CH Vintage Audio together with Allen and Heath original founder Andy Bereza have re-created Pink Floyd’s quad mixing console used between 1971-1974. Allen and Heath built the original mixer for Pink Floyd in September of 1971 and it can be seen in use in the film Live at Pompeii.
During the design and build process of the 1971 Pink Floyd 28 into 4 mixer, Peter Watts who was Pink Floyd’s chief roadie at the time asked Andy Bereza to incorporate a large amount of coloured illuminated push buttons in a variety of colours for routing on the desk, in fact he brought Andy a 1 to 1 drawing of the proposed mixer layout using almost every colour of felt tip pen available. Peter, like a lot of late 60’s early 70’s people was into psychedelics and so he also wanted to see the mixing desk feature lots of bright coloured lights.
The desk was constantly modified between October 1971 and October 1974 including expanding the case and fitting Penny and Giles faders, changing the square layout of the quad pan pots to four in a vertical row, and adding extra meters in the middle of the desk.
The mixer tours Dark Side Of The Moon through until November 1974 when it is replaced with a new Allen and Heath mixer, neither Allen and Heath mixer seems to have survived.
The Mod 1 custom quadraphonic mixer made for Pink Floyd. Seen in the film Live at Pompeii.
For fans in Spain, if you wish to see this recreated ‘Pompeii’ mixer and PA it is making an appearance at the ISE Exhibition in Barcelona from 30th January to 2nd February 2024. More information at the link here
Watch Chris Hewitt, Geoff Goddard and desk designer/builder Andy Bereza explain how they re-created the 1971 mixing console here:
