Studio Icons - Fairchild 660/670 - Features

Decades after making its debut, the sound of the Fairchild 660 continues to set a standard to which others aspire. John Pickford finds out why.

Few pieces of studio hardware are able to rouse the passions of recording engineers in the way that the Fairchild 660 limiter – and the stereo version, the 670 – does. Launched in 1959, the 660 was the brainchild – excuse the pun – of Rein Narma, an Estonian national who fled Soviet Russia to work for the US army as a recording/ broadcast technician during the Nuremberg trials. Relocating to New York in the 1950s, Narma joined Gotham Recording and co-founded Gotham Audio Developments, designing and building recording equipment. After modifying multitrack recording inventer Les Paul’s original 8-track machine, Paul asked Narma to design and build a limiter. When Sherman Fairchild – a friend of Les Paul and the man behind Fairchild Instruments – heard the unit he was so impressed that he licensed the design and hired Narma as Chief Engineer. The Fairchild 660 was born…

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This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 95
Filed under Home, General Features, Features

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Studio Icons - Fairchild 660/670

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