boji
Well-known member
Totally feel your frustration! Also opa build insanities. 8) Money and time, time and money....
Are you saving up for pre's that will be different from the channel cards you've already designed?
1974 API 3224 40ch resto-mod
- Thread starter TubeMonkey
- Start date
Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:
Totally feel your frustration! Also opa build insanities. 8) Money and time, time and money....
Are you saving up for pre's that will be different from the channel cards you've already designed?
TubeMonkey
Well-known member
Hey All,
It's been a longggg time since i updated this thread (5 years?!?!?!?! where does the time go!) i've had the bulk of the rest of the project done for a few years now, building the remaining pre's and grabbing a bunch more EQs... but recently partnered with a studio, Gnome, here in Nashville to install this thing. We've pooled resources and elected to redo the mil patchbay to TT and a good friend of mine who's also a great Nashville audio engineer and woodworker is rebuilding a new cabinet to remake the original sidecar which will match the existing console frame. Going to post this picture of the console in it's new home for now.... hopefully i'll have an update in a month or two with the complete sidecar/monitor mixer.
It's been a longggg time since i updated this thread (5 years?!?!?!?! where does the time go!) i've had the bulk of the rest of the project done for a few years now, building the remaining pre's and grabbing a bunch more EQs... but recently partnered with a studio, Gnome, here in Nashville to install this thing. We've pooled resources and elected to redo the mil patchbay to TT and a good friend of mine who's also a great Nashville audio engineer and woodworker is rebuilding a new cabinet to remake the original sidecar which will match the existing console frame. Going to post this picture of the console in it's new home for now.... hopefully i'll have an update in a month or two with the complete sidecar/monitor mixer.
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thomasdf
Well-known member
Awesome ! Beautiful work !
Congrats Ethan! Looks amazing in that room!
MidnightArrakis
Well-known member
>> What part of Maryland are you in? I'm way out in Hagerstown!!! Used to work at Maryland Sound Industries!!!Hey thanks for posting. Ah, 50 pin total. Wow there are some budges in there... Don't feel so bad about my shoddy cad anymore.
/
firerunner
Member
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2017
- Messages
- 20
Killer work!! Nice monitoring in there too!
nielsk
Well-known member
Well done!
I did a major resto-mod to a variant of this console a while back, came out of the Hollywood Record Plant remote truck.
It had some cool features, true dual inline channels (at what, 1970?!) AND the EQ is switchable between the mic path and line path. Proper dedicated active balanced line input, rotary and linear faders that can be reversed.
Added 8 Group Mute buses to the channels using the VCA group select funky switch.
Built all the ACA/Boosters using the CAPI boards.
Same 16 track MTR bus, I built a "remix" section that sums the 2 Stereo mixes and all 16 bus in Stereo groups on Stereo faders (all individually available on CRM source select), all feeding a Grand Master fader, works great.
We used the Purple Audio CRM made to drop in the old APIs, made a lot of stuff easier.
All the VCAs were removed and the channels reworked, after doing that I think you made the right move making new boards and building them out.
I did a major resto-mod to a variant of this console a while back, came out of the Hollywood Record Plant remote truck.
It had some cool features, true dual inline channels (at what, 1970?!) AND the EQ is switchable between the mic path and line path. Proper dedicated active balanced line input, rotary and linear faders that can be reversed.
Added 8 Group Mute buses to the channels using the VCA group select funky switch.
Built all the ACA/Boosters using the CAPI boards.
Same 16 track MTR bus, I built a "remix" section that sums the 2 Stereo mixes and all 16 bus in Stereo groups on Stereo faders (all individually available on CRM source select), all feeding a Grand Master fader, works great.
We used the Purple Audio CRM made to drop in the old APIs, made a lot of stuff easier.
All the VCAs were removed and the channels reworked, after doing that I think you made the right move making new boards and building them out.
TubeMonkey
Well-known member
My good friend Alberto Sewald, another engineer and tech in town here, has been digging into the sidecar this week! We scrapped the idea of re-wiring all the center section bay stuff including the relay block and monitor mixer..... originally we were going to just desolder the miljack bay and transplant the wiring on to the new tt bays, but the Loom dressing wouldn't have been clean because the distance between jacks is different. However once we rewired and re-loomed the 40 channels of input wiring to the new bay we realized simply transplanting the last 8 patch points on each bay row wouldn't cause the wiring to bunch up too much and would save an incredible amount of work rewiring everything to the relay block. Heres the current state of the sidecar with the patchbay removed..... we'll be transplanting into the new furniture within the next couple weeks once it's stained and finished.
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TubeMonkey
Well-known member
Sounds like a great project! Have any pics? Where did this board end up?
dbonin
Well-known member
Damn, nice work. You obviously know, it's the glow of all those buttons on the channel strips that make recordings sound better! Props for getting it done.
TubeMonkey
Well-known member
Hey All..... finally got the rest of the wiring done and the sidecar fitted. This was a solid week of 16 hour days but we got it done! Couldn't have been possible without Alberto doing a very significant part. We did end up running new looms for the center section stuff... I ended up putting the Relay block and the power on their own DL connectors so the relay block is now removable in the future for servicing. We were able to get all the wiring into the sidecar and were able to get the sidecar snug to the main console frame. A few small things left to wrap up with ACAs and then we're done! Go check it out at https://www.gnomestudios.co/ in Nashville if you're in town. I'm really looking forward to lots of people making music on this thing again!
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boji
Well-known member
Beautiful. Congrats on completion.
nielsk
Well-known member
Wow!
The amount of persistence summoned to get through birthing to delivery on a 5 year gestation is a sign of true grit!
Most excellent.
I do not have a lot of good pics of this one, it is in a private studio in New Jersey.
Here is an "early days" and a "Near completion" pic, I used blue LEDs for the MUTE as there were already a lot of RED ones..
Still need to add the waveform display where the timer was, but it has been fully functional for several years and has a very happy owner!
The amount of persistence summoned to get through birthing to delivery on a 5 year gestation is a sign of true grit!
Most excellent.
I do not have a lot of good pics of this one, it is in a private studio in New Jersey.
Here is an "early days" and a "Near completion" pic, I used blue LEDs for the MUTE as there were already a lot of RED ones..
Still need to add the waveform display where the timer was, but it has been fully functional for several years and has a very happy owner!
