DOWNLOAD: LexiconProcessors1980s
Full details, photos, and specs on: Lexicon Model 97 Super Prime Time programmable digital delay; Prime Time II; PCM-42 delay unit; PCM-70 effects processor; 224-X Digital Reverb; plus a period price list and sales letter.
Unfortunately I could not find any paper work on the most expensive item on the pricelist – the Lexicon 1200CMS stereo Digital Time Compressor/Expander.
This was a truly significant, cultish device. You can occasionally find them on eBay for around $200. Cost new in 1985? $15,995 for a stereo unit. In today’s money, that’s thirty-two thousand ($32,000) d0llars for a device that could (at 32k) pitch-shift a stereo program a semitone or so.
Who in their right mind would pay this money for this kind of functionality? Broadcasters, primarily. If you spend any time working in television post-production, you will still hear older producers and creative directors say “Lexicon it” to the sound engineer. Now, when they say this, they are not telling the mixer to put a shit load of echo or reverb on the audio. In the post-production audio world, “Lexicon-it” was an imperative to time-shift material. As-in, “Hey, johnny read that tag line a little slow. Can you Lexicon it, Joe?” The vogue for these devices in Broadcast really took off when put-upon ad-agency types realized that you now could make a 32-second commercial, and then speed the spot up to play back in 30 seconds time whilst ‘Lexicon-ing’ the audio program back to regular pitch. At the end of the day, the TV viewer can’t tell that anything is off, but you, Mr Crafty Agency dude, have managed to cram thirty-two seconds of your boss’s and clients’ revisions into a a thirty second commercial. You are now a genius. This is the stuff on which vacation homes are made.
Of course, music-recording engineers also used these things daily to fix pitch-y vocals and what not, but that’s a story for a different day…
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I remember back in the early '90s, CBS 60 Minutes decided they were going to do an "exposure piece" on the 2400, the replacement for the 1200CS. They were interviewing Ron Noonan, the President of Lex at the time and were attempting to position the product as an "evil type of device" that altered the directors intent by making movies go faster so that broadcasters could fill in an extra commercial or two. In typical fashion the interviewer was attempting to get Ron to squirm in his chair while being berated in the polite style of 60 Minutes. Ron was un-seatable however. He was ready with the sales figures that showed CBS was in fact one of Lexicon's best customers with purchases of almost a dozen units in less than a year. That part never made it to air...
Wow; that story about Ron is great!