You can learn more about Gately at these two earlier articles:

Gately Gear Overview

The system that I acquired and restored

Anyhow, reader M.Nathan has been so kind to scan some schematics of some of their later Series 8 kit.  Nathan: “Here are three pics of the imp8 series 8 input module schematics.  This section has the mic pre which, in isolation, is a pretty simple little thing.”

Gately Electronics was a Pennsylvania-based pro-audio manufacturing and importation/ distribution operation which seems to have operated between 1968 and 1975.  I often noticed adverts for their EM7 mixer in the old AES journals; the EM7 had a sort-of Pultec or maybe LANG vibe, and I was curious enough that when I found one AS-IS for $100 on eBay I went for it.  You can read my account of restoring my EM7 and its attendent EQ7 outboard equalizer accessory at this link.  The short version: it is a very well-built machine, and I was therefore surprised that Gately seems to be completely forgotten in the pro audio world.  Anyhow, I noticed that a pair of AS-IS Gately 1800 compressor cards went for an absurd amount of money on eBay last month, so I figured that maybe the world does need to know.  I therefore present: every piece of period documentation that I could find on Gately Electronics, its products, and operations.  Enjoy, and let us know if you are using any of this kit nowadays.

Above, from top to bottom: Gately ProKit 6-channel mixer (available as kit or assembled!), Gately’s Moms Wholesome Audio live PA board, Gately ProKit 2 mixer, and Gately EQ-6 and EK-6 equalizer and reverb accessories for the Pro-Kit (confused yet?).  Below that, John Yoder of Hope Recordings recommends the Gately C1616 studio console.  Next is an advert announcing Gately’s distribution of Ortofon lathes and Schoeps mics (yes please). Finally we see the Gately Micromixer, which appears to perhaps be the same as Moms Wholesome Audio Mixer?

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Above: the Gately EM7 and EQ7, as described in my earlier article, followed by the subsequent updated versions EM7s and PEQ7.  The PEQ7 seems to have exchanged th fixed hi-shelf control of the EQ7 for a five-frequency high bell curve EQ.  Low frequency control is presumably still a shelf-type.   I can’t find any other info on the ES-7 echo unit.

In 1974 a writer from DB (I imagine Woram or Zide; no credit is indicated) traveled to Gately’s Philadelphia-area facility.

You can download the account of their trip at this link: Gately_DB_Feb74

If there are any Gately alums out there, drop us a line; and if anyone out there is using any of this Gately kit, please let us know your thoughts.  I have yet to use my EM7 and EQ7 on a production, but at some point I hope to be able to do a shoot-out versus some better-known contemporary units such as API and Neve.

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From PS dot com reader J. Roberts:

“I have a Gately Prokit II that I bought from Bob Todrank back around 1976. Bob had one of the first audio businesses in Berry Hill.

The mixer still works, no repairs ever, factory wired, I think it may be something like serial # 101w, but I will have to look and see. I kept a search on ebay for Gately and finally something surfaced… an original manual for my mixer.

I like that mixer because it is simple, no eq or anything to mess up, just set levels and pan. Interesting that the headphone out has no volume control, but I bought an old pair of Koss with faders just to use with that mixer. It looks to have very high quality components.  I do not know about ICs, wondering if the ones in there are ok or should be upgraded.  Does not have the output transformer option either.  In a day or two I plan to feed a Coopersound micpre into the line ins and see what I get.  I guess I should lay down some tracks and make another classical guitar LP, as I did back around 1978. Mastered at NRP by Larry Boden. Very fun times.”

In a previous post, I included the scan at left from a 1969 issue of the AES journal.  It’s an ad for the Gately Electronics EM-7 4×2 mixer and EM-7 4-channel equalizer.  At the time I had hoped to find one of these little setups, and sure enough,  one of the EM-7 mixers came along on eBay.  I checked the sellers ‘completed listings’ and saw that he had sold the companion EQ-7 equalizer unit earlier.  I contacted that buyer through eBay, indicating that I was interested in the EQ-7 should he decide to part with it.  Sure enough, he did.  So I was able to get an EQ7 as well.

All in all it turned out to be a great deal.  It was a bit of a pain in the ass to get these things working, but at the end of the day I ended up with 4 fully discrete mic preamps with discrete EQs, all running on 48v, and all with UTC input and output transformers.

This post will get a bit technical, so follow the link below to read on…  CLICK TO CONTINUE….

Here’s a picture of the inside of the EM-7 mixer.  The build quality is really fantastic and designed for easy service. There are 10 model 2019 amplifier cards and 2 output amplifier cards.  All snap in with edge connectors.   You will notice the UTC ouncer-series input transformers disguised inside red-painted magnetic shields.  Also the UTC A-36 one-watt output transformers. Sealed pots, huge filter caps. etc.   Really a nice unit.

I bought the EM-7 from an eBay seller who I have dealt with before.  He stated that the unit ‘probably worked.’ When I got the EM-7,  it powered up but it did not pass audio.   I suspected that the 11-pin Amphenol socket on the back marked ‘accessory’ might have something to do with this.  this seemed a likely place for the EQ unit to attach.  After a little poking around, i determined that this was indeed a single receptacle for sending/receiving the 4 channels to the EQ unit as well as supplying power to the EQ unit.  I imagine that the EM-7 was originally shipped with an 11-pin ‘dummy plug’ which normals out these send/receive lines.  I did not have an 11-pin Amphenol base on-hand, so in order to test the mixer, i make little ‘U’ jumper clips from the base of a 6SN7 tube in order to bridge the 4 send/returns.    pins 1/2 are send/receive channel one, 3/4 are send/receive channel 2, 5/6 for ch 3, 7/8 for ch 4.  Pin 9 is the B+ (-47v dc), 10 is blank, and 11 is ground.

Next step: build and mount a proper jack panel in order top facilitate quick channel input/output switching (the EM-7 has only barrier strips on the rear).  I only mounted the 6 connectors that I will use, since I only intend to use this thing as 4×2 mic preamps.

Once I inserted the jumpers, I had proper sound on 3 of the channels and one of the outputs. Then it was a matter of moving the 2019 cards around until I could determine which cards were bad.  This was a bit confusing because although all 10 cards are labeled the same, they are actually quite different in terms of  gain structure.  This is determined by certain caps and resistors on the board.  Any of the 10 cards will pass signal in any position, but the gain can be excessive.  Anyhow. I determined that one of the mic preamp cards was bad and one of the 2 summing amp cards was bad.

In both cases, the culprit was the same: a 2uf 50v electrolytic cap.  Swapped those out, and all was well.

A couple of days later, my EQ-7 until arrived.  Here’s a peek at the inside.  Again, modular construction which allowed easy troubleshooting.  This EQ-7 only had one problem: a filter cap on the 4th board had come loose, which was causing that channel to motorboat at high low-eq boost settings.  A few of the 2uf caps in this unit were also below spec.  I replaced one to see if it made any improvement in the sound, but i could hear no difference.  I imagine that this thing is probably way overbuilt in terms of component values.

Here’s a view of the 11-pin Amphenol harness that I had to build to connect the units.  I found the 11-pin Amphenol connectors at Triode Electronics.  the harness is symmetrical and it follows the pinout that I indicated above.   I labored to make the harness as short as possible, since it carries unbalanced audio of (presumably) medium impedance.

I used belden 24ga shielded audio cable for each send/receive pair.  All 4 grounds are brought out on that green wire that is hanging out.  This seems to have been unnecessary, as I can hear no difference when I ground that wire to the unit chassis.  for the -47 and system ground pins i used 22ga silver braided wire.

OK that’s it for now…  the Gately system works and sounds great….  expect some audio samples here soon.