Hey gang, thanks for stopping by The Record Shop Nashville Recording Studio for another installment of our world (in)famous, heart-exploding series BEHIND THE GEAR!!!  Today we would like to give some time and recognition to one of the most crucial pieces of equipment in a studio that often gets unnoticed; the studio cue system.  Here in the our Nashville Recording Studio we utilize the Furman HR-6.  Having a good cue system is vitally important for artists and musicians because without them there would be no music for them to play along to when they track.  More importantly, these boxes allow the musician to hear only what they want to hear when they track without having to waste time yelling at the engineer which instruments they want more or less of.  So let’s take a dive into the Furman HR-6!

Furman Sound

Furman Sound has been aiding musicians and engineers alike by producing premium Audio/Visual signal processors since 1974.  That’s not all the company deals with though.  They also manufacture “energy management solutions” that use their incredible BlueBOLT® platform, which you can learn more about on their website HERE!  Furman also produces “AC conditioning and distribution” products (a fancy way to say surge protectors y’all), which is what they are actually best known for making!  Follow this link HERE to learn about why it is important to utilize AC conditioning in your power system.  Furman is now apart of Core Brands LLC, a subsidiary of Nortek’s Technology Solutions Group, which combines the product and marketing power of ten separate audio and power brands.  These kings of power supplies are also well-aware of the responsibility they have for power conservation and the environment .  A few of their “Internal Initiatives” from their website are as follows:

• RoHS compliance. Our entire 220V-240V Export product line is 100% RoHS compliant, greatly reducing the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) in our components. Further, we have been one of the leading voices in pushing overseas manufacturers to develop RoHS-compliant manufacturing and assembly facilities. Because of this, development of RoHS-compliant 120V domestic products is no longer cost-prohibitive, and we are specifying RoHS-compliant components into all new products beginning in 2009.
• Packaging, product literature: All Panamax/Furman products are packaged using 100% recyclable materials (including recyclable foam inserts and plastic bags). Marketing materials are printed with FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) and RFA (Rain Forest Allliance) Certified Vendors on recycled paper with biodegradable inks.
• Scrap materials at our QA and repair facility are recycled. All employees within the office are provided recycling bins and large recycling bins are placed throughout our facility.
• Motion sensor lighting is used throughout our facillity and lighting/HVAC usage is cut back during peak power demands.
• An aggressive paper reduction initiative has resulted in the development of a paperless fax system and a company wide intranet to facilitate paperless communications.
• Sales trainings and offsite meetings utilize teleconferencing technologies to reduce travel and further reduce paper consumption.

HDS-6 & HR-6 Cue System

The Cue System in our Nashville recording studio, like many other professional studios, utilizes the Furman HDS-6 Headphone Distribution System & the HR-6 remote mixing stations.  The HDS-6 is a rackmount system that is very easy to connect to your studio console or patch bay.  Our HDS-6 is plugged into our system’s patch bay, as is recommended by Furman.  These systems is designed to be a low-distortion line driver and power supply that provides signal, power, and ground to HR-6 remotes.  You can connect up to eight HR-6s to the HDS-6, and you easily daisy chain multiple HR-6s!  The HDS has several, simple features like Level Set control, Overload indicators for setting the best signal-to-noise ratio & headroom, MON/EFF pot controls the gain for the L/R stereo inputs, Ground Lift switch to switch the audio ground off the chassis ground to prevent that awful hum, and they even built in a LED light that warns you if you linked your HR-6 cables (one blue and one gray) into the wrong ports!  The HR-6 mixing station features include volume pots for each of the four mono channels arriving from the HDS-6, the MON/EFF pot controls the level of the stereo main mix, a Submixes Included/Excluded button that allows the listener to hear only the main stereo mix by muting the four mono channels, and of course it has two 1/4″ stereo headphone jacks.  For more information on Furman Sounds follow this link HERE, and for a PDF file of the HDS-6/HR-6 follow this link HERE!

Thanks for coming back for The Record Shop Nashville’s Behind The Gear!  We hope we’ve been helpful in one shape or another.  For a complete list of our Nashville Recording Studio’s gear click HERE.  And don’t be a stranger; follow and chat with us on Twitter @therecordshop!  See y’all next time!