"Rock & Roll slowly died, one by one, as all the good 3M M79 techs retired" Pastor Curfew

Welcome to the only site dedicated to the greatest sounding 2" recorder on the planet. 

HISTORY

   DOOM AND GLOOM: In March of 2000 I official resigned from the music business at the age of 34 but 1993 was the last time I tried to record on the M79. I was hired to record Stabbing Westward for their label shopping demo. I hired a tech  to fix the "I've never seen it work" Selectake counter. The tech come out and blew the supply then blew out of the studio leaving me to learn power supplies. I had one year of college electronics. The machine never really recovered.  I bought a digital recording system and happily ran that for the next seven years.

   KICK-EM WHEN THEIR DOWN: In 1997 after purchasing a second power supply from Sunset Sound in LA, I got an offer from a producer who was recording the infamous underground band WARZONE and wanted to use some of his label budget and buy a Sound and Vision counter for the 3M in exchange for usage. I bought the counter from the S & V company but it never showed up until after the project was finished. The singer Ray-bee died of pneumonia during the session and never heard the final mix ( I heard about it on MTV). During that time the machine was moved up to Butch Vig's Smart Studios in Madison Wisconsin and the power supply was miswired and blown (no blame just the facts).

SUPER OUCH!: Bart Gass gets real sick and then abducted by aliens (conjecture) or at least disappears permanently.

    The 3M 79 was a key factor to my strong start in the  recording industry but the new millenium ushered in the complete erosion of the mid-level pro studio market and my life was changing and I had other ideas about the future.  When I closed the studio in 2000 I stored it at a friends studio who used it to light his room and look cool. Sometime he would roll a little tape to get that analog smell (456 smells better than 499: don't argue, it's a fact!) So the machine sat virtually unused for nearly 15 years.

    In 2006 I bought another 3M M79 parts machine on Ebay for around $227.00 and $250.00 in shipping (without the furniture case). In January of 2007 I got my original machine back from my friend. 

TODAY 2007

     I have been a Low voltage technician for over seven years now but it all started with a blown 3M power supply. After 15 years of waiting for the right moment and one weekend of taking it apart, cleaning, inspecting and reassembling the 3M M79;  I plugged in my machine. It was very noisy but it worked but soon after I shorted out the power supply during routine troubleshooting and  "blowed it all up real bad"! One week later had it "all" fixed and learned the remote circuitry inside and out. I have continued to study the machine like I'm doing my Masters Thesis on 3M.  This site will document the restoration of this old 16 track 2" recorder that has been out of commission for years.

CONTACT:  3M79@comcast.net