Another Yamaha PM1000 Effort

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donnysparks

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
125
Location
Birmingham, AL
I rarely have anything to contribute here, but tonight I at least have some pics. this is my first serious DIY effort. I've built the Hamptone tube and have worked on guitars for awhile. I did this for a tape-opper recently.

i used inkjet waterslide decals for the front. also, in order to be able to space the modules a little further apart i cut a notch in the module frame by the input switch. this allowed the lip of the chassis lid to slide into the module frame. this also provided extra support for the modules, whose back ends are supported by 1/8" strapping. for the output trannys i used the mounting bracket from the master module. I also moved the phase switch closer to the output pot (originally the echo 2 pot) by drilling a new hole in the module frame.

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Hey this is like my 2nd post, and I'll use it to day that those strips look really terrific. The colors are very eye catching.

Great work. So how do they sound?

Chris
 
This is incredible...
You won't believe this but I was driving home tonite & decided to stop off to a friends shop. I told him I've been DIYing some cool stuff & he started asking me about the Yamaha PM1000 channels, wanting ME to turn them into preamps or channel strips for him. He said he has... READY.............................
over 150 + channels. :shock:
He bought the boards from Disney/Sony.

I know close to nothing about these & want to learn FAST.
Any schematics or links to info would be KILLER.

BTW, yours look GREAT...How do they sound?

Are they worth the trouble converting them to a channel strip?
& which NEVE are they a copy of?
How much did it cost?

I have tones of questions but before I get too excited I'll say this. The guy knows they are worth something but HOW MUCH?
He gave me one to mod & see how it turns out but I don't know where to start.

PLEASE HELP

Kevin - KHStudio

BTW - He might just part them out & sell the channels :wink: if the cost of turning them ALL (that's what he wants :?) into pre's or channel strips isn't cost effective. He want's to make some money on them somehow. Does anyone think if they're repackaged in a 1 space rack they'd sell? I've seen the raw channels sell for less than $80... is that right???

Dude, sorry to beat up your post but seeing yours gave me a JOLT
:green:
 
Nice looking pair you've got there! Love the colors!

Oddly enough, someone replied to my wanted ad on craigslist, offering me a complete and working 16ch PM1k that came out of Disney storage ( :?: ) for $500. I missed out on that one. :sad:

150 channels, though?? Damn. Last I saw, they are going for south of $100 a strip on ebay. Does he have any Tamura OP transfos for these?

Just do a PM1000 search, man. There's some great racking info on this very board. Someone around here even put together a website with a color coded idiot-proof diagram for recapping the boards. I love the interweb.

Donny, I just have to say again, that's freakin' gorgeous.

I'm currently looking into waterslide decals. :twisted:
 
Ya, 150+++...your tellin me, I'm still in shock. I saw at least 50 of them already. He has a few monitor channels also with 3 square can transformers on each card. What are they?

What NEVE is this a copy of anyway?


I'm gonna start searching. If you guys have any particular links I could use them.

Thanks again.
 
its not a copy - its just similar design.

150 channels is a mindfuck - but still, if you are willing to do the work you might make some money. I doubt you will get rich though - they are not as desirable as they should be. I do not see racked ones go for more than a few hundy... it takes a bit of work to rack them, especially if you are building the enclosure yourself. See if you can rack a few for yourself - but I would not want to go commercial with them - maybe you can build a little 16 channel mixer for yourself into an SKB pop up mixer case or something.
 
cool, thanks for the complements. jason, the waterslide decal stuff was a major PITA, and you have design limitations as far as background colors and the use of white. but it does offer a relatively inexpensive way to make fairly complex designs at home.

kh, milkman is right on about the pm1k. it's a fairly involved job, but there is soooo much info available about it here and elsewhere on the web. they are definitely undervalued at this point. at least for now until the last consoles are hacked up.
 
What NEVE is this a copy of anyway?

It's not a copy. It's just a well-designed discrete channel strip with good iron and inductor eqs. From what I've read the sound is more akin to an
API than a Neve. But don't quote me on that. I don't have anything by API or Neve. The N-word has been associated with PM-1000s purely for ebay selling purposes. JMHO.

They do sound great. Racking them is not really viable comercially though. A recap and a rack job for 2 channels will probably cost you $150 plus the cost of the strips and a lot of labor. I once saw a pair of well-racked recapped modules go for $400 on ebay. Do the math.

He has a few monitor channels also with 3 square can transformers on each card. What are they?

Those are the Tamura transformers that balance every output on the board. They work great for the outputs on racked strips.
 
Well, The guy that has all the channels I posted earlier thinks he has a gold mine & didn't like the deal I made him so... oh well. I found a guy on ebay selling a strip & OT for $109 + shipping. He has 3 left.

donnysparks, I bought these before you got back to me... sorry man.

About the Power Supply -
I have some regular transformers that put out about 48 volts & would like to build the supply myself, can anyone help me with this?


Thanks,
Kevin


BTW, I asked about the sound quality of these & someone posted they sounded good but were noisy :? Is this true & how can I fix that. The best pre's I have are Presonus & I'd like to make a step up not down.
 
[quote author="khstudio"]Well, The guy that has all the channels I posted earlier thinks he has a gold mine & didn't like the deal I made him so... oh well. I found a guy on ebay selling a strip & OT for $109 + shipping. He has 3 left.

donnysparks, I bought these before you got back to me... sorry man.

About the Power Supply -
I have some regular transformers that put out about 48 volts & would like to build the supply myself, can anyone help me with this?


Thanks,
Kevin


BTW, I asked about the sound quality of these & someone posted they sounded good but were noisy :? Is this true & how can I fix that. The best pre's I have are Presonus & I'd like to make a step up not down.[/quote]

Unless you just totally botch the rack job, it'll eat your Presonus for brunch.
 
Sorry if I overstated the "noisy" thing in that other thread - the PM1000 is decent, it's just that I'm looking for something quiet enough for ribbon mics on acoustic instruments. :grin:
 
[quote author="khstudio"]Well, The guy that has all the channels I posted earlier thinks he has a gold mine & didn't like the deal I made him so... .[/quote]

:green: I'm sure there a suckers out there who will buy these from him at silly prices...
 
[quote author="Scodiddly"]Sorry if I overstated the "noisy" thing in that other thread - the PM1000 is decent, it's just that I'm looking for something quiet enough for ribbon mics on acoustic instruments. :grin:[/quote]

That makes sense & is a higher standard indeed. I tried to use an RCA-BK5 on an acc guitar last week & it couldn't get there before the noise did. Would you agree with the "eat for lunch" quote... that gets me excited.
 
Hey guys,

Just in the middle of racking my PM1000's. I've decided to use 2 JLM go-betweens to get a Pad, Phase and Phantom. However, I'm a little confused how to hook the phantom up here. 48V will come from my P/S, and how does it connect to the Go-between, which has only 1 connection for 48v? I know that the orange wire is used to feed 48V into the board, so how do I connect this??

Thanks so much,
Siegfried
 
you no longer have to I think - the go between has the 6k8 resistors in it, and goes directly to the XLR output

hook the 48V to the go between only, and wire it to the output and you should be in business.
 
Ok, you must mean XLR input, right? So I just take the 48V from my P/S and feed that to the 48V of the Go-Between, and just scrap the orange wire altogether, and phantom gets fed to the XLR input automatically? Have I got that right?

Thanks!
Sig
 
[quote author="Siegfried Meier"]Ok, you must mean XLR input, right? So I just take the 48V from my P/S and feed that to the 48V of the Go-Between, and just scrap the orange wire altogether, and phantom gets fed to the XLR input automatically? Have I got that right?

Thanks!
Sig[/quote]

yeah you've got it. originally phantom goes through a center tap on the input transformer. with the go-between you'll skip the pm1k board connection and connect +48v from the psu to the appropriate tab on the JLM. :thumb:
 

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