{{< GalleryComponent id="1999-showconsole" >}} In 1995 Showco needed to purchase the next generation of front of house mixing consoles to replace the Harrison HM5 units which were over 10 years old. Clay Powers was CEO of Showco and he and Howard Page, Showco's senior audio engineer, looked around at what was available and determined that the technology for an all-digital mixing console was not mature enough to go that direction and going with a new analog only console did not seem to be the right path either because the future was obviously going to be digital when the technology finally matured. Clay and Howard worked on various ideas and finally settled on an idea for a digitally controlled analog console and they contracted GLW (formerly Harrison Systems) in Nashville to design and build the new console. The concept they developed was to have an all digital control surface, with hardware for 40 input modules and 16 VCA submasters that could be doubled to 80 inputs and 32 VCA submasters by selecting page 1 and page 2, connected with a fiber optic cable to an analog processing rack located at the stage that had eighty analog mic inputs. Each mic input had a provision to select one of three mic inputs, A, B and C. The stage microphones plugged directly into the analog processing rack using either short mic snakes or directly into the rack thereby eliminating the long mic snakes which greatly improved the sound from the microphones. The control surface featured a single central master module that had all of the controls of an input module including four band parametric EQ, sixteen effects sends, input pad, pan pot, noise gate, compressor/limiter, bus select, phantom power and phase reverse. The input modules would just have a motorized slider for volume control and when the operator pushed the select button on an input module, it would activate the master module for adjusting the various controls for that module. All of the controls and input faders were either motorized or digitally controlled so that scenes of settings could be stored in memory and then be instantly recallable. The input modules featured LED's that indicated what settings such as noise gates and limiters were activated for that module. Howard Page was the principal project engineer who managed the design and construction of the ShowConsoles by GLW (formerly Harrison Systems) in Nashville. Six ShowConsoles were manufactured for Showco at a cost of $250,000 per unit and the first unit was delivered in 1999. {{< StoryImage id="showco-1-showconsole" title="Howard Page with Showconsole" caption="Howard Page with the Showco Showconsole digital control surface 1999. The master module for adjusting the controls for each input is located above the panel with the track ball and keypads which were used to control a computer built into the console for tasks like storing and recalling scenes." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-2-showconsole" title="Track ball interface" caption="Howard Page using the track ball to interface with the built-in computer in the console. Each input module had LED's and LED meters at the top part of the input module strip that indicated to the operator if certain functions such as noise gates or limiters were activated for that module." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-3-showconsole" title="Howard Page operating Showconsole" caption="Howard Page operating the Showconsole digital control surface 1999. The console had 80 mic preamps and the operator could select one of three inputs for each mic input module. Every control was either motorized or digitally controlled and all settings could be stored and recalled as scenes. The signal path was all analog and the analog electronics were housed in an Analog Processing Rack that was located at the stage and connected to the digital control surface with a fiber optic cable." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-4-showconsole" title="Master module" caption="Howard Page operating the master module on the Showconsole digital control surface 1999." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-5-showconsole" title="Master module" caption="Howard Page operating the master module on the Showconsole digital control surface 1999. The master module was activated for a particular input module when a select button on that module was activated." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-6-showconsole" title="Input modules" caption="There were 40 input modules and 16 VCA submaster modules on Showconsole digital control surface that could be paged to control 80 analog input modules and 32 VCA submasters 1999." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-7-showconsole" title="Patching and tie lines" caption="Howard Page operating the Showconsole digital control surface 1999. The audio processing and effects equipment mounted in the equipment racks to the right and left of the digital control surface were patched into the desired location on the patch bay in the Analog Processing Rack utilizing 48 "tie lines" that went to and from the processing rack from the control surface." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-showco-archival-photos-06" title="Analog Processing Rack" caption="Analog Processing Rack for the Showco ShowConsole, a digitally controlled analog audio mixing board 1999. The Analog Processing Rack was located at the stage and connected with a fiber optic cable to the digital control surface located at the FOH mixing position. The analog circuitry was on printed circuit boards that plugged into the PCB card cages mounted in the rack. Six cooling fans were mounted at the top of the processing rack to provide forced air cooling for the electronics inside the rack." credit="Photo Clair Global Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-showco-archival-photos-12" title="Analog Processing Rack (rear, left bay)" caption="Rear view of ShowConsole Analog Processing Rack, Left Bay, Top Down, Row 1 and 2 are XLR connectors for 32 mono mix outputs for either effects sends or submaster mixes. Row 3 are XLR connectors for four stereo mix outputs, two stereo effects send outputs, stereo solo output, mono talkback output and an oscillator mono output. Rows 4 and 5 are 16 male and 16 female XLR connectors used to provide access for cables with XLR connectors to the ring/tip/sleeve patch bay located in the center bay. Below Row 5 is the connector for the fiber optic cable that connects the digital control surface located at the FOH position to the analog processing rack which is located at the stage. The bottom unit is the power supply for the processing rack that features a 120/208V AC input connector with three pilot lights and three circuit breakers with on/off indicator lights for each phase of the three phase power supplied to the rack." credit="Photo Clair Global Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-showco-archival-photos-17" title="Analog Processing Rack (center bay)" caption="Rear view of the center bay of the Analog Processing Rack that housed a patch bay that utilized the "mini jack" with the tip/ring/sleeve configuration that provided access to any input or output in the analog circuitry of the ShowConsole. Each of the 26 rows had 48 jacks across the row for a total of 1,240 mini jacks in the patch bay. Each input module in the ShowConsole had three mic inputs that were user selectable from the control surface. The processing rack had two 40 channel snakes for mic inputs "A" and two 48 channel snakes for mic inputs "B" and 80 female XLR connectors in the processing rack for mic input "C". Each input module had an insertion point for external effects units and provision for a line input. In addition to the noise gate and limiter built into each mic module, the processing rack also had two 48 channel "Tie Lines" snakes (located below the patch bay) that went to and from the digital control surface at FOH so additional external audio processing and effects equipment located at FOH could be patched into any input or output in the patch bay." credit="Photo Clair Global Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-showco-archival-photos-20" title="Analog Processing Rack (far right bay)" caption="Rear view of the Analog processing Rack far right bay. Rows 1-5 are 80 female XLR connectors for input "C", the third input into the mic modules. The large black multiconductor connectors are for the "B" input to the mic modules and the two smaller multiconductor connectors are for the "A" input to the mic modules which was the primary microphone input." credit="Photo Clair Global Archive" size="medium" >}} ## A Word from Howard Page, the Primary Project Engineer from Showco for the ShowConsole 2025- "Please realize that at the time when I conceived that console, I tried to design it into the future hence the vast amount of flexibility built into it and the careful adherence to existing analog console layout/concepts. This was due to the fact that I was very conscious of making the learning curve going from an analog conventional console to this new console as seamless as possible. I have to say this was achieved with great results, as everyone who got to use it absolutely loved it especially the flexibility and feature set which included full 4 band parametric EQ, a full gate and limiter on every channel and the use of multiple LED indicators showing the real status of every channel. The sad side of this is that Harrison took on the project without any real experience of the reliability build design needed for a touring console which gets beaten up by the constant setup and pack down of touring shows. As we now know many manufacturers can now build fully digital consoles which in 2025 after years of experience are very reliable and designed carefully for the rigors of the touring world but the ShowConsole was way ahead of it's time and we just didn't realize how brutal the road was going to be for the complexity of the console. We had some great years of stunning shows (Sade, Billy Joel etc) on the ShowConsole and it consumed 2 years of my life but an incredible experience!! " Howard Page 2025