matta
Well-known member
I’m sure many of you have seen these bits and bobs over the course of the past 2 years but I decide to put them all in one place as it makes it easier to control and I’ll have Dr Pat add it to the ‘DIY Gallery’ META.
I’ve done a couple others but these are just some personal highlights.
Here is my first ever-DIY project, I nicknamed it the ‘Ghetto Box’ and it contained 2 of Peter C’s Green Pres and a Mono Calrec Eq. I threw it together with little thought to metal work which included badly and oversized holes drilled all over the place and I had to use washers to cover up some of the oversized holes.
Prior to tackling this I'd not so much as soldered a cable, let alone BUILT something electrical!
I then stepped up a notch and tried my hand at the GSSL and bought an old medical rack at a surplus place, sans lid and used the lazertran method of labelling and made a more ‘upmarket’ front panel design.
I got to the point where I decided that since I was spending all this money on building these projects that to spent a little more and design a custom panel wouldn’t kill me, it also made/makes looking at the items easier on the eye and absolved me from the metal working which I loathed (and still do!).
I then decided to try my hands at building one of Jakob’s G1176’s on MNATS PCB’s and was bold enough to try this out using an electric blue anodised aluminium, for fun I gave it the moniker ‘711 FET Compressor’.
Then came the rack job… I picked up a pair of the Spectra Sonics 101 mic pre cards from a fellow Forum member and decided to rack them up. Being the cheap person I am I decided that I’d try get another 2 pres in the same rack and embarked on building a pair of Fabio’s FETboys based on Tape Op design Scott Hampton offered up. So based on the names I birthed it the ‘Spectratone’
This pic is fairly old and as I later found, trying to stuff 4 pres into a rack with a large power trafo, esp. high gain ones can result in a couple sonic abnormalities, such as the ever present HUM. The transformer is not in it’s own box far away from the pres and all is happy is PREland.
Over time my addiction got worse and I had to start selling off some pieces to start paying for others and the Ghetto Rack was the first to go to fund the racks, parts and cases for the above projects.
I really missed my Green Pres and decided to build a few more, 4 to be exact, based on Peter C’s original V1 boards,, sans lowcut and metering circuits. 2 channels used WIMA poly caps and NE5532’s and the other 2 were EPCOS and OPA2604, for a slight sonic variations… sadly this rack was recently sold to make way for OTHER parts for the following bits and bobs.
Somewhere in all of this Joe Malone and I discussed me building a couple of his Animal Pres for a couple local studios and so I had a few racks made to house them and the results were the following.
I’d dreamt of owning a pair of Neve’s and over the course of 6 months I finally did. I pieced together a pair using Fabio BA283AV board, Greg Hotrod mod PCB (designed by JLM) and reused an old ART Compressor rack, making it a VERY tight squeezed.
Again the pics are fairly old and revisions have taken place. The Power switch is now on the REAR of the case (the front is still there for decoration), the torrid is outside of the box and the green lamp has been replaced with a blue LED.
After seeing RogerFoote’s LED board I had an idea to do a REV of my GSSL using an LED meter ALA DBX/Distressor and also ‘modded’ the original Gyraf design and added a dedicated PSU and the Ashton Buss Comp was board.
I took a few months sabbatical from DIY as I waited for fund to regenerate and along the way started to collect parts for my my long awaited Series 2 Levelling Amplifier based on the LA-2A build using the Drip Electronics V1 PCB .
I went with a fiery red to match the equally eccentric electric blue 711 compressor.
I’m currently working on a pair of Fabio’s R312 API styled pres which I hope to complete over the next month or 2 and then will be on another DIY hiatus until the funds are replenished and then it will most prob be time to tackle a G9.
Cheers
Matt
I’ve done a couple others but these are just some personal highlights.
Here is my first ever-DIY project, I nicknamed it the ‘Ghetto Box’ and it contained 2 of Peter C’s Green Pres and a Mono Calrec Eq. I threw it together with little thought to metal work which included badly and oversized holes drilled all over the place and I had to use washers to cover up some of the oversized holes.
Prior to tackling this I'd not so much as soldered a cable, let alone BUILT something electrical!
I then stepped up a notch and tried my hand at the GSSL and bought an old medical rack at a surplus place, sans lid and used the lazertran method of labelling and made a more ‘upmarket’ front panel design.
I got to the point where I decided that since I was spending all this money on building these projects that to spent a little more and design a custom panel wouldn’t kill me, it also made/makes looking at the items easier on the eye and absolved me from the metal working which I loathed (and still do!).
I then decided to try my hands at building one of Jakob’s G1176’s on MNATS PCB’s and was bold enough to try this out using an electric blue anodised aluminium, for fun I gave it the moniker ‘711 FET Compressor’.
Then came the rack job… I picked up a pair of the Spectra Sonics 101 mic pre cards from a fellow Forum member and decided to rack them up. Being the cheap person I am I decided that I’d try get another 2 pres in the same rack and embarked on building a pair of Fabio’s FETboys based on Tape Op design Scott Hampton offered up. So based on the names I birthed it the ‘Spectratone’
This pic is fairly old and as I later found, trying to stuff 4 pres into a rack with a large power trafo, esp. high gain ones can result in a couple sonic abnormalities, such as the ever present HUM. The transformer is not in it’s own box far away from the pres and all is happy is PREland.
Over time my addiction got worse and I had to start selling off some pieces to start paying for others and the Ghetto Rack was the first to go to fund the racks, parts and cases for the above projects.
I really missed my Green Pres and decided to build a few more, 4 to be exact, based on Peter C’s original V1 boards,, sans lowcut and metering circuits. 2 channels used WIMA poly caps and NE5532’s and the other 2 were EPCOS and OPA2604, for a slight sonic variations… sadly this rack was recently sold to make way for OTHER parts for the following bits and bobs.
Somewhere in all of this Joe Malone and I discussed me building a couple of his Animal Pres for a couple local studios and so I had a few racks made to house them and the results were the following.
I’d dreamt of owning a pair of Neve’s and over the course of 6 months I finally did. I pieced together a pair using Fabio BA283AV board, Greg Hotrod mod PCB (designed by JLM) and reused an old ART Compressor rack, making it a VERY tight squeezed.
Again the pics are fairly old and revisions have taken place. The Power switch is now on the REAR of the case (the front is still there for decoration), the torrid is outside of the box and the green lamp has been replaced with a blue LED.
After seeing RogerFoote’s LED board I had an idea to do a REV of my GSSL using an LED meter ALA DBX/Distressor and also ‘modded’ the original Gyraf design and added a dedicated PSU and the Ashton Buss Comp was board.
I took a few months sabbatical from DIY as I waited for fund to regenerate and along the way started to collect parts for my my long awaited Series 2 Levelling Amplifier based on the LA-2A build using the Drip Electronics V1 PCB .
I went with a fiery red to match the equally eccentric electric blue 711 compressor.
I’m currently working on a pair of Fabio’s R312 API styled pres which I hope to complete over the next month or 2 and then will be on another DIY hiatus until the funds are replenished and then it will most prob be time to tackle a G9.
Cheers
Matt
