Tangent

Tangent Musical Engineering, based at 2810 South 24th Street in Phoenix, Arizona, built professional recording consoles through the late 1970s and 1980s. They were a serious American competitor to the British and UK/US establishment, positioning themselves with the tagline "Why settle for a copy when Tangent gives you the original?" and backing it up with engineering choices — transformerless balancing, FET electronic switching, VCA grouping, Penny & Giles faders, and Allison 65K programmer automation — that matched or exceeded the features of desks costing twice as much.

The Model 3216 was their signature console — a 32-input, 16-submaster, 24-track-ready desk with semi-parametric three-band EQ, up to nine VCA groups, direct out per channel, multiple echo and cue sends, and transformerless balancing that kept the original sound "pure with incredible transient response" (the company's own copy from their 1978 print campaign). Tangent quietly found its way into US commercial studios across the Southwest and into broadcast and production facilities nationally.

Tangent is sometimes confused with the later British Tangent Systems (Devon) — but the Phoenix-based Tangent Musical Engineering was a distinct American operation with a distinct engineering pedigree.