DIY Console Fader Automation

[quote author="dale116dot7"][quote author="Bluzzi"]Dale, you can interface your HD24 with lightpipe to a DAW.jim[/quote]

I don't have any PC (or Mac) anywhere near my studio - I mix and record totally out-of-the-box. Gives me an excuse to have 20 or 30 compressors in my rack... :grin:

Ok, I understand what you are asking about now. The damping of having both sets of faders connected together - and of any mechanical linkage - would likely upset the servo control of the motorized faders, and they would probably be very sluggish - or unstable. It might work ok if there is no friction added from the linkage, but any friction is likely to cause instability of fader position.

-Dale[/quote]

Dale, I have only tried the DAW to mixer thing a few times. I also prefer to mix that way. I just wanted to have an option when things got more complicated with lots of tracks. I could use mute more than fader moves really that is why mute automation is still an option for me. My board is mute ready all I would need is the interface to a DAW midi out to sync it. I have the schematics but not the time.

Certain kinds of music lend themselves well to manual mixes (Jazz, Blues, folk rock ect. Others like electronic or mega track pop get hairy. I do mostly Blues, Jazz and Folk Rock/Americana organic type of music.

jim

[quote author="tubestation"]hello people!!!
i did not want to confuse you.i think you missunderstood me.i didn t want to chance my faders in my mixer against the b.... midifaders.i ment it much more simple.i thought about connecting the midifaders (still in the
b.... box)mechanichaly to my one s in the mixer.(i have 100mm fader s ,the same size like the midifader s) it will take some mechanical work to connect them. i thougt about to control it out of my
cubase program than the midifader s will move and will pull and push my audiofader s . even recording the automation could be possible when i aktivate the automationrecording in my daw and move my fader s as i like ,the midi fader s will move the same way because the are connected to each other. and this is what my daw is going to rec.
because the are so cheap ,i could fit all fader s including the supgroups (with a dummy trac in my daw)with such a "adapter".than i have the possibilty to use every harddicrecordingprogram that has midi to control my fader s.may be it s crazy but i thought it s a good idea.please excuse my limited english.
thank s lothar[/quote]

Lothar, please do not worry about the english, its fine. You could try hooking up 1 fader to see how the motor reacts. I would imagine if the audio fader feels like it has almost no resistance to it the Behringer will be able to handle it. You could also try some fader lubricant on the slider post to lower the resistance further.

If you substitute the Behringer fader for the audio one then you would have the touch control. The audio fader would be underneath attached to the Behringer.

Let us know how it works out.

jim

[quote author="Bluzzi"]Certain kinds of music lend themselves well to manual mixes (Jazz, Blues, folk rock ect. Others like electronic or mega track pop get hairy. I do mostly Blues, Jazz and Folk Rock/Americana organic type of music.
jim[/quote]

Mostly, I do folk/jazz/bluegrass/alt-country. Manual mixes are fine for me most of the time. Sometimes automation would be nice when you want to print a few slightly different mixes, or when you screw up one fade somewhere in a more complicated mix.

-Dale

Why not use the midibox system with dual track faders?

It even does 10 bit midi.

I think the motor-control wouldn't work with professional Faders.

They mention using some kind of mosfet drivers to drive the pro faders.

Many pro-faders use brushless DC motors. These are more complicated to control than brushed DC motors, since you have to take care of three phases of the motor.

[quote author="chriss"]Many pro-faders use brushless DC motors. These are more complicated to control than brushed DC motors, since you have to take care of three phases of the motor.[/quote]

But if they are stepper motors with a integral position sensor wheel does it matter? Isn't it still a stepper driver with some feedback signal telling us how many steps the motor has turned? Just wondering. I don't know enough about this but I'm taking an educated guess from having looked at motorized faders and stepper motors before.

jim

Well i'm just thinking about what is so wrong about a re-built of something like a mackie / behringer vca alike , BUT with a better system for attenuation....with some kind of least sound invasive digital switches and precision resistors...

A midi / digitally controlled resistor bridge per fader, driven by midi controller values and having these INTERPOLATED by adjustable law from the steering microprocessor for ultrasmooth stepping.

BTW this must have been done before i guess with very good results...

Intersil X9119 ? 1024 tap dcr? mentions 'audio attenuation' in the datasheet... hmmm.

even cheap microprocessors can be fast enough to make changes happen with your midi interfaces latency 'only' IF you have a pc / mac for recording, but may be much faster with an oldschool dedicated hardware sequencer! Say REALTIME and 'Out of the Box'.
How to connect? Make a switch at each fader to use the mixers fader or the box attenuater. now you can switch any analog mixer fader in for recording audio ...think of re-recording an audio track, guitar solo, etc while you are already in mixing stage with your digitally controlled attenuator - you will have the recording setting still on the audiofader! i think a nice kind of recallability...record and automation mode...

Also i do not think it's that hard to turn this into reality with a surely better sound quality than a behringer or mackie vca....and it may be usable even without a console, spell summingbox, with full 24 bit dac quality signal into analog microstep switcher (spell 'fader') into summing box...with total recall...use it anywhere in your analogue chain - i call that flexible.

Just some thoughts...not even new...

Kind regards,

Martin :wink:

@ssltech
You are right, the second company was Amek/TAC

The system was not so bad, compared to what was available for retrofit at this time:
Optimix.... :?
Stüven had an external unit via inserts, high price :?

I installed 12 JMS-systems on different consoles and they worked fine.

What I observed is that people first think they will now save time, what is not true. Every automation invites to play around (especially in 48-ch mixdown) - here a little bit, and there a little bit - and in the end you spend the same time for the mixdown (e.g. 5 weeks for one CD only for mixdown !!!).

Selmark - a british company - started in the end of the eighties with moving-faders and they used a linear motor (working like a speaker with DC), what was easy to override.

I have some docs about it, but I never tried one because I am very sceptical about the quality of repositioning with a linear motor - it can be done, but it needs a lot of work.

analogguru

SSLtech said:

I confidently predict that nobody here will do this and get anything which is remotely enjoyable, or beneficial in anything other than on a theoretical level.

Click to expand...

Hi

Sorry to resurrect this ooooooooold topic.
I just fall here wile doing some search, and I want to say (no offense) that your prediction was wrong
An I find it funny ! Of course 10 years later with all modern embedded and microcontroller/CPU it's easier...
But it's done 

Best
Zam

Buy a Yamaha 02R! Cheap as chips these days. Moving faders. 44 inputs into the stereo bus.