I want to tell you about one of the best parties I ever attended in Los Angeles.

Sometime, pre-pandemic, I had moved in for a couple of months, with a guy named Nolan Neal, and we became close friends. Nolan was famous for being a contestant on America's Got Talent and The Voice, where he performed an Elton John song that people loved. We remained in touch after I moved out, and one day he invited me to a party at his house. After a couple of hours, Nolan got up on a chair and announced to the whole room that he was moving to Nashville, and leaving Los Angeles. Among the boos of the crowd, someone asked him when he was leaving. “Tonight”, he said, “and you're all going to help me move.” Outside of his home, there were a couple of portable storage pods, and he asked that everyone grab something on their way out. Nothing was even packed, so as people left the party, they did as he asked, tossing everything into the modular storage units. As this was occurring around me, Nolan ran up, tapped me on the shoulder, and said “Rick, this is Michael. Michael, this is Rick. You guys should know each other.” Holding out my hand, I said “Rick Carson, nice to meet you”, to which he replied, in turn, “Michael Szymczyk, nice to meet you.” I looked at him and said “Szymczyk... that's interesting. Are you related to a guy named Bill?” “Yeah, my dad's name is Bill.” “No shit... did your dad make Hotel California?” His eyes got really big, and he looked at me, excitedly telling me that in his years in Los Angeles, no one had ever made that connection. Yes, his father did indeed make Hotel California.

We spent the night talking about Bill, and the work he had done. Being an engineer from Michigan, like myself, his father had always been a huge inspiration. We talked, at length, about Bill's moves to New York his work with B.B. King, Los Angeles, to the Rocky Mountain Way of Colorado to work with Joe Walsh, and, ultimately, his time in Miami working with The Eagles. It was one hell of a party; Michael and I exchanged numbers, and remained friends after that meeting.

Sadly, Nolan passed away in 2022, prompting a phone call with Michael to catch up and see how the other was doing, as it had been a while since we spoke. As we were ending the call, I casually mentioned that we were now making software, and that if there was anything his dad encountered in his career that he'd like to use again, “in the box”, to let me know. About a half hour later, Michael texted me a photo of a console, telling me that it was the console that Bill had used to make Hotel California for roughly the better part of a year during the lockout session he had at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami. Surprisingly, after that stint at Criteria, Bill never saw the console again.

My journey had begun, leading me to the wonderful Lij Shaw in Nashville, who owned the console. I've made so many wonderful friends on my journey to bring this console to life, from  Michael, Bill, Lij and Mark and I am incredibly excited for people to hear it. The console was the third custom console originally built for Criteria, and was quite unique in its design.

While this one of a kind console might seem very primitive now, at the time it was incredibly progressive, with hot-swappable inductor based EQ modules, a dynamics section on every tape return, and touch-sensitive routing to the multi-track outputs (Bill would use these extensively in his pioneering of multi-track comping). We can now see that many of the features on this console would evolve into the MCI JH-416, and would inspire many more designs over the decades. Completely discrete, with Pantion resistor ladder faders (rather than Penny & Giles faders, or the API faders used on early 416s), this new MCI would start its life as a 16 track console in a 16 track room. While there were 20 input modules (the same input modules that exist on the desk today), the return side had only 16 modules. To accommodate Bill for his lockout of the room at Criteria, however, he required a 24 track facility, and the desk was subsequently modified to meet his requirements. Photos can even be seen of the desk before and after this modification.

The console lived its life in Studio C for over a decade, where it was utilized on many hit records of the time: records by the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, Grand Funk Railroad, and Elvin Bishop (Fooled Around And Fell In Love is another wonderful Bill Szymczyk Production). Producers and engineers loved the studio and it seems this desk played a big part in that!! I can understand the appeal, The console is incredibly musical and forces you to make decisions you may not come to without the pushing the technical limits of the time. It is no surprise to me that this console left a lasting impression on Bill and all the wonderful music created with it!!

Thank you so much Bill for all of the help bringing this one of kind piece of history into the box for everyone to enjoy!!!

Rick Carson