band fixed EQ. --I think that they might be on par, or a bit better than an Allen&Heath SRO, maybe approaching a Soundcraft 200B as far as preamp and build quality goes.

Good name and it's free, right ? Case closed.

FREE MUSIC EQUIPMENT? UM.......NO BRAINER....

A wizened old mechanic once told me "There's no such thing as a 'cheap old mercedes'..." I bought one thinking I had proven him wrong. $2500 later, I realized he was right.

I am gonna grab this board, and then I am gonna $tart thinking about fixing whatever'$ wrong with it, then new cable$ and A/D/D/A converter$.

Fucking converters... A nice tape machine might end up being cheaper....

There'$ nothing like a cheap Mercede$ with ru$ted out pan$ and door frame$!!!

I remember when they renovated the sound system at Tipitina's like in 89. They put a Hill board in there. The guy said it was fancy at the time. Maybe made in england even.

You know them english boards can be snotty.

Over on TOMB, there's lots of love for the Hill MultiMix boards- it may be worth it to check it out.

I had a Hill that someone gave to me, but it was missing the cord the connected the power supply to the board. I tried to rig up my own cord and accidentally wired it backwards, I heard something start to fry and that was it. I gave it to a friend and he got it fixed. Now It works perfectly.. I wish I hadn't fucked it up, it looked like a pretty cool board. It had four band parameteric eq on each channel, which was pretty cool.

dontfeartheringo wrote:So, this guy called me today and said "I have a Hill Audio Console, and it's yours if you want it. I am getting rid of it."

Anyone know anything about these boards?

He said he was using it just two years ago, and everything worked fine.

I'll post photos and model # info when I have it.

Many years ago in my bench tech days I used to fix and fix and fix these things and then fix them again. We were selling them and using them for both installations and sound reinforcement for hire around Chicago. I owned two. Sold them since even the first CR1604 blew them completely away. Nowhere near AHB, Yamaha or Soundcraft.

They were the Kelsey or Peavey of England only not built as well and only slightly better sounding when you got one that didn't have an internal ground loop. Their construction was typical of consoles during the 80's in that they used 5532 and 4558 chips like nearly everyone else in the midrange price range. Their best product was the Multi mix which was the first real 16 ch rack mount mixer.

How Hill managed to pull off huge AD/DC tours with this stuff failing at 25% rates I'll never know. We managed to get a pretty good sound out of their touring level gear but it took a lot of customization, mods and bringing along a lot of spares. Their big touring speaker boxes were some of the first full range boxes to be used on big tours (most big touring rigs at the time used separate sub/low/mid/high boxes).

There'$ nothing like a cheap Mercede$ with ru$ted out pan$ and door frame$!!!

I'll give them credit for a little innovation but their gear in the 80s was pretty much along the lines of the 70s British cars. These were never Mercedes - they were barely MG. Simple construction, OK when they worked but always in the shop and never outstanding.

Don't expect a sweet old British console with warm preamps. Free is good but there is a reason for it. Expect inconsistent gain levels, lots of hissy noise and varying tonal quality between channels. Parts like pots and faders are impossible.