OR-0034
Salo Oy
Salo, Finland · 1991 – c. 2004
Ser. AM-9330-0074
1993 · effect
Issued as VST3 · AU
Restored 2025 from 1993 hardware.
Salo 2170 — Answering Machine
Salo 2170 · message playback unit · restored from unit no. AM-9330-0074 · Salo Oy, Salo, Finland, 1993
The restorer's note
"You have one new message." The grain of a microcassette greeting and the companded crunch of a saved voice — a whole vanished ritual in one box. The wow and the hiss belong to the transport; we captured them rather than clean them out.
Acquisition
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The plate
The controls
The controls.
- Medium Microcassette as issued
- Chooses the playback medium and its degradation: Microcassette tape, or a Digital chip.
- Wear 0–100 % · 40 % as issued
- Sets the medium's degradation: dropouts on Microcassette, crush depth on Digital.
- Wow 0–100 % · 30 % as issued
- Sets the tape transport's pitch instability — wow and flutter. Microcassette only.
- Compand 0–100 % · 50 % as issued
- Sets the depth of the companding crunch applied to the saved voice.
- Band 2.4–4.0 kHz · 3.2 kHz as issued
- Sets the voice bandwidth — the low-pass corner of the saved message.
- Noise 0–100 % · 25 % as issued
- Sets the hiss and hum floor beneath the saved message.
- Beep Off as issued
- Chooses the machine's cosmetic tone: Off, Greeting, or Record.
- Input -24.00–24.00 dB · 0.00 dB as issued
- Sets the level going in, in decibels, before the signal reaches the restored circuit.
- Output -24.00–24.00 dB · 0.00 dB as issued
- Sets the level coming out, in decibels, after the restored circuit and the Mix blend.
- Mix 0–100 % · 100 % as issued
- Blends the restored circuit against the untouched signal at equal power, from the untouched signal alone at 0 % to the circuit alone at 100 %.
- Bypass Off as issued
- Takes the restored circuit out of the path and passes the untouched signal, delayed to match the circuit so nothing shifts in time.
A stored setup is a memory. MENU opens the list: the display reads MEMORY 03/12, with the memory's name below. ◂ ▸ step through it without changing the sound, and OK loads the one shown. Holding OK asks STORE? OK; OK again opens the name, which starts as USER NN. ◂ ▸ change the letter, OK moves on, and holding OK stores it; the computer keyboard may type the name instead, Return storing and Escape cancelling. Holding MENU on a user memory asks CLEAR? OK.
Listening
Listening
Demonstration recordings, prepared at the bench.
The message, saved
The note reads dry for six seconds; then the machine answers — Microcassette at bench settings, the Band at 3.2 kHz, a little Wow, the familiar hiss floor — a message kept.
0:00 / 0:30
The tape, dying
Wow at 60 % keeps the pitch unsteady from the first word, Noise raised to 50 %; Wear then climbs from nought to full, and the dropouts take the message a piece at a time.
0:00 / 0:30
Solid state
Medium switched to Digital: the Greeting beep opens the take, Wear at 70 % sets the crush depth and Band at 2.4 kHz narrows the voice, Compand at 80 % crunching what remains; the Record tone closes it.
0:00 / 0:30