Hello.

Does anybody have any experience with Harrison Mr4? I've been offered one, a 48 ch in decent condition with lots of spareparts. I don't know this beast, so if anyone has any info it would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks for being slutty

I love it.

Been through a few. Forget the automation. Get big power supplies. Central Studio in Maryland has 2 56 input consoles they bolted together to create a massive 112 input MR-4 with all Uptown moving faders.

The EQ is a bit limited, + - 10 db range. Get to know a tech, you'll need one.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

mine needs constant help

Does anyone can help with this?

Missing Sheet 2 of 6 from the Mono input board. This is the one that i need for shure!

If anyone wants to trade pages or can sell me the ones i need, let me know!

Thanks.

Mario
Interface studios

I believe that Jam and Lewis recorded alot of their biggest hits on an MR4.
Ive always liked Harrison desks..Ive worked on 4032s many times.

Email Harrison. I got pdf manuals for S12 in advance, so maybe they've got this too.

RUN...............................Far AWAY

Anyone know where I can get the schematics for the MR4?

Contact Harrison, but it will cost you

[QUOTE=The EQ is a bit limited, + - 10 db range. Get to know a tech, you'll need one.[/QUOTE]

Yes the EQ's may be a bit limited depending on what you're after (3 band with a selection of shelving and peaking modes etc. with a HP filter) but they do have +-15 boost/cut.

Gary
Harrison Consoles

That is correct. They had four Harrison consoles in that facility up in Minneapolis. 2 x S10B consoles, 1 x MR4 and 1 x Raven. Jimmy had the MR-4 in his control room and used it to record countless projects including "Rhythm Nation", which BTW is the only album in history to have 7 singles reach the top 5. Four of them went to #1. They usually recorded using the MR-4 and Raven and mixed using the S10B's it was quite a place back in the day.

Gary
Harrison Consoles

Gary, I believe Sade's material was recorded on Harrisons as well. If so, you know which model?

Harrison. 600 bucks! Reason they are so high, the schematics are very huge and they have to take each page and down size it when they copy it.
Huge stack of paperwork.

I have had my MR3 for a year now, love it, little to no issues and it had sit up, I have 2 MR3s and 2 PSU I bought the 2nd one for spare parts but I have bought/stored up on many parts out there in the past year.

They are many threads here on Harrison, I have read that Harrison went down hill after the MR3. I guess that is just a quote, I don't have hands on with all models.

Good luck and welcome to the Harrison world.
My MR3 and TV3 came from PTL Jim Bakker in Tenn back in the 80s.

Yes, she did "Diamond Life" and "Promise" at the Power Plant in London in the mid 80's with the Harrison MR3.

Gary
Harrison Consoles

Hey Gary,

Just the guy i would love to talk to. Besides a manual...is there any more info on the mr4 that can be supplied? I can barely find a picture of the back of the unit, let alone a good enough photograph of the eq/master section. Thanks

Dustin

Steve Remote had an MR4 in his truck for years, maybe he'll chime in.

I bought my MR-4 new in 1981. Since then I've bought another Mr-4, from UCLA, and a Raven.
Just totally rebuilt the orginal Mr-4 as per Jim Williams mods. Sounds amazing.
What do you need to know?

Well I was able to get a hold of Steve who was super nice and gave me some great advice.

I tried contacting Jim but haven't heard back yet...im curious what types of mods were done on the board? Replacing the ic's? Changing vcas? What kinds of improvements in sound quality did you notice?

Mods done were filling in all the thru holes, rebuilt all daughter cards, removed some caps in signal path, replaced all caps, some with Wimas, wima bypass caps on caps, replaced all ICs, Replaced daughter board pins, replaced transistors in mic pres, multicaps in E.Q.s,
Replaced 5534s on stereo busses with Jim Williams Hi-speed opamp boards, cleaned all boards. Vca's are the same ones TA101s. No longer dark and small.
The console sounds very big, clear, open, and punchy. Hi-end EQ is not sizzly and the bottom is not muddy. EQ can be cranked full and sound clear and transparent.
The console has a totally new sound. A lot of time and money but well worth it.

Thanks for your information! Really a lifesaver. I am very interested in the eq mods and the stereo buss. This is for a mixdown board, so I can hold off on the mic pres for now. Ill pm ya to discuss.

do the stere buss first, it will make the biggest difference in the sound of the console.

Not doing the Master and Ctrl room section first will mean that you cannot hear the improvements in the channels because they get eaten up by the limitations of the unmodded master.

The first thing I had Jim Williams do was mod the 3 master Modules.
With the mods he also installed his Hi-speed opamp cards on the 2 stereo busses.
I was then able to hear the improvements the mods made to an input channel compaired to the stock ones. I then modded all the input channels as outlined in the above post.

Hey Lou,
Steve Remote's console was the one he purchased from my Studio.

He can confirm the problems with that console...

So it's your fault... Just kidding I thought that whatever issues Steve had from it being in the truck. I worked on it a few times and when I did it was fine. I used to work at Interface there we had a Harrison 3624, which had maintenance issue mainly because they did dumb things like leave the console on year round with the air conditioner off. Since Steve was the daily user of his MR4 I recommended speaking to him. I do remember that before he got the Status, he bought a Raven and was looking into expanding the MR4.

Does anyone remember what kind of vca's came stock with the mr4 (dbx, valleypeople)?
What kind of mic pres were in the yellow/white ch strips?

MR-4 (yellow, white)
VCA's = Valley People TA 101s
Mic Pres = Transformerless, 2 Transistors, dual in-line 5534's

Amazing sounding record...DIAMOND LIFE.