adding direct outs to small mixer?

hey guys, im kinda knew to the whole DIY audio realm, but i hope to sumbmerge myself soon . Anyway, I was thinking about purchasing a soundcraft E12 off one of my friends, but the only thing i dont like is that there are no direct outs. How hard do you think it would be to add direct outs possibly via EDAC/ELCO(I think thats right) connectors? I have honestly never opened a soundcraft board so im not quite sure whats down there, although i have a general idea. Oh, and general electronics are nothing knew to me, ive been an amateur radio operator for years. Thanks for the help!
JJ

You just have to add a buffer for each direct out. What´s important here is the phisical space for small buffers and output connectors on the original mixer. Wouldn´t be too hard. a single opamp like 5534 would do the job nicely and you can probably use the actual mixer PSU rails.

what is the purpose for a buffer? what does it do?
it takes what and makes it a what?

thanks.

A buffer provides isolation between 2 points. By isolation I mean that the 2 points won`t interact. For example in your case anything that gets plugged into your insert point will NOT affect the signal running through your desk. Its a bit like the signal will run forward through the buffer but bot backwards through it.

A buffer generally beefs the signal up as well

If I use the insert send though, it will be before my EQ and fader. Also, I dont want to rid the channel from my main mix either, and I have heard tapping the insert send will do this? Anyway, does anyone have a schematic for a simple audio output buffer? Im not the best at designing circuits myself, although i can manage if i need to.

also, with the insert you send and recieve. you can send to your recorder then recieve back from the recorder to the mixer to monitor or mix just like you would with a compressor (or whatever)

Click to expand...

I honestly never thought of this, lol. I think im going to go this route, but still make 1 or 2 direct outs on my mixer just for expirimental purposes. Thanks for all the help everyone.

That's not a buffer, that's a comparator :wink:

Look carefully. There's a resistor missing. And there's also an unnecessary 6dB pad on the input.