Semrau mixer modification

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pask

Active member
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Messages
28
Location
Lausanne - Switzerland
Hi there,

First of all, thanks for making this website happen!

A few years ago, I drove to Germany to get what seems to be a fairly rare model of German broadcast console of the Semrau brand. Sold it for Studer mixers and got it back a few weeks ago.
I like its punchy forward sound and its super compact size!

Now, the preamps are super solid sounding (Haufe trafos on the inputs) and the EQ is pretty radical but maybe a tad extreme for my taste.
I'd ideally like to have the EQ sound a bit smoother and enlarge the Q of the mid band.
I can see it has quite a few ICs and I guess it would be possible to change some of these to stretch it a bit in the smoother/broader brushstrokes direction?

Let me attach pictures of a standard mic/line channel and pictures of the schematics.

Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks!
 
Top view.
Cool thing is that the kind of meter bridge is of Danner size, which makes it possible to rack various EQ/comp/pres/fader modules.
I plan on using spare modules that I have around to extend the channel count of this mixer (which will be another project).
 

Attachments

  • Semrau mixer - top.jpg
    Semrau mixer - top.jpg
    1,023.3 KB · Views: 57
Top EQ section.

1 fixed to shelf (around 10k, I guess)
1 semi-param mid
2 fixed low shelf (around 60 Hz, I guess)
low-cut

EQ is bypassable
 

Attachments

  • Semrau mic line - top EQ section.jpg
    Semrau mic line - top EQ section.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 9
Aux & pan section

Pan is bypassable
Auxes are organized in 2x2 sends, switchable to pre, post or bypassed by pair
 

Attachments

  • Semrau - pan section.jpg
    Semrau - pan section.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 9
Fader section

Faders have a "fader off" position (all the way down), that lights a little "mute" red led (nice).
Mute and pfl on all faders, too.
 

Attachments

  • Semrau - fader section.jpg
    Semrau - fader section.jpg
    1,002.5 KB · Views: 10
Hopefully, I have all schematics
I'll try to make clean scans of them (they suffered from a severe water damage) but here are phone pictures in the meantime.

 

Attachments

  • Semrau - mic line schematics 3841d left.jpg
    Semrau - mic line schematics 3841d left.jpg
    1.7 MB · Views: 17
Additional information:
As I have quite a few spare modules, I simply fit 2 of the mic-line ones on the right of the sum section (replacing some mysterious relay-based broadcast modules) and they simply worked. So the current config is
12+2 mic-line modules
4 mono mic-line modules
2x2 sum

As I said, I have a few stereo faders and EQs I'd like to rack in the meter bridge to reach the 32 channels count.
 
pask said:
I'd ideally like to have the EQ sound a bit smoother and enlarge the Q of the mid band.
I can see it has quite a few ICs and I guess it would be possible to change some of these to stretch it a bit in the smoother/broader brushstrokes direction?
You won't change the character of the EQ with just replacing some IC's. You may want to tune some component values to broaden the curves of the midrange controls, but I'm somewhat skeptic about the shelves, unless their turnover points are severely misplaced.
Can't say more until you upload readable scans.
 
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