Hi everyone (or some)
Thought I'd share this:
Recently I built a new mixbuss for a soundcraft 1600. No passive summing + gain amp, because the console had 80+ channels (two linked soundcrafts) and that's probably way too much for passive mixing ;D
So I made a virtual gnd amp with two discrete opamps and transformer (sowter 9825a) output.
The console had an empty slot next to the master section, so it seemed like an obvious place to put the new mixbuss.
Got a 34pin connector for power and input, cut some traces on the stock buss, routed via switches to be able to AB between stock and discrete at any time.
Future mod might be: balanced output from seperate tx winding to bypass fader amp and differential output, straight to protools or 2track.
The difference was amazing. I would advise everyone that's using a "budget" console to do this. It's easy, and it sounds great. Harsh higher mids (2K-3K) were a bit attenuated and sounded "softer/nicer" but the low mids where much "bigger".
Yeah I hate this kind of description too but how else can I explain.
The producer/mixer who owns/works on this desk said he finally lost that blanket-over-the-speaker-sound he's been hearing for years.
I tested JH990, diy 990, diy Melcor and OPA604 (ab'd them all in mono)
JH990 and diy 990 sounded pretty much the same (I couldn't tell the difference) they were both miles ahead of the opa604.
The melcor was, for some reason, worse than the stock 5532
When they arrive, I might test 2520's against the 990's.
We tried pushing the buss completely over it's limits (rising protools levels). The stock buss got fuzzy and saturated much earlier than the 990, which held dynamics nicely, right till it was seriously distorted.
So, DO try this at home
Thought I'd share this:
Recently I built a new mixbuss for a soundcraft 1600. No passive summing + gain amp, because the console had 80+ channels (two linked soundcrafts) and that's probably way too much for passive mixing ;D
So I made a virtual gnd amp with two discrete opamps and transformer (sowter 9825a) output.
The console had an empty slot next to the master section, so it seemed like an obvious place to put the new mixbuss.
Got a 34pin connector for power and input, cut some traces on the stock buss, routed via switches to be able to AB between stock and discrete at any time.
Future mod might be: balanced output from seperate tx winding to bypass fader amp and differential output, straight to protools or 2track.
The difference was amazing. I would advise everyone that's using a "budget" console to do this. It's easy, and it sounds great. Harsh higher mids (2K-3K) were a bit attenuated and sounded "softer/nicer" but the low mids where much "bigger".
Yeah I hate this kind of description too but how else can I explain.
The producer/mixer who owns/works on this desk said he finally lost that blanket-over-the-speaker-sound he's been hearing for years.
I tested JH990, diy 990, diy Melcor and OPA604 (ab'd them all in mono)
JH990 and diy 990 sounded pretty much the same (I couldn't tell the difference) they were both miles ahead of the opa604.
The melcor was, for some reason, worse than the stock 5532
When they arrive, I might test 2520's against the 990's.
We tried pushing the buss completely over it's limits (rising protools levels). The stock buss got fuzzy and saturated much earlier than the 990, which held dynamics nicely, right till it was seriously distorted.
So, DO try this at home