MCI Reel to Reel Tape Recorders

1959 – Grover ‘Jeep’ Harned starts custom building mixing consoles and preamplifiers for Criteria Recording Studios and later starts a retail store, Music Center Inc.

1965 – Music Center Incorporated is founded

1968 – JH-5 tape recorder is introduced

1970 – JH-10 MCI’s first tape transport with 16 tracks is produced

1971 – JH-16  MCI’s first mass-produced series of tape recorder (1971-1979) –  MCI’s First 1/4″ transport introduced

1972 – Introduces JH-400 the world’s first commercial in-line mixing console (1972-1977) –  MCI tape AutoLocator (JH-45) similar to a remote control and could store a number of presets recalling particular positions on the recording track, a time saver in the overdubbing process. People with average technical skill could configure two JH-24 multi-track recorders for synchronized recording. This single product confounded the competitors who could not duplicate it at a reasonable price and gave MCI inroads to many recording studios.

1975 – JH-100  All DC transport with a DC capstan motor and DC motors for spooling. The DC transports maintain constant tension from the front of the reel to the back, eliminating the pitch and timing errors common to AC designs.

1976 – MCI becomes the first manufacturer to design a sound mixer with voltage controlled amplifiers (VCA) for mixing multiple channels (JH-500) costing a fraction of the price of flying Faders. The 500 Series had a more elaborate equalizer with two mid-band EQ sections, high and low pass filters, more sends, additional returns and plasma displays for VU indicators

1980 – JH-24 the successor to JH-16 Series using the same JH-114 transport and completely redesigned transformless  electronics, with differential amplification for the line inputs & outputs and head coupling to improve the specifications (1980-1988)